What they don't show you is the 80% of people who try to make a living playing poker and fail. They also don't really acknowledge the fact that a poker player lies for a living, and most are pragmatic to an almost Machiavellian degree. I'm friends with a couple of professional gamblers, and once accompanied one of them to an underground game in Phoenix. I wasn't playing all that great, but that's probably due to the fact that I was playing in a small, smoke filled, dingy, poorly lit room surrounded by people who desperately needed a shower, several of whom were openly carrying firearms. I left after 3 hours, down about $150, and asked my buddy why he played there. He told me they took half the rake of an Indian casino, and then went back to play for the next 18 hours. Even if you're in a casino though poker is a tough, tough way to make a living. Grinding out the rent money on a limit table is, to put it bluntly, boring. The funny thing is that it's exactly like work. What's fun and exciting when you do it for you becomes boring and tedious when it's your job. And that's all that it is to most professional players: a job.

The poker explosion in the last decade has really cleaned up the game. But there's simply no getting around the fact that for every Doyle Brunson or Erick Lindgren there are a thousand penniless bums who thought they were better than they were. And for every final table on the WPT there are a thousand dingy games in second rate casinos and run down apartments. I love poker. I love playing it with friends, sometimes in casinos, and online. But it's just a hobby. To do it as a job is a hard, hard life. I'm not wary of professional poker players, same as I'm not wary of cops or truckers or anyone else who does a hard job. They're at least giving their dream a shot.

For a great reference read Poker Nation: A High-Stakes, Low-Life Adventure into the Heart of a Gambling Country by Andy Bellin. He chronicles some of his experiences trying to become a professional poker player in New York and the experiences of some of his friends. A truly great read.

Successful aggression is really based on 3 things.

1.Insurance: Making people fold when you have the best cards at that point in the hand. Say you have JJ and the flop comes A of hearts J of hearts and 9 of spades. There is a possible flush draw and a possible straight draw. What you have to do is use your aggression to stop the hand at that point or make it prohibitively expensive for someone to play a draw.

The same can be said for high pockets cards like AA KK QQ JJ you need to make a significant raise pre flop (say 6 times the blinds so that you "insure" that people make the wrong decision in calling.

2. Making your good cards count when you have the best hand. There is nothing worse than when a new player has a monster hand checking or calling when they should bet. If you have the best cards make it expensive to see your winning hand. It is a science of how much you should bet, but it should not be cheap (like 1-2 times the blinds).

3.Correctly reading the situation. If you are last to act (say the dealer) and there are two limpers (people who just call) to the flop and you think they haven't hit, place a bet, ensure that your aggression is within limits and usually double blinds to pot size.

Correctly reading the situation comes from reading the board for draws and knowing the player that are still in the hand and what they could have and how they play.

The problem with TV poker is that they don't show the hundreds of hands in which Phil Ivey folded, they only show the interesting hands. What pros do for the most part is highly calculated and if you are only just starting out in poker, only bluff when there is a very high chance that you will win.

Also only try to bluff small numbers of people don't try to bluff 4 people, it just won't won't work as "someone has something".

Aggression has many facets these are only a few.

I have a blog that has more tips on it. Link below.

But saying that Pokerstars is the best place in the world for tournaments..they do take for ever though but they have huge prizepools!!! in the recent WCOOP the main event had a 10.2 million prizepool!!! lol!!

hopes this makes sense…

adam

Where did you play that tournament? I hope this didn't bother you too much and I hope you did good in the tournament.

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