This Canadian player dropped out of his degree course in finance at the University of Quebec in Montreal to dedicate more time to poker. At the age of 23 this huge gamble obviously paid off when he landed the most prestigious poker tournament prize and title on the face of the Earth. However, both he and David Einhorn, who is a Hedge Fund Manager and placed 18^th in the 2006 WSOP, have more than mere poker in common.

There are a great many probabilities which come into play in poker and knowing finance definitely helps because of the mathematical aspects; as well as the psychological part of the game, having a handle on numbers and percentages helps in many ways. Duhamel says calculations go through his mind all the while he plays and choosing finance as a course of study was a natural choice as he was always excellent in maths. At one point in time he was considering becoming a trader but it is still early days yet and he may still pursue his degree.

He says it was hard to tell his father and mother that he was dropping out of school to travel and play poker, so he told them he was taking a year off. Today they support his decision as do his friends. In fact one of his friends pulled off a fantastic trade. He contributed $100 to Duhamel’s $10 000 buy-in for the WSOP Main Event and was recently paid back a cut of the winnings – $90 000!!! Now that is what I call making a wise investment!

Like many young and dynamic poker players, Duhamel’s skills at this game were learned online, and it took him only five years to reach the pinnacle of success. However poker is the kind of game it takes your whole life to learn, so if he is in it for the duration he has still got a whole lot of learning to do.

By the way Chris Moneymaker also has a Masters Degree in accounting! Aaron Brown is a former professional poker player; now a risk manager at AQR Capital Management. Steven Begleiter works at a private equity firm, made the 2009 WSOP final table main event. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson won the WSOP main event in 2000 is a computer scientist and still day trades. Billionaire banker Andrew Beal played with some of the best poker pros in the highest stakes games ever and was a poker legend.

What is my bankroll?

There has always been some debate about the question how much money you need at a certain level without risking bankruptcy. Most casual players completely ignore the bankroll requirements, but if you want to start making a living with poker, you need to build up reserves.

What are my expenses?

This is possibly a tough question. Most people go out from the minimum when compiling a budget. It is important that you have a realistic overview of your monthly expenses. This is including unexpected events. Remind yourself that this is about your life. If you live on cold cereal with no money to go to the cinema, you might have to consider a more traditional job.

Can I handle the pressure?

Losing is never fun, but if you are counting on your gains to cover your daily expenses, losing can be a disaster. The mailbox keeps filling itself with bills. If you continue losing, this could be very difficult and it is hard to play your best game if you feel that you always have to win. A solid bankroll combined with  some extra savings can relieve you from the pressure.

It requires a lot of stamina to go up and down with these ebbs and flows and all the way through a tournament the player enjoys many defeats as well as victories, but this is all part of the ebb and flow of playing this game. These happen when you make a bad choice on what could potentially be a good hand in a fold, or if you bluff to win a nice little pot. 

Altogether these individual losses and goals make up what the poker game stands for in total; a series of good and bad events which should lead you to winning in the end. Essentially however, what matters is not the little battles lost or won, but what happens as a result of the total battle. 

A single poker tournament can be like the entire career of a poker player. If Chris Moneymaker had not won the 2003 WSOP final event by working his way through online satellites and tournaments, he would not have gone down in history as the first player to do this. So it was this tournament which was his battle and the end result was his winning of the battle.  

It is not the end of the story if you do well one day only, you have to keep score and when the time for the crunch comes, some poker players fold like so much cheap furniture. There are umpteen players who “nearly” made it to the top but collapsed when it came to the crunch. If Chris Moneymaker had folded when it came to the crunch and not made to the final table, even if he had and didn’t win, we still have to ask – would we know today who he is? 

The true measure of any poker player is based on their entire career but you have to watch what happens to a player when things are going bad for them. Do they fold like cheap furniture because they are not winning or do they work with the ebb and flows? It is at the worst of time that bad poker players show themselves to be what they truly are, bad losers.  

Adversity is good for all of us, but it really marks the bad poker players, so if you see this in yourself, its time for some poker schooling to learn how to deal with the ebbs and flows. If you play rotten, this does not make you a rotten player, but if you throw it all down the toilet because you played rotten, this does make you a rotten player.