It's not easy to turn $0 into $1,000,000 in the modern era of poker. With competition at an all-time high, solvers and top-notch coaching available at the touch of a button, and hundred of thousands of terabytes of free educational content on YouTube, turning a profit at the tables is no easy feat – especially if you're only just starting out.
Thankfully, Doug Polk, respected professional and founder of Upswing Poker and Lucid Poker, has outlined a 10-step process he would employ if he woke up tomorrow and had to build his bankroll back up from nothing. In the video above, Polk walks viewers through his pathway to a million dollar spin up – covering a variety of important decisions players must make along the way.
Alternatively, as Joey Ingram alluded to in the replies to Polk's post, you can skip all the steps – just find an inferior opponent to take a million dollars from.
How to make $1M the Polk way
"Obviously, as poker moves along it gets tougher to be great," Polk opens. "It gets tougher to make money because the tools available for people to improve at the game get better and stronger."
In Polk's mind, Step 1 on the journey involves selecting your game type. In the past, Polk has advised newcomers to pursue the the game type they are most passionate about. Now, however, he sees cash games as more realistic to focus on because of the "lifestyle advantages" offered. Once you've selected your game, Step 2 posits that you should observe the top players within the discipline. With a vast library of free poker content at your fingertips, watching – and later mimicking – the best players has never been easier.
Polk's Step 3 centers entirely on practice and study. "If you're going to go into a competitive landscape and be great – which is what it's going to take now to win this much money playing poker – you have to be truly excellent at the format," Polk says. "And that's not going to happen by just getting out there and playing some hands."
'It's absolutely essential'
Step 4 in Polk's master plan takes players into the world of training tools. With so many tools currently available to players, it's never been easier to integrate them into your game. In Step 5, Polk recommends that you play short sessions – with the goal of forming a habit for learning and improving as you do so. Once you've started playing against real opponents on a regular basis, Step 6 sees Polk tell players to keep track of all of their results, session by session. It's a simple step, sure, but an important one as well.
"It's absolutely essential, no serious poker player doesn't track their results," Polk explains.
In Step 7, Polk recommends that you find a group of like-minded peers to bounce ideas off of. With multiple minds working in tandem, everybody benefits from the shared knowledge. Once you've completed these steps, Polk's Step 8 tells you to ramp up your volume and take shots at higher stake levels.
"You should be looking for spots to be able to take a shot into a higher game when you have the bankroll to do so," Polk says. "That's ultimately the long-run end goal."
In Step 9, Polk recommends that while you increase your volume on the felt, you also increase your time spent studying in the lab. "You need to have a high percentage of your time, whether it's 30% or 50%, still studying, still learning, still trying to improve," he tells viewers.
Step 10 sees Polk deliver a dose of reality: it's going to take a long time to make your million. "There's always a chance that you run hot in a situation and win a bunch of money at once," Polk says. "But the reality is it's going to take you a long time."
