Phil has never won a WSOP bracelet, but he did come really close in the very first WSOP tournament he played in. It was the 2001 WSOP Main Event and Phil managed to finish in fourth place out of a large playing field and took home just under half a million dollars. After this close call to winning a bracelet Phil continued to see success throughout 2002-2005 where he made several more final tables, but was never able to win a bracelet. To date Phil has finished in the money sixteen times in WSOP events without one bracelet so he is definitely long overdue if you ask me.

The WPT has been better to Gordon then the WSOP and he has won a WPT title in 2004 when he won the Bay 101 Shooting Stars Tournament. Phil came close to winning another WPT title, but finished second place in the Ultimate Bet Aruba Event. To date Phil has finished on two final tables and made the money twice in WPT events. Only a couple years ago Gordon also won the Full Tilt Poker Championships where he won roughly $600,000 which was his best cash in his career.

You’ve probably seen Gordon playing poker on television as he has made multiple showings on the PartyPoker.com Poker After Dark show as well as the NBC Heads-Up Championship. Phil hasn’t won a PAD episode yet, but he did finish in the sweet sixteen of the NBC Heads-Up Championship which is pretty good based on the opponents he needed to beat.

Phil Gordon as I mentioned before has probably spent as much time commentating as playing poker. Some of his commentating gigs consist of seven seasons of Celebrity Poker Showdown and multiple seasons of the WSOP Main Event. Gordon has great knowledge of the game of poker which has helped him excel at commentating. Without Phil’s commentating many poker players today wouldn’t be able to learn as much as they have. With poker on television so much now many players learn from these events and if there was no commentating we would be in trouble.

Phil has also written three poker books in his career which have become great selling poker books over the years. Phil’s book specialize in NL Holdem as that is what he mainly played so if you’re a NL Holdem player I suggest reading his books. They are great reads and compared to other books I think the flow of Phil’s books is much better as he has past experience writing with an audience in mind.

Negative Factors

* Not too many poker players are profitable and it’s estimated that only 10% of poker players win in the long-run which isn’t very high at all. You need to make sure you realize this before deciding that a poker career is in your future.

* Playing poker once or twice a week for entertainment is one thing, but when you need to play basically every day on Carbon Poker in order to pay your bills it will become more like work then fun. If you decide to play poker as your career then you’ll need to make enough money for bills, spending money and savings which is hard to do consistently.

* One bad beat in a no-limit cash game could cost you a large amount of your bankroll if you’re not careful and therefore cost you your bill money possibly which would be terrible. You need to play pocker every day knowing that one bad hand could cost you your rent money and this might be too much stress for some people.

* If you have a family then you need to also provide for them and with your income coming from gambling you can’t guarantee that you can provide for them all the time. It would be terrible to lose your entire bankroll in a bad month and having no money left for you and your family.

Positive Factors

* If you’re single and young then you might want to try poker as a career on a site like betfair.com to see if it works. You need to save up for your bankroll initially through working, but then you can take that money and see if you can’t win money through playing poker. Make sure you get an education before trying this though as you need something to fall back on.

* If you’ve been playing poker for a year or more for entertainment and feel you’re becoming a good poker player then you should track your results. If you’re showing positive results for months on end then you could try playing poker more seriously to see if you can’t make a career out of it.

Becoming a professional poker isn’t something you can really learn to do, you just need some skill and some luck. You’ll need to save an initial bankroll and then you’ll be able to give it a shot. If it doesn’t go your way then hopefully you’re still young and have an education so that you can begin finding a career other then a poker player. Remember it would probably be the dream job for most of you, but only 10% of poker players win money consistently, so don’t become angry if you’re not one of them.