Hey guys, this is an article written by Leon Louis, a Brit who's looking to start a career as a poker writer. He's a contributing writer at riskoriented.com and since he hasn't crossposted his article here, I'll do it for him.

As a professional poker player I often get asked the question ''How much do you aim to win each month?'' One of the main beauties of my chosen career path is that there is no fixed figure to my earnings, it's all down to me, the inadequacies of my opponents, and the poker Gods.

Many of my friends, some of whom play recreationally and some professionally, often tell me what they prospect their weekly or monthly poker profits to be - some of these figures being more ridiculous than others.

The problem with this however, is that as soon as they run bad, or lose a few game deciding coin flips, they begin to tilt - the only thought on their mind is how far behind their preset goal that they are.

Although we can all appreciate that Poker is a skill game, what we must understand is that no matter how good a player you think you are, in actuality your edge percentage wise will be pretty small.

In many heads up games the matches are decided by coin flips or top pair vs flush draw scenarios where it's all in the hands of the random card generator.

What this means is that due to the act that we play a high variance game our profits over a weekly/monthly basis are going to fluctuate, hence rendering any pre conceived monthly $$$ earnings we have in our head pointless.

Instead of pressurizing and stressing yourself more than need be, set yourself a target in terms of volume of games that you want to play.

If let's say for example you play $50 hu sng's for a living and you earn an average profit of $5 per game - set yourself a target of let's say 800 games ( $4000 dollars based on this average profit) for the month - or more or less based on your own situation and lifestyle requirements.

By having a mentality that every game you play in the LONG TERM earns you $5 you will become more appreciate of the fact that it is VOLUME and not having a get rich quick mentality that in the long run will reap the benefits.