What makes a poker a player a professional? Does it mean that by adding the word professional the person loses less money? Or does it mean that the player enters tournaments throughout the year? If you are thinking about getting the word professional embossed on your 'poker resume', here are some skills that you should consider mastering. 1. The Mathematician a. These guys have mastered the odds of certain combinations that come out already. For example, they know that when you hold a pocket pair, you can hit the set with only one in eight and a half chances. Those pocket cards also give you odds scr888 of having one in three chance of completing a 'by the river' flopped flush draw. b. Mathematicians also able to compute the number of "outs" because they know it is important. Outs are the number of cards that will improve your hand. They compute it by multiplying it by two and adding one and that's the percentage of them hitting the pot. c.