Poker Pt1 Riding the Wave

2024-06-11 See all posts

I was first exposed to poker during my freshman year of college when some of my competitive Magic: the Gathering (MtG) buddies started making money playing online. It was not hard to win back then, especially for those of us forged in the pungent fires of game stores and convention centers packed with hundreds of young males. A surface-level understanding of strategy (shoutout forumserver.twoplustwo.com) and the discipline to fold bad hands was enough to grind up free bonus money and continue building a bankroll at small stakes.

Looking back, I was built for this. The game my dad taught me growing up was chess. In middle school and high school I spent my time in my parents’ basement playing computer games, mainly online MtG. Lack of (at the time) both emotional depth and concern for the value of money transferred to the felt; handling swings while still managing my bankroll responsibly came easily to me. When I started playing more live poker, my technical / theoretical proficiency gained from online play more than made up for my mediocre-at-best ability to look a man or woman in the eye and know if they had it or not.

Every summer the World Series of Poker (WSOP) comes to Las Vegas. A common misconception is that there is only one tournament, but it is in fact a ten-week-long series. More often than not, some buddies and I would book a house rental for some or all of the series. Most of us were primarily cash game players; standing in line to buy into a $1k WSOP event and sitting in the frigid Rio tournament rooms all day was for so-called tournament donks who couldn’t win in our games. Instead we would feel out the cash game scene, texting housemates “games at X are terrible” or “I hear Y is good if you get there early” and go wherever we thought the mid-high stakes recreational money would be. Sometimes that was staying at the house and playing online. Sometimes it was beating all the jetlagged Europeans to Bellagio by getting there at 8AM. And sometimes it was getting a text about an open Wynn 10/25/50 seat at 11:30PM and then playing a 16-hour session, pounding fresh fruit juice and cappuccinos and finding out the guy next to you is the Pokerstars handle you lost your biggest pot ever to. We mostly spent our time in Vegas working, but as early twenty-somethings with money we of course made time for the occasional good meal, hike, Cirque show, night/strip club, and whatever else the city offered up.

“Honor amongst thieves” is very real in the gambling world even though we were not thieves in the legal sense. A good reputation could be used for favors or short-term loans – it was standard to ask for cash or chips from a friend if yours was in the bank or at a different casino. Getting to know staff and tipping well paid off many times over if they ever shot you a text or put you at the top of the list for a good game. In today’s private game world it is common for pros and/or hosts to give recreational players a line of credit. Almost everyone who does this has been burned at least once but it’s often worth it.

Now 4+ years removed from that world, the variance in life trajectories for poker pros from my circles is shocking. By that I mean they have gone on to the highest highs (set-for-life money, married, kids, in great physical shape) and the lowest lows (mental health issues, substance abuse, scamming, suicide) at a much higher frequency than 9-5ers. Perhaps not surprising. Succeeding in a generally frowned upon and negative sum profession is, as Doyle put it, “a hard way to make an easy living”.