It's Only Money

I took a gamble the other day and played poker with the money for my cable bill. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest choice, but I was itching to play and need all the practice I can get. I figured the worst that could happen was I'd pay my cable bill a little late and get hit with a $35 overdraft fee from my bank. Plus, I have grown confident in my game and had a feeling it was going to be a good day.

I made $300, which meant I could pay my cable bill, buy a bike (since Sunshine moved out along with the car), and still have a $200 buy-in for another session.

I played 2/4 limit the next day at Terrible's for seven hours and walked away with a whopping $2 profit, which was pretty good given the fact that I was down almost $100 at two different points in the afternoon and got rivered about six or seven times.

I played 2/4 limit at the Flamingo the following day and the cards refused to fall for me yet again (although I did make a few mistakes as well). I lost $80, leaving me with $120 in my tiny bankroll, so I decided to play $0.50/$1 no-limit at Bill's hoping to get lucky again and double up.

I lost it all.

It would be easy to say I ran bad, which is true. I had AK, AQ, AQo, all in position, and not one of them came though for me. I even three bet $23 with my AQo from a button straddle after the small blind made it $7 and the big blind called. The small blind folded and big blind called my three bet, as well as my $25 c-bet with a KJ after a K came on the flop followed by another one on the river.

I also picked up KK in the big blind when the small blind, a fairly tight player, made it $5 to go. A king came on the flop (giving me top set), along with two diamonds, and he bet $12. I called. He checked the turn, another diamond, and I went all-in. He called, fifth street brought the Jd, and he turns over two red aces. Rivered again.

It's easy to blame bad luck in poker, and sometimes it is the case, but I am also cognizant enough to realize where I made mistakes. For example, I limped in with pocket 10's from UTG and the player to my left, who hadn't played many pots and limped in to those he did, makes it $12, which screams aces or kings. I make a tough laydown and two tens come on the flop (which would have given me a $50 bonus for quads in addition to winning the pot), he pushes the rest of his chip in the middle and flips over KK (my read was right).

Yes, folding was technically the right play--especially given the fact that the player to my left didn't have enough chips in front of him to give me the implied odds I needed to make the call--and the pot was laying me less than 3:1 to hit my set. However, rather than limping with TT (a fairly strong starting hand), I should have raised it to $6. Assuming the guy to my left still made it $12 to go after that and got the same caller, the pot would have been laying me better than 5:1, still not the 8:1 odds of hitting my set, but for another $6, I would have seen the flop.

This brings me to the biggest lesson I took away that day: playing with scared money, a cardinal sin in any poker game, but especially No-Limit Texas Hold'em. Yes, I was playing fairly conservatively because that $120 was the only money I had to play poker with for the next 10 days, and the cards weren't falling for me either, which made me slightly more timid. With a bigger bankroll, I could have afforded to be more aggressive and probably would have taken down several smaller pots I ended up checking down. In theory, I could have done this regardless; I just would have risked a much earlier exit, something I was not interested in doing at the time.

At the end of the day, it was only $120, and I finally internalized the importance of having an adequate bankroll, an extremely valuable lesson. The loss didn't sting nearly as much as losing money has in the past either; I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away, another important step in becoming a poker pro. As my old boss Nat used to say, "That's the price of the education."

Plus, I was still freerolling off of my $300 win at the Riviera a few days before, which allowed me to play an additional 15 hours of poker. Variance will eventually swing in my favor, not to mention I learned a lot, had fun playing poker, bought a bike, and still have a roof over my head--with cable television I might add.

That's a lot to be grateful for.

The Wisdom of Walter Sobchak

"You have got to buck up, man. You cannot drag this negative energy in to the tournament!"

A line from one of my all-time favorite movies: The Big Lebowski. It's one of those films that you can watch over and over again and still pick up new things on each viewing. Take Walter (John Goodman), for example. Although it's not apparent at first given his unhealthy obsession with Vietnam and the fact that he's a tad crazy, Walter is arguably the smartest character in the movie.

For starters, he's well educated, referencing Lenin by his birth name, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He waxes philosophical about the tenets of socialism versus nihilism. He's right about the toe not belonging to Bunny, and in the very same scene cites a Supreme Court decision regarding free speech. Walter's initial theory that Bunny kidnapped herself also proves to be almost spot on.

And, of course, there's that little nugget of wisdom at the beginning of this post, which proved to be an invaluable piece of advice for a tournament I cashed in at the Poker Palace yesterday. I've played their daily tournament several times since moving to Vegas a few months ago because the buy-in is cheap and the competition is so soft that anyone with solid poker fundamentals has a great chance of cashing.

I had been pretty card dead the entire time and lost a lot of chips with AKs in position when another guy check-raised me after flopping a set of jacks. A few hands later, someone drew out on me, costing me most of my stack. Situations like these can be very frustrating when you keep watching the lesser-skilled players scoop monster pots after calling raises out of position with cards any decent player would have folded from the get-go.

I went into the first break on tilt. "I'm through with this stupid tournament! We've got to start playing bigger buy-ins so we can play real poker!" I ranted to Sunshine, who reminded me that you cannot push these kinds of players out of pots. I returned to my table still steaming and a little deflated due to my small stack when I heard a voice inside my head.

"You cannot drag this negative energy in to the tournament!"

Walter was right: I didn't stand a chance of surviving without an immediate attitude adjustment, so that's exactly what I did. I purchased my $10 add-on, which made my small stack a little bit bigger, dropped my negativity, and waited for a spot to make my stand.

"All-in," I announced shortly thereafter when I looked down at the 78 of spades in late position, happy to just pick up the blinds and antes, but I quadrupled up when I picked up a set of 8's on the turn. l doubled up again when my well-timed pre-flop raise enticed the player to my right to shove his QTo into my pocket aces and the big blind came along for the ride.

Granted, I got lucky, but no one has ever won a tournament without getting lucky a few times--especially one with starting stacks of 40 big blinds and 15 minute levels. You can't win a tournament on tilt either. Moreover, given the fact that our thoughts influence the world around us, I've no doubt that changing my energy lent itself to the lucky streak that helped me make it to the money.

And I owe it all to the wisdom of Walter Sobchak.

Bitter Haircut

It's been a while since I made a post and right now I'm feeling the same way I was the night I started this blog, which means it's time for some therapy.

A couple hours ago, Sunshine got a text from her boss stating that he had just turned $10 into $500 at the roulette table. Almost immediately she looked at me and said, "That's exactly why you never win anything," even though I hadn't said a word.

But she knew exactly what I had been thinking, and she was exactly right.

Earlier this evening, while Sunshine was at work, I went to the Flamingo to use the $5 in free slot play I received for becoming a Harrah's Total Rewards member. I was hoping to get lucky and double-up then wander over to the blackjack table and win some more. Every gambler's dream, I know, but it was a freeroll.

What I was really trying to do was round up enough money to sit down at a cash game or at least buy into a tournament, so needless to say I was a little jealous when I heard someone else had basically done just that. Moreover, I haven't played in a couple weeks and have been itching to do so, especially tonight.

Lately I keep dwelling on how badly I need money so I can play poker and wishing I had enough to play every day--and not just for the profits; much like soccer, I just love the game. It's as though I'm walking this fine line between passion and addiction.

Sunshine hit the nail on the head though: I'm full of lack (kind of an oxymoron, isn't it?), or at least that's my experience, and one that manifests itself over and over again in my life. It's a vicious cycle that will continue until I change my thoughts.

She was right; I have a hard time being happy for other people. It's a habit I learned from my mom, but there also comes a point where we have to stop blaming our parents for everything that's "wrong" with us. My buddy Ernie sold a pilot to Fox a few months ago, and even though I told him I was stoked for him, in the back of my mind I was also thinking, "Why can't something like that happen to me?"

Until I can genuinely be happy for others' good fortunes, I will never have any good fortunes of my own.

"So how do I get to the point where I am genuinely happy for other people?" I asked Sunshine.

"Stop focusing on the lack. You're so wrapped up in it, when something good happens to someone else, it becomes one more reminder of what you don't have. Learn to be okay with your life the way it is."

I'm lucky to have someone in my life who always seems to tell me exactly what I need to hear.

By now you might be wondering why I titled this post "Bitter Haircut." It's because I've had long hair for the past five or six years, but this afternoon I chopped it off. I've had several job interviews since moving to Vegas three months ago, but no offers, so I thought my hair might have something to do with it. It was never a problem in LA when I was working in entertainment, but Vegas seems more conservative and a lot of the positions I've been interviewing for have been corporate.

I actually made an appointment a couple weeks ago, but chickened out at the last minute (apparently, I was still "attached" to my long hair). I was afraid of ending up with a dorky haircut, like so many of the styles from my past. Interestingly enough, that's exactly what I got, and it's the worst haircut I've ever had. Our thoughts really do influence the world around us.

It's like Wayne Dyer says, "Change the way you look at the world and the world you look at changes."

Easy for him to say, he doesn't have any hair! ;-)

Attachment

I'm a sore loser.

I realized that today while playing Scrabble with Sunshine. I kept making 5 and 6 letter words yet she was still managing to rack up more points. All I could think was, "I have a B.A. in English from USC and I'm losing a game of Scrabble to someone who didn't even speak the language until she was 14 years old," a egoic thought that ultimately ruined a friendly game because I started bitching after every turn.

It reminded me of the way I had so often acted when our soccer team was on the receiving end of an ass-kicking: talking shit, taking cheap shots, and insulting the referee who showed me a much deserved red card. Basically, being a total jerk with no regard for good sportsmanship.

Then I remembered the time I got ejected from a summer baseball game for telling the umpire, "You suck," after he called strike three on a pitch I felt was clearly outside. I even challenged him to a fight as my coach, who happened to be a minister, politely ushered me off the field. The umpire and I were classmates who had butted heads in the past, which may have influenced the call, but that does little to excuse my behavior. I'm just glad my mom wasn't at the game that day.

I can be pretty unpleasant to be around when I bust out of a poker tournament too, cursing at the computer as if my opponents could actually hear what I was saying. A couple of times I have gone as far as flinging an insult over the chat box. Doyle Brunson was right on the money in Super System when he wrote...

"If you wanted to use poker just for a test of character, solely to learn about the men you'll have to deal with away from the poker table, it would be a telling test."

...and one I have failed on several occasions.

Ironically enough, I tend to think of myself as a pretty nice guy, and anyone who knows me would most likely tell you the same thing. Nonetheless, these childish outbursts have understandably put a strain on my relationship with Sunshine and represent an aspect of my personality in dire need of self-examination.

Why do I act this way?

The answer itself is simple (ego) but the implications are far more complex. For the sake of simplicity, let's look to Buddhist philosophy rather than expound upon the ideas of guilt and separation at a metaphysical level (I'll save that for another post).

The second of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths states that, "The origin of suffering is attachment," which makes complete sense. People get upset when their house catches fire because they're attached to the material possessions burning up inside. Sadness often accompanies break-ups because one, or both, partners are attached to the other person. The same concept holds true for losing a loved one.

I get upset when I lose because I'm attached to winning.

Like most people, I'm also attached to money. I want to live a comfortable life with the means to support my family and the freedom to do the things that make me happy (or more accurately, bring about the illusion of happiness, but that too is a topic for another day), such as travelling and eating at nice restaurants. Money can make my dreams a reality and success at the poker table can generate the necessary capital.

So every time I lose money playing poker, it serves as a brutal reminder of all the things I don't yet have and I suffer, but as soon as I let go of these attachments, I'll no longer have a reason to be upset. Easier said than done, I'll admit; fortunately, I have the wisdom of Star Wars to aide me in my journey...

YODA: Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.

ANAKIN: What must I do, Master Yoda?

YODA: Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

The Joy of Abundance

Over the years I have come to realize that my small town upbringing instilled in me a poverty mentality. Money is something that I have always worried about, and not coincidentally, never seemed to have enough of. Big bills freaked me out and I deprived myself of countless exciting opportunities (travelling, for instance) because they were "too expensive."

One night, I experienced a great deal of stress after spending over $100 during a night on the town with some buddies. I was extremely disappointed in myself for being so frivolous and could almost hear my parents lecturing me inside my head.

Not exactly an ideal quality in an aspiring poker player, although I have gotten better.

Several years later, I don't miss the $100 one bit. Spending that money had no negative bearing on my life whatsoever. In fact, it was quite the opposite: I now look back upon that night and remember how much fun I had. I've traveled outside of the United States (something I had always dreamed of) on more that one occasion since then and am already planning my next adventure. I enjoy the feeling of buying someone a drink--even a complete stranger--without worrying about whether or not I can afford it.

But I still have my moments.

The other night, I played poker in a casino for the very first time. I was nervous to say the least. I sat down at the $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em table, which meant I could lose my entire $125 in a single hand. This fear was further amplified when I witnessed a guy lose over $300 on an all-in bet just as I was sitting down to play. Moreover, the guy who felted him now had at least $1000 in chips, giving him the power to push me around.

With the reality of the situation staring my right in the face, I proceeded cautiously, an approach that had more to do with solid poker than fear even though my whole body seemed to be shaking uncontrollably. I exercised patience and waited for a good hand, then entered the pot with the aggression of a seasoned player.

I don't remember exactly what happened in that first hand, but I continued to bet aggressively every time I entered a pot. An hour later, I was up after winning several uncontested pots and felting the kid next to me (twice) when the Universe administered my final exam.

I raised $10 pre-flop with a King-Jack of clubs in middle position and got one caller, an Indian guy I had yet to get a good read on, who had limped in prior to my raise. The flop came K-10-9, giving me top pair, a gut-shot straight draw, and a back door flush draw. He check-called my $15 dollar raise.

The turn was an 8. My gut-shot was now an up and down straight draw, so I raised another $25 after he checked again and he called once more. A jack washed up on the river, giving me top two pair. I was trying to figure out how much to value bet when the guy pushed all-in for his last $100 or so.

Up to that moment I was sure I had him beat, but was now forced to take another look at the board and review the hand. If he was holding a queen, I was toast. A suited ace-queen might have hung around for the flush and inside straight draws as well as a potential overpair if he had (correctly) put me on kings, but he would have raised pre-flop with those cards, so that didn't make sense. A queen-ten or queen-nine (and anything lower) also seemed unlikely even though it would have have given him middle or bottom pair after the flop.

King-queen would have have given him top pair after the flop (with a better kicker) as well as an inside straight draw, although he probably wouldn't have checked that (unless he put me on pocket kings or AK, which was possible since I had raised 5x the big blind pre-flop) and my gut told me he wasn't holding king-queen.

That left jack-queen, meaning he flopped the nut straight and had been slow-playing me the entire time, which made sense. Then again, his all-in bet on the river might have been nothing more than a bluff. I also stood to win a lot of chips if my two pair was good and didn't want to miss out on that opportunity because I was afraid of losing some money. After all, if I was adverse to taking risks, I was in the wrong profession.

I decided to employ a maneuver Doyle Brunson described in Super System (I'd seen Guy Laliberté use the same tactic on "High Stakes Poker" as well) in which you flip your hole cards face up on the table and observe your opponent's reaction. I showed the guy my king-jack, his eyes started fluttering (a common tell when someone's bluffing), and I could sense that he was afraid I was going to call, so that's exactly what I did.

He mucked his hand and I raked in my biggest pot of the night, giving me a grand total of $427 in chips. I had made over $300, the most I had ever been paid for a "day's work" of 8-10 hours, let alone 90 minutes. Perhaps poker is my true calling and a way to help me overcome that feeling of lack that has permeated my life for so long.

EPILOGUE...

I returned to the casino the following night to see if I could do it again in hopes of building my bankroll. Long story short, the cards didn't fall for me as good as they had they night before, I missed an opportunity to extract some extra money with a straight by betting too much on the river, and made the mistake of trying to semi-bluff the large stack by re-raising with two overcards after the flop.

I gave Sunshine, my fiancée, half of the $427 from the night before. She ended up losing it all and I cashed out for $85 after winning a $50 pot with pocket tens, but there are two high points to this story:

1. I experienced none of the fear-induced shaking from the night before and losing that money didn't bother me at all. "That's poker," I told myself.

2. Taking only my own play into consideration, I was still up $200 over the course of both nights.

Later that night, as I was getting ready for bed, I found two $5 chips in my pocket I'd somehow missed when cashing out. There was no doubt in my mind that this was a sign.

I had made an important step towards letting go of fear of lack in favor of embracing an attitude of abundance. The Universe was now giving me a reason to go back to the casino and encouraging me not to give up on my dream.

Leggo My Ego

Poker is a game of egos.

Why else would Phil Hellmuth routinely insult other players, make a grand entrance at the 2010 World Series Main Event dressed as an MMA fighter, or go on a curse-filled rant after losing over $100,000 to amateur David Fishman on PokerStars.net's The Big Game?

Consider the primary objective of the game as well: to acquire the largest stack, which equals power at the poker table. And what does the person with the biggest stack usually do? He uses this power to control the game and bully the other players at every opportunity.

It's also a game dominated by men (battling one another for the control over the size of their...stacks) in which the best possible hand is referred to as the nuts.

Acquiring the largest stack brings about a feeling of great satisfaction, as making money often does, because it provides validation, which feeds the ego. Conversely, losing can agitate the ego by making us feel inadequate, causing us to go on tilt or start steaming. This happens to me all the time.

I get very upset when I lose a lot of chips or bust out of a tournament, which happened to me right before I began this post. This reaction usually stems from arrogance because I like to think I'm a pretty good player. Incidentally, overestimating one's abilities is the most common mistakes made by beginners (and my professional aspirations were only born about six weeks ago).

I know it sounds silly, but sometimes I get so mad I'll even continue insisting that I'm still better player than the guy who just eliminated me, rants my fiancée describes as "extremely unattractive."

The funny thing is, I'm completely aware of all this while this is happening. Intellectually, I know this anger is pointless and ego-driven, but my emotions nonetheless manage to get the best of me. It's almost as if I'm watching someone else controlling my actions and I am helpless to stop them.

I am the ego's puppet.

This is not the case, of course, because we choose our emotions and reactions regardless of the situation. For example, when someone cuts us off on the road, we choose to feel annoyed; that person does not annoy us. No one else has the power to make us feel anything.

At this point you may be wondering why I choose to continue playing a game that gets me so riled up. Well, I've never been a 9-5 kind of guy and I've been playing cards all my life (cribbage, rummy, spades, hearts; penny ante five card draw with my sister at age ten using the money in our piggy banks; I even played dollar point/dollar set pitch for extra cash throughout high school) so I'm fairly certain I can eventually make a living at it, but there's an even better reason.

The life of a professional poker player is enticing--money, fame, travel, excitement--and I wholeheartedly believe that life should be lived to the fullest. However, I also believe the most important aspect of the human experience is learning to transcend the ego, and those moments in which we experience discomfort (from a minor annoyance to something as dramatic as losing a loved one) are opportunities to do just that.

Our natural state of being is love and anytime we're angry, sad, annoyed, upset, or scared (all of which are rooted in fear), we've lost touch with our natural state of being. The ultimate goal is to reach a level of enlightenment in which nothing that happens in this world can affect us and reclaim the puppet strings from the ego. Teachers like Jesus and Buddha understood this.

Granted, that level of enlightenment seems almost unattainable. The good news is we've been at it for several lifetimes already, and every time we experience discomfort is another opportunity to internalize this crucial lesson. All we need is a willingness to learn and the awareness to realize what is happening during these situations.

In that sense, poker may prove to be my salvation.

Zen Poker

Zen Poker.

That's what I wanted to call this blog, but the URL was already taken. So was Zen-Poker as well as Zen and Poker. Poker and Zen was available, but it didn't have quite the same ring to it.

I was a little bummed at first, but settled for Spiritual Poker instead, taking solace in the idea that everything happens for a reason, much like this blog.

I've been meaning to start one for quite some time now, but the inspiration finally came last night after I busted out of an online poker tournament. I went all-in on a call even though my instincts told me not to. I know it sounds silly, but getting eliminated on a stupid mistake upset me tremendously (I'm very competitive) and my grumpy disposition then drew the ire of my fiancée.

Later on, after I had calmed down, it occurred to me that poker is a metaphor for life.

I am by no means the first person to ever make this comparison. Kenny Rogers will forever be remembered for "The Gambler," one of my all-time favorite songs, which hit #1 in 1979 and also earned him a Grammy. Incidentally, that song was penned by Don Schlitz, who also co-wrote "When You Say Nothing At All," the song my fiancée and I fell in love to.

Anyhow, the point is I busted out of the tournament because I ignored my gut, a valuable tool in poker as well as life. But I did learn an important lesson in the process, which also gave birth to this blog.

I guess everything really does happen for a reason.