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.