Why Do I Play Poker?

January 23, 2010

Gung Ho or Don’t Go

Filed under: Online Poker, Poker, Texas Hold'em — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:00 am

You can’t have ambiva­lence when you play poker. You are either gungho rock out with your cock out, or don’t play. Poker play­ers sense weak­ness. If you dis­play any soft­ness, they WILL eat your balls. Trust me, it hurts.

Some­times my fam­ily sched­ule opens up on a night when I am com­pletely tired. It cre­ates such con­flict for me. The uni­verse con­spires to give me a free night, I should rally the troops and seize the free time. How­ever, I don’t feel up for it. Herein lies the rub.

In truth, I can’t bear to pass the oppor­tu­nity to play cards, even if I’m exhausted. I sud­denly have the feel­ing that this will be the last time. If I don’t go now, I’ll never again expe­ri­ence the exhil­a­ra­tion of poker’s body drench­ing adren­a­line rush. (That sounds gay).

Nine times out of ten I go, and nine times out of nine, I lose. Not only that, I start off losing.

After 2 buy-ins, I buckle down. By 2AM, I have actu­ally ral­lied back to even. I con­sider leav­ing, but 2 things cross my mind. First, I hate the idea of play­ing poker for 6 hours and break­ing even. It sounds stu­pid, but I would rather lose than break even. At least I have some­thing to show for my time: an empty pocket. Sec­ond, if I leave now I will never ever in my whole life have the time, energy or means to come back. This will DEFINITELY be my last time ever play­ing poker. Since this IS my last time, might as well go out with a bang. A poker binge, if you will.

On these nights, I don’t leave until the absence of chips states the obvi­ous. Pal, you’re done. At 4AM, I am $400 poorer and ask myself why the fuck I even went in the first place. 3o min­utes later I am home. The moment I step through my front door, I won­der if I have any time next week­end to go back. Instantly I catch myself. What the fuck am I thinking?

If I wait until next week­end, life will get too com­pli­cated and I’ll never get there. Bet­ter go back tomorrow.

I play because I have the bug.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 22, 2010

Sometimes I need a break from Dockers and fat free salad dressing.

Filed under: Commerce Casino, Home Game, Online Poker, Poker, Winning Streak — Tags: , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 9:21 am

A man can not be sus­tained on good, whole­some fam­ily life alone.  Or, at least, I can’t.  On a reg­u­lar basis I like to head to my local casino, Hol­ly­wood Park.  It’s not just for the poker either. The place is a real melt­ing pot and I get to rub elbows with peo­ple from walks of life I may never have the chance to otherwise.

I know a lot of peo­ple that are alarm­ingly sim­i­lar.  CPAs, den­tists, and an ass­load of regional man­agers. As you might guess, this gets bor­ing.  The casino, on the other hand, is full of char­ac­ters that you would prob­a­bly would never meet any­where but the casino.

I love it.

Play­ing with peo­ple from all walks of life is what makes poker great.  I can’t think of a bet­ter com­mon denom­i­na­tor. I learn more about human­ity at the table than I would at a life­time of Neigh­bor­hood Watch meet­ings.  Okay fine, I don’t go to Neigh­bor­hood Watch meet­ings. That’s what regional man­agers are for. Where else can I hear from an ex-gangleader the way to make money is buy­ing fore­closed homes from HUD, Hous­ing Urban Devel­op­ment or some­thing like that.  Dude was a mil­lion­aire.   Or maybe he was lying.  Either way I don’t care.  I’m def­i­nitely not going to meet the rock tight porn direc­tor at one of these sushi rolling par­ties my wife tells me we’ve been invited to.  Actu­ally maybe I would.  But at the sushi party he’s not going into the details of the girl on girl scene gone bad because one of the actresses had some bad ceviche for lunch.

I play poker to meet peo­ple I nor­mally wouldn’t.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 20, 2010

Poker is a dream maker

Filed under: Bad Beats, Commerce Casino, Hollywood Park, Home Game, Poker — Tags: , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:00 am

At some point in your life, you have to let go of some of your child­hood dreams.  Still 5 foot 3? You can put your NBA dreams to rest. Still play­ing pony league in your 20s? Prob­a­bly won’t go to the MLB. Fail your med­ical boards for the 5th time? Surgery career out the door. Don’t get me wrong. I am fan of “any­thing is pos­si­ble”. I’m a poker player, right? But let’s get real, some­times you can tell things will never happen.

For me, I had a pretty good run as an inde­pen­dent musi­cal artist. I played for some pretty large crowds, basked in the glory of the stand­ing ova­tion and heard my music on TV, film and radio. How­ever, when I turned 30, I could see the writ­ing on the wall. I was never going to be a rock star. 10 years later, the only thing I miss is hav­ing that dream of being a star. Enter poker.

Poker is the dream that never dies. It doesn’t even dis­crim­i­nate. There are sharks of all ages sizes and shapes. 90 year old rocks, wheel chair bound chip slingers, and even the occa­sional blind man with a see­ing eye sweater. You try walk­ing into the Super Bowl all suited up demand­ing your shot. It’s not going to hap­pen. But if you have $10,000 or were lucky enough to suck out on me in one of the bajil­lion satel­lites I played to get into the WSOP, all the power to you. You’re in and get your chance to join the elite ranks of the poker greats. What’s even more entic­ing is that the vast major­ity of WSOP bracelets are won by unknown play­ers. It’s like Rocky every sum­mer in Vegas.

Most of us will never bat against C.C. Sabathia or catch a pass from Brette Favre. But for the rest of our lives, poker play­ers will have a chance to feel like a pro. If you’re   ballsy (and rich), I’m sure a vari­ety of pros from Doyle to Durr would be happy to meet you at Bobby’s room. Prob­a­bly at this very moment. Who knows, you might even beat them in a pot. If that’s big­ger than your poker bud­get, you can go for the glory by chas­ing a bracelet. It’s a more afford­able way to get the rush of play­ing with the pros. And if that isn’t enough, remem­ber you always have a chance to be the “lucky bas­tard” to put Phil Hell­muth on tilt. Poker is truly a dream maker.

I play to keep the big dream alive.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

For more about mak­ing it big in poker read the fol­low­ing article:

http://www.pokerdownloadlink.com/how-to-win-at-poker/

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January 18, 2010

The Host Gift

Filed under: Home Game, Poker, Texas Hold'em, Wednesday Night Game — Tags: , , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:00 am

I finally get an invite to the home game I’ve been sub­tlety lob­by­ing to get into.

This is a group of the cool dad’s from my son’s pre-school. I casu­ally let them know I play poker, and then patiently wait to be invited into the inner cir­cle. It’s like dodge­ball in ele­men­tary school. I des­per­ately want to be included in the fun, but inevitably feel like the last one chosen.

Now that I have the invite, my next con­cern is what to bring for the host gift. This is after all, a friendly game. After too much delib­er­a­tion, I set­tle on a bot­tle of wine. Not the good stuff of course, I want to be gra­cious, not stu­pid. Does this make me a bad per­son? Prob­a­bly, but I’m just try­ing give the right gift for the right sit­u­a­tion. It’s like try­ing to read an oppo­nent. In this sit­u­a­tion I think the B minus wine is enough to drag in the pot.

I arrive at the game, offer my wine to the host and take my seat with other guys. Tonight is going to be good. I am def­i­nitely going to fit in here. Until I don’t.

The guys start com­ment­ing on the wine they are drink­ing. Tan­nin this, vel­vet that. Uh oh. My okay wine is now a tick­ing time bomb ready to expose me as Mr. Cheap. Now I know I am fucked.

I silently accept defeat. I was out­played at the wine game. No big­gie. Just like when I take a lick­ing at the poker table, I do some eval­u­a­tion, make some adjust­ments and try not to repeat the same mistakes.

Thank­fully, these guys aren’t nearly as judg­men­tal as I am. A cou­ple quips about my wine being sub-par, I’m off the hook. And the best news is that while these guys know wine, they don’t know shit about poker. But tonight, I don’t really care. I’m happy to just make new friends. It’s just gravy that these new friends will call a big raise with J8 in early posi­tion.

Even though the game is juicy, I’m just play­ing to make friends and drink (some­one else’s) good wine.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 14, 2010

Replay Hand — Curse and Blessing

Filed under: Bad Beats, Online Poker, Poker, Uncle Doug — Tags: , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 12:47 pm

“Man, you should play online. If you don’t play like a dick, you can win some cash. I turned $50 into $1500.” This is my uncle talk­ing. He’s a retired hippy from the 60s. Now he’s a tat­tooed poker player who tells every­one at the casino that his nephew, that’s me, likes to pack fudge. If I hear him say this, my retort is that I only do it with him when he begs for it. But I digress. I took his advice about online poker and haven’t looked back since.

He was kinda right. I turned $50 into $600 in losses. Then I made some changes to my game and now I am a win­ning (only by a bit!) online poker player. Here’s how it went down.

I put $50 into a Full Tilt account and played $1 sit n gos. They were ridicu­lous because no one cared about the money. So I decided to go big, to the tables where my bets would be respected. That’s right, the $5 sit n gos. I have to admit, even at those low stakes my heart would pump like mad. I play for higher stakes in live games, but this just felt different.

It’s so easy to press the all in but­ton. If you win, you can jump up and down and cel­e­brate. If you lose, you can curse the screen and throw your mouse across the room. Bet­ter than that, there is no walk of shame. No awk­ward moments when you avoid eye con­tact with the play­ers after a mis­er­able defeat. No insin­cere, “nice hand”. You can click your­self off that table with those fuck­ers and click right into another game.

Need­less to say the $50 went fast. But I was really get­ting off. Peo­ple say online poker is rigged. Some­times the beats are so unreal, I want to place the blame on some­thing out of my con­trol. Shit, it couldn’t my sucky play! More often than not, I made some fun­da­men­tal error that put me in a bad spot. I know this because I am a big fan of the replay hand but­ton. Watch­ing me be a don­key, over and over again, as I replay hands hurts me ego in a big way, but it sure doesn’t hurt my game.

I play poker because I love learn­ing and study­ing. Other than my fam­ily, noth­ing teaches me more about myself than poker. It forces me to stare in the mir­ror and ask, “Who’s the bitch now?”

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 13, 2010

A Few Ounces Lighter

Filed under: Poker — Tags: , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 3:56 pm

I was feel­ing a few ounces lighter. I cer­tainly wasn’t los­ing weight as a result of my eat­ing dur­ing the hol­i­days. Then I fig­ured it out. I’d lost my balls. It hap­pened dur­ing a No Limit Hold Em ring game when I couldn’t make myself call an all in bet. I was almost pos­i­tive I was in the lead, but I was hav­ing a good night and my stack was healthy. If I called and lost, it would dec­i­mate me. I played it safe, or more like a wuss, and folded only to be shown a hand weaker than mine. My oppo­nent smiled as he raked in a $500 pot.

What hap­pened to me? I used to be as aggres­sive as they came. I used to be THAT guy. I know you have to be aggres­sive. That’s how I play. Or at least I thought I did. Sure, most of my early, highly aggres­sive play was in online SNGs, but cer­tainly, that must translate.

All I really knew was that I needed my balls back.

When you’re look­ing for some­thing, it’s always best to retrace your steps.  Go to the last place you saw it and look there. So that’s what I did. I went online to the Full Tilt Super Turbo SNGs. Cheap ones. $14 +$1.

I chose the Super Tur­bos because they are all about aggres­sion. Win fast or lose fast. All in or noth­ing. I played a bunch.

Promptly turned $100 into $0. Felt good, too. For the first time in a month, I was play­ing with con­fi­dence again. It actu­ally felt bet­ter to lose with con­fi­dence rather than book a few puss-played wins. I wasn’t the timid lit­tle mouse that got bul­lied in the NLH ring game. At least now I had a lit­tle fight in me.

So in the end, it cost me $100 to get my balls back. A bar­gain at twice the price. Way cheaper than the $500 neu­ti­cles I got for my dog.

I guess some­times I play poker to re-learn lessons.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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January 11, 2010

Am I here to make friends, or money?

Filed under: Home Game, Poker, Texas Hold'em — Tags: , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 7:37 pm

I was eager to accept when I received an invite to my neighbor’s home game. The last few months have been all about chang­ing dia­pers and feed­ing for­mula to my 6 month old at all hours of the night, I need a night out. The buy-in is $60 and I fig­ure a night of male bond­ing and fart jokes is worth at least that. Some­times just get­ting out of the house is a win.

I think to myself, let’s play loose. Be social. Go with the flow. Get to know the guys. Make it more about the hang, than play­ing poker. First hand we play, I can’t help myself. The com­pet­i­tive spirit in me gets uncon­sciously ignited and I play aggres­sive deceit­ful, dare I say “good” poker. Sud­denly I get drunk with the knowl­edge that I am clearly the best poker player at this table. I prey on these poor suck­ers who don’t know my style by mak­ing a stone cold bluff and win. Oops, just took $30 off my neigh­bor. Next hand, I catch a real hand and win, another $20 from him. Fuck, I need to slow down, or at least stop tak­ing money from my neigh­bor. Next few hands I show some dis­ci­pline: fold­ing don­key hands so I don’t suck out on some­one and make them mad.

I man­age to slow down and focus on talk­ing to the guys. Then it all changes. Billy, the stoner to my left who is a dead ringer white ver­sion of Will.i.am, breaks out a per­fectly rolled spleef from the Far­macy (god bless Los Ange­les). I jump at the chance to smoke some weed ( I did hap­pen to notice sev­eral bags of gummi bears on the counter. This is going to be a good night.) I take a few puffs and just like that, stoned.

The next hand is PLO 8 or bet­ter. Now let me just say that I com­pletely suck at this game. I fig­ure this is a good time for a lit­tle give back to secure next week’s invite. Fast for­ward to me hit­ting a straight flush on the river. A steel wheel none the less. The stone cold nuts if there ever were any. There is a pause. One of the guys says to me, Why so quiet? You got the straight flush? I am so stoned and stunned all I can say is, “Yes, yes I do.” Then I bet, get four callers and take it down. Another $40 from my neigh­bor, along with about $100 in the pot. What a time to be get­ting cards. I just want to fit in, hang with the guys, get invited back. Now I am the jack­ass who smokes the free weed, has a horse­shoe up his ass and takes money from the host.

Most of the time, I play poker to win money, get an adren­a­line rush, act a lit­tle bit irre­spon­si­ble, but this time I really just wanted to get out of the house, meet some new guys and maybe even expand my social cir­cle. I had a dif­fer­ent rea­son for play­ing poker tonight, but the cards wouldn’t coop­er­ate. Some­times you have the weapons when you are try­ing to make friends. Other times you get caught naked when you’re among the wolves. Poker is a cruel game that way. An unpre­dictable, ruth­less roller­coaster. And that’s why I love it.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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I just read a new poker book. I’m bracing myself for the inevitable losing streak.

Filed under: Bad Beats, Hollywood Park, Poker, Texas Hold'em, Winning Streak — Tags: , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 5:29 pm

I know that’s it’s not sup­posed to work that way.  I would pre­fer to be able to read a poker book, prefer­able just the back blurb, and go on some end­less win­ning streak.  All of the game’s mys­ter­ies unlocked in one key para­graph. For about an hour’s worth of leisurely read­ing I think its only fair that I become invin­ci­ble. I would like to sit down at the poker table and announce, “I want you to know I’ve skimmed through some of the Har­ring­ton books, please give me the con­tents of your wallets.”

It def­i­nitely doesn’t work that way for me.  Actu­ally, it means the exact oppo­site. Fin­ish­ing a poker book kicks off a three week los­ing streak.

Even with that knowl­edge, I still love a new poker book.  Sure, most of them say pretty much the same stuff, but every once in a while some­one really changes the way you look at the game.  Or at least, one aspect of it. Like three-betting an under the gun raiser.

So what do I do?  I work the price of the los­ing streak into the cost of the book. It’s an edu­ca­tion I believe is worth pay­ing for.  The whole point is to get bet­ter, right?  If I’m going to keep play­ing the same mediocre game I should just get out of my seat and stop play­ing now.  You have to get bet­ter.  And I do.  Slowly.

I play poker to get bet­ter.  To pos­si­bly some­day rule the table regard­less of stakes.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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It’s Christmastime All Year Long

Filed under: Poker, Texas Hold'em — Tags: , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:35 pm

A cou­ple times a month, I make it to the Bicy­cle, Com­merce or Hol­ly­wood Park casino. Okay, it’s once a week. Some­times twice. But I wish it were more. On those days, there is a lit­tle extra skip in my step.  I smile a bit wider. Of course, the day couldn’t go any slower. When 7:30pm finally arrives, I eagerly hop in the car and head down to the Bike.  I can’t get there fast enough.  But if I didn’t cut off that dude on the 710 I would’ve have missed the light and never got­ten that park­ing space or those glo­ri­ous cow­boys on my first hand. You know, wings on a mos­quito shit?

Finally I get to the tables, sit down and away we go. First hand.  Cow­boys get busted and cost a rack. Sec­ond hand, fold. Third hand,  I fold. I con­tinue to fold for the next 2 hours  Must have spent my karma else­where. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut that guy off.

This is utterly ridicu­lous. I think I should loosen up. But, I did that last week and promised myself I would exer­cise dis­ci­pline tonight. Instead of donk­ing off $200 on unplayable hands out of bore­dom, I fold. After 3 hours, I start won­der­ing who I pissed off. Just last week it seemed like the poker gods were hav­ing an orgy while I was play­ing. Now some­one ain’t get­ting laid up there, but they’re mak­ing damn sure I get roy­ally fucked down here.

Usu­ally I fend off the bore­dom by gorg­ing myself on a huge bowl of ice cream, or ask­ing the pimp next to me how his girls are per­form­ing. But tonight they’re out of ice cream and the pimp just got a call and left abruptly.  It was prob­a­bly Sheila. He did men­tion she was with a new cus­tomer tonight. Hope she’s okay.

Now it’s 1am. I have drib­bled away $78. This night has not turned out as planned. I had no action at the table. The play­ers weren’t par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing. The food wasn’t sat­is­fy­ing. Why did I play tonight? Why do I ever play this bor­ing game? I sit with this for a moment and then it hits me.

Every time those cards are dealt to me, I feel like a kid on Christ­mas about to open an incred­i­ble present. That feel­ing of antic­i­pa­tion and poten­tial joy is amaz­ing for me. Even though I didn’t get to play a hand tonight, I did open about 200 Christ­mas presents. All of them were essen­tially ugly clothes from grandma, but I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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Win big tonight, Honey!

Filed under: Hollywood Park, Poker, Texas Hold'em — Tags: , , , , , , , — Why Do I Play Poker? @ 4:34 pm

Those words are the kiss of death to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard them and actu­ally won.

The part that sucks the most is my wife is so earnest when she says them.  She’s actu­ally root­ing for me.  She wants me to win. Yet, that’s all it takes for me to know I’m fucked before I even start.  I should just take my money and go to a strip club.

“Uh, Honey, you know those those nice, encour­ag­ing words you gave me before I went out?  Well, they fucked up my head. As soon as I heard them, I knew I would lose at poker so I went to Crazy Girls and spent $300 to have this Latina spin­ner dry hump my leg.”

That’s at least log­i­cal.  It doesn’t say much for me as a hus­band, but it makes sense. How­ever, I don’t do that. I go and play. When I walk in the the casino, the valet might as well  yell “Dead man walkin’.”  Now it’s just a mat­ter of putting in the time and money to make this self-fulfilling prophecy come true.

I tell myself I’m not even super­sti­tious.  But obvi­ously I am.  Okay, I admit, I don’t like play­ing poker on Fri­day the 13th either.  What’s that about?  I’m a seri­ous poker player.  I don’t believe in luck.  I roll my eyes when I even hear some­one com­plain about it.  But if I hear the three words “Win big tonight!” I men­tally throw in the towel.   Same thing when I see that dealer who killed me when I had quads.

Okay, so I’m super­sti­tious.  I can accept that.  The thing that makes me crazy is that I don’t adjust my game.  If I have some­one really loose on my right I adjust.  Some­one really tight on my left, I change my attack.  So from now on I’m going to adjust my game when I hear those words “Win big Honey!”.   I’m not playing.

I’m prob­a­bly not going to the strip club either, but I always won­dered what a $300 ice cream sun­dae looks like.

I guess some­times I play poker to know some­times I shouldn’t.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net

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