By Pauly
Hollyweird, CA
"Could you hold this for me for just a sec?"
I glanced at the her engagement ring as she handed me her purple overcoat. An anxious line of passengers waited as she nervously shoved a generic black carry-on bag into the overhead compartment. I handed her the purple overcoat and she tossed it into the empty seat by the window.
She was in her late 20s and looked like the actress from the Scary Movie flicks. For a second I considered that it very well could be that same actress. After all, I was on a JetBlue plane bound for Burbank, California where most of the Hollywood corporate offices were located and where the studios churned out artistic feces for mass consumption. My brother once sat next to a random actress on a JetBlue flight from Las Vegas to New York City. Why couldn't that be happening to me?
I had been sitting in the aisle seat and stood up so she could scoot by. I realized that she wasn't that actress and simply a random chick who looked like someone famous. She plopped down a stack of magazines in the empty seat between us. Bridal magazines dominated the stack. She also slid a Lonely Planet travel guide for Bali into the seat pocket in front of her.
"Lemme guess," I said. "Honeymoon in Bali?"
She smiled and picked up the guide book. "How did you know?" she said as she fanned out the pages in a dramatic fashion like a game show hostess.
"Bali. Now that's a very romantic location. Magnificent and ravishing in the same breath. You're going to have the time of your life. Just don't go during the rainy season and keep your eyes open if you go to Kuta. Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists target tourists there. Especially Americans."
The once smile unfurled into puzzled look that quickly morphed into panic. That's when it hit me. At some future date, that young woman was going to walk down the aisle and gamble the rest of her life on a coin flip. Marriages in America these days are coin flips because about 50% of them end in divorce. Plus, she was about to take the biggest gamble of them all and book her honeymoon in a resort town that was bombed twice since 2002.
As much as I try to take time away from poker, it seeps into my every day life. I was waiting for my delayed flight to get the hell out of JFK and out to the West Coast. That's all I was thinking about when I sat in my seat. As soon as I saw the engagement ring my immediate thought was "coin flip."
The point of telling you that story was to explain how I often poker invades my waking life. Like how I caught an angle shooter on my KLM flight from Amsterdam to Copenhagen.
Some fat dude was in my aisle seat. He played the "Me don't speak good English" bit. I sniffed out that bluff. Basically he didn't want to be squished in the middle. Well, that's why I didn't to sit there. And that's why I get to the airport early enough to sweet talk the check-in counter chicks into making sure I have an aisle seat.
It was only an hour from Amsterdam to Copenhagen. I was holding up the plane from boarding.
"I'll do it for twenty bucks," I said.
"Ehhh?" he moaned.
"I'll do it for 20 Euros."
"I will not pay money."
"Then you have to get up."
He pulled out a 5 Euro bill. I snatched it out of his fat fingers and sat in the middle seat. Talk about a bad beat.
See? Three poker references in just one encounter.
Here's another example. When I got back to New York City from a trip to Florida, I was bombarded by the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal. He was a VIP member of a high class brothel and this is where the hypocrisy card comes into play since he used to prosecute those types of cases. Wicked Chops Poker had some of the best coverage of the scandal including photos of Spitzer favorite girl... Ashley Alexandra Dupre aka Kristen. Check that out. Anyway, we hated Spitzer with a feverish passion on Wall Street during his Draconian reign as attorney general of New York State.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre became another one of those chicks who solely got famous for fucking a married public figure. When the press-types got wind of where Spitzer's high priced ho lived, the vultures swooped in to peck at the last remains of her dignity, as the media conglomerates scrambled to feed the voracious scandalous appetite of the American public, who eagerly waited to get a glimpse of her. I chuckled when I saw the address of her loft. It was located on West 25th Street, one block up from where I used to live back in 1994-95 before I migrated to Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I lived in a loft on 24th Street between 6th and 7th avenue. Billy's Topless used to be located on the corner. Any of you Rounders junkies knows that Billy's Topless was the strip club that Worm went to after he got out of the joint. Grama cornered Worm in the bathroom and took all of his money after Worm accused him of "rolling fags in the Village."
So, as I played connect the dots inside the hallways of my mind, my neurons were firing out a slew of different messages, memories, and thoughts. My brain processed images of Eliot Spitzer's hooker before I flashbacked to the mid-1990s then trailed off into a montage of random scenes from Rounders.
"In a legal sense, can fuckin' Steinbrenner just move the Yankees? Does he have the fuckin' right to just move them?"
"We get to Steinbrenner in the third year of law school."
Flashback again to 1995. Jerry Garcia was still alive. Don Mattingly was playing in his last year for the NY Yankees. Hootie and the Blowfish had the #1 hit song. And I was living with my girlfriend at the time with two other roommates, both of whom were drag queens. One worked at Lucky Chengs. It was an odd situation, but the rent was cheap and I was madly in love with Sabine.
"Everything happens when it happens, the way it happens, and it just is," she once wrote me in a love letter.
I had a penchant for crazy and dangerous women in my early 20s. Sabine fit that description as a malcontent chain-smoking French painter that loathed and scorned everything including being an artist, living in America, and the mere fact that she existed. She encouraged me to write everyday and to experiment with poetry. I was insanely jealous of her talent because even though she was an artist, she would write several poems a day... in English... and I couldn't even scrape together a decent short story. She turned me onto different writers, may of which I continue to admire to this day. She gave me my first copy of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller and Post Office by Charles Bukowski.
Then again, that was the same cunt that waited five weeks to break up with me on my 22nd birthday. Why? Because once a year I would always remember that my heart was shattered in a billion different pieces.
That was some cold shit, man. Seriously demented and calculated. Worm was right.
"Women are the rake."
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
In Paths Untrodden
By Pauly
New York City
Last Friday, I experienced one of those rock star moments as I arrived in Copenhagen. It was the fifth city inside of ten day excursion.
Las Vegas. Los Angeles. New York. Amsterdam. Copenhagen.
Inside of a 27 day stretch... I visited five different countries. 11 different airports. Dozens of casinos. Five different currencies. And so many different hotels that I lost count.
Then on Monday, I had one of the magical days that I never thought was possible. Breakfast in Copenhagen with Change100. Lunch in Amsterdam. Dinner in NYC. Three countries. Three meals. One day. Lots of flying in between.
Sometimes, I think this is all a dream... until I see my credit card statement.
During the last two weeks, I spent a lot of time walking around outdoors and aimlessly wandering the streets of five cities. Walking is great exercise for both the mind and body. Most of the time, I'm thinking about life or writing. I try not to dwell too much on the past and try to avoid thinking too much about the future. The primary goal is to be in the moment, in the now, and letting go of all those anxieties and worries and unpleasant thoughts.
Self-knowledge is the path to enlightenment, or what Bruce Lee refers to as "spiritual realization." Over the last couple of years, I have been too busy with work and ordinary life stuff to ponder... myself. I'm fortunate that I finally have the time to wander the streets of cities while wandering through the hallways of my mind attempting to get in touch with the real me. I've also been trying to convince myself that my own way is better for me than the path laid out ahead of me by strangers.
As Bruce Lee said it best, "Formulas can only inhibit freedom, externally dictated prescriptions only squelch creativity and assure mediocrity. Bear in mind that freedom that accrues from self-knowledge cannot be acquired through strict adherence to a formula; we do not suddenly 'become' free. We simply 'are' free."
I know, that sounds like some gibberish that the Oracle from The Matrix would tell Neo. But to me, it makes sense. I have been examining my experiences and I have been trying to absorb the useful ones and reject the negative ones. At the same time, I have been adding what is uniquely my own.
One early morning in Las Vegas, I made my way down the Strip, lost in thought as the sun slowly crept over the mountains and into the Las Vegas valley. I have had such a love-hate relationship with that city. I could have never gotten to where I am today without Las Vegas, but I also strongly feel that a lot of my personal problems and addictions are magnified by the alluring darkness of Sin City.
From one ring of fire to another, I walked around the plastic streets of Hollyweird like a freak since I was the only non-homeless person not inside a car. The random people I saw walking on the street - were simply walking to their parked cars. Hollyweird is the location of the "Big Game" for writers. And I constantly struggle with the reasons that I want to work in that town. My ego is being pulled in all sorts of directions. I know that I'm talented enough to take a shot there, it's more of a question of... will I be ready to produce once I get that long-awaited call?
Two weekends ago, I attempted to organized previously disjointed thoughts on a long run through the rambling hills of Riverdale. I knew that I needed to get back in touch with myself as a person before I could fully immerse myself into any more writing projects.
In Amsterdam, I was overwhelmed by a thick haze of "being in the moment" and instead of working on editing my script, I decided that having fun was more important and I went on a vicious three-day bender. I spent most of my time talking to strangers in coffeeshops about almost every topic imaginable. I spent the rest of my time riding the trams all over Amsterdam and watching people go about their daily business. It was moments like that when I suddenly feel connected to everything on the planet. You know, when you visit a place for the first time, you see things that always existed, but you had no first hand knowledge that it existed. And when you leave that city, any city, life continues on without you.
Realizations like that make me feel so insignificant. Small. Almost nothingness. Humility.
The last couple of weeks (and really, over the last month), I have been blessed with a semblance of happiness. I worked extremely hard the last couple of years and made a ton of sacrifices along the way in order to get to the place I am right now... sitting on a pool of freedom to dictate almost 95% of my schedule. Sure, I had times in my three plus decades of living where I had complete control to do what I wished, but those times were hampered with financial difficulties (i.e. I was dead broke), so although I had the time to do anything, my freedom was restricted financially. Lucky for me, I have arrived at a time and place in my life where there are almost no restrictions.
The only obstacle in my way is the most hindering statement of all time...
What am I really doing with myself? And in the end, does it really matter?
I have no more excuses. I eliminated all of those and issued a challenge to myself. I don't have too much time to make my mark, or as we used to say on Wall Street, "We're burning daylight."
* * * * *
I was on my own path, and that path led me to Copenhagen for a holiday at a most unusual time filled with political cartoons, assassination plots, riots, religious fanaticism, and the inklings of freedom of speech. All of a sudden a poker tournament seemed utterly meaningless to the insanity that had spilled over into the streets of Copenhagen. And it all started with a simple cartoon.
If you're not familiar with Kurt Westergaard, then I'm gonna tell you. He's a political cartoonist that created a caricature of Mohamed. It was originally published in Jyllands-Posten (a Danish newspaper) in September of 2005. The image was a lit bomb growing out of Mohammed's turban.
Westerfaard and his newspaper quickly came under attack by Muslims. They thought it was blasphemous to print such an image. Many of them were provoked into participating in anti-Danish protests that erupted in different Muslim countries all over the world. The result? Extensive property damage and dozens of people were killed in the riots.
All from one cartoon.
I wasn't the brightest idea in the world to provoke religious fanatics. However, that's not as important as the notion of freedom of speech. Many of the older Danes recalled what it was like living under Nazi occupation during WWII and have their freedoms suppressed, particularly freedom of speech.
Almost two years after the original cartoon was published, three men were arrested of plotting the murder of Kurt Westergaard on February 12. PET, the Danish domestic intelligence service, arrested three men, two of whom were Tunisian nationals. They were deported on suspicion of endangering Danish national security.
In a gesture of solidarity, on February 13th, 17 daily Danish newspapers reprinted the controversial Mohamed cartoon when they discovered the news of the assassination plot against Westergaard. The editors felt it was their right to reassert freedom of speech.
The appearance of the cartoon sparked riots once again. The riots lasted over a week and spilled over into several Danish cities.
There had been an original incident in the Norrebro district in Copenhagen. More riots broke out in different immigrant neighborhoods in Copenhagen and in several Danish cities such as Arhus, Brabrand, Gellerup, Bellerup, and Bagsvaerd. Most of the rioting was done by youths aged 13-19. They burned cars, dumpsters, and school buildings.
Some of the youths said that the riots were less about Mohamed and more about police harassment. Danish police recently introduced a stop-and-search policy, where police are allowed to randomly search people for weapons. However, the mainstream media were quick to say that a large amount of rioters lashed out over the cartoons.
Muslim community leaders were quick to admonish the behavior of their youngest members. Their message was clear, "Mohamed did not teach you to burn schools, cars and public buildings. He taught you to behave in a civilised manner."
The Muslim leaders were also critical about the recent reprinting of the Mohamed cartoon. They felt that the move did more harm than good, since it provoked the recent binges of riots.
By the time I arrived in Copenhagen, the fires were out and most of the rioting had dulled down. Over 50 youths were arrested and the police appeared to have regained control.
As I dug deeper into the story, I tried to figure out the cause of the riots. Were they sparked by the cartoons like the majority of the media said? Or where they part of a protest of police harassment and racism against immigrants in Denmark? Or was it a lot of bored youths joining an angry mob as they set Copenhagen and other cities in Denmark ablaze every night for a week?
I was unable to get any answers during my short time in Copenhagen. Getting to the heart would take me months, maybe even a year. Maybe it's a worthy pursuit?
I originally flew to Copenhagen to hang out with friends, take advantage of my girlfriend's free hotel room, and dig up a story for my On the Road column in Bluff. In the end, I stumbled upon a different and more significant story, as poker became suddenly meaningless for me.
It's one thing if I lived in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and I wrote so nice things about the government or local religious leaders. I expected to have a fahtwah issued from a mullah that allows me to be killed under Islamic law. But Denmark, one of the more dour places in the bleakness of Scandinavia, the streets of Copenhagen were the last place I expected to be the flash point of a Holy War.
Deep down, I know that what happened in Copenhagen was just the beginning of a series of drastic events that will plunge all of us under a veil of darkness.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
New York City
Last Friday, I experienced one of those rock star moments as I arrived in Copenhagen. It was the fifth city inside of ten day excursion.
Las Vegas. Los Angeles. New York. Amsterdam. Copenhagen.Inside of a 27 day stretch... I visited five different countries. 11 different airports. Dozens of casinos. Five different currencies. And so many different hotels that I lost count.
Then on Monday, I had one of the magical days that I never thought was possible. Breakfast in Copenhagen with Change100. Lunch in Amsterdam. Dinner in NYC. Three countries. Three meals. One day. Lots of flying in between.
Sometimes, I think this is all a dream... until I see my credit card statement.
During the last two weeks, I spent a lot of time walking around outdoors and aimlessly wandering the streets of five cities. Walking is great exercise for both the mind and body. Most of the time, I'm thinking about life or writing. I try not to dwell too much on the past and try to avoid thinking too much about the future. The primary goal is to be in the moment, in the now, and letting go of all those anxieties and worries and unpleasant thoughts.
Self-knowledge is the path to enlightenment, or what Bruce Lee refers to as "spiritual realization." Over the last couple of years, I have been too busy with work and ordinary life stuff to ponder... myself. I'm fortunate that I finally have the time to wander the streets of cities while wandering through the hallways of my mind attempting to get in touch with the real me. I've also been trying to convince myself that my own way is better for me than the path laid out ahead of me by strangers.
As Bruce Lee said it best, "Formulas can only inhibit freedom, externally dictated prescriptions only squelch creativity and assure mediocrity. Bear in mind that freedom that accrues from self-knowledge cannot be acquired through strict adherence to a formula; we do not suddenly 'become' free. We simply 'are' free."
I know, that sounds like some gibberish that the Oracle from The Matrix would tell Neo. But to me, it makes sense. I have been examining my experiences and I have been trying to absorb the useful ones and reject the negative ones. At the same time, I have been adding what is uniquely my own.
One early morning in Las Vegas, I made my way down the Strip, lost in thought as the sun slowly crept over the mountains and into the Las Vegas valley. I have had such a love-hate relationship with that city. I could have never gotten to where I am today without Las Vegas, but I also strongly feel that a lot of my personal problems and addictions are magnified by the alluring darkness of Sin City.
From one ring of fire to another, I walked around the plastic streets of Hollyweird like a freak since I was the only non-homeless person not inside a car. The random people I saw walking on the street - were simply walking to their parked cars. Hollyweird is the location of the "Big Game" for writers. And I constantly struggle with the reasons that I want to work in that town. My ego is being pulled in all sorts of directions. I know that I'm talented enough to take a shot there, it's more of a question of... will I be ready to produce once I get that long-awaited call?
Two weekends ago, I attempted to organized previously disjointed thoughts on a long run through the rambling hills of Riverdale. I knew that I needed to get back in touch with myself as a person before I could fully immerse myself into any more writing projects.
In Amsterdam, I was overwhelmed by a thick haze of "being in the moment" and instead of working on editing my script, I decided that having fun was more important and I went on a vicious three-day bender. I spent most of my time talking to strangers in coffeeshops about almost every topic imaginable. I spent the rest of my time riding the trams all over Amsterdam and watching people go about their daily business. It was moments like that when I suddenly feel connected to everything on the planet. You know, when you visit a place for the first time, you see things that always existed, but you had no first hand knowledge that it existed. And when you leave that city, any city, life continues on without you.
Realizations like that make me feel so insignificant. Small. Almost nothingness. Humility.
The last couple of weeks (and really, over the last month), I have been blessed with a semblance of happiness. I worked extremely hard the last couple of years and made a ton of sacrifices along the way in order to get to the place I am right now... sitting on a pool of freedom to dictate almost 95% of my schedule. Sure, I had times in my three plus decades of living where I had complete control to do what I wished, but those times were hampered with financial difficulties (i.e. I was dead broke), so although I had the time to do anything, my freedom was restricted financially. Lucky for me, I have arrived at a time and place in my life where there are almost no restrictions.
The only obstacle in my way is the most hindering statement of all time...
What am I really doing with myself? And in the end, does it really matter?
I have no more excuses. I eliminated all of those and issued a challenge to myself. I don't have too much time to make my mark, or as we used to say on Wall Street, "We're burning daylight."
I was on my own path, and that path led me to Copenhagen for a holiday at a most unusual time filled with political cartoons, assassination plots, riots, religious fanaticism, and the inklings of freedom of speech. All of a sudden a poker tournament seemed utterly meaningless to the insanity that had spilled over into the streets of Copenhagen. And it all started with a simple cartoon.
If you're not familiar with Kurt Westergaard, then I'm gonna tell you. He's a political cartoonist that created a caricature of Mohamed. It was originally published in Jyllands-Posten (a Danish newspaper) in September of 2005. The image was a lit bomb growing out of Mohammed's turban.
Westerfaard and his newspaper quickly came under attack by Muslims. They thought it was blasphemous to print such an image. Many of them were provoked into participating in anti-Danish protests that erupted in different Muslim countries all over the world. The result? Extensive property damage and dozens of people were killed in the riots.
All from one cartoon.
I wasn't the brightest idea in the world to provoke religious fanatics. However, that's not as important as the notion of freedom of speech. Many of the older Danes recalled what it was like living under Nazi occupation during WWII and have their freedoms suppressed, particularly freedom of speech.
Almost two years after the original cartoon was published, three men were arrested of plotting the murder of Kurt Westergaard on February 12. PET, the Danish domestic intelligence service, arrested three men, two of whom were Tunisian nationals. They were deported on suspicion of endangering Danish national security.
In a gesture of solidarity, on February 13th, 17 daily Danish newspapers reprinted the controversial Mohamed cartoon when they discovered the news of the assassination plot against Westergaard. The editors felt it was their right to reassert freedom of speech.
The appearance of the cartoon sparked riots once again. The riots lasted over a week and spilled over into several Danish cities.
There had been an original incident in the Norrebro district in Copenhagen. More riots broke out in different immigrant neighborhoods in Copenhagen and in several Danish cities such as Arhus, Brabrand, Gellerup, Bellerup, and Bagsvaerd. Most of the rioting was done by youths aged 13-19. They burned cars, dumpsters, and school buildings.
Some of the youths said that the riots were less about Mohamed and more about police harassment. Danish police recently introduced a stop-and-search policy, where police are allowed to randomly search people for weapons. However, the mainstream media were quick to say that a large amount of rioters lashed out over the cartoons.
Muslim community leaders were quick to admonish the behavior of their youngest members. Their message was clear, "Mohamed did not teach you to burn schools, cars and public buildings. He taught you to behave in a civilised manner."
The Muslim leaders were also critical about the recent reprinting of the Mohamed cartoon. They felt that the move did more harm than good, since it provoked the recent binges of riots.
By the time I arrived in Copenhagen, the fires were out and most of the rioting had dulled down. Over 50 youths were arrested and the police appeared to have regained control.
As I dug deeper into the story, I tried to figure out the cause of the riots. Were they sparked by the cartoons like the majority of the media said? Or where they part of a protest of police harassment and racism against immigrants in Denmark? Or was it a lot of bored youths joining an angry mob as they set Copenhagen and other cities in Denmark ablaze every night for a week?
I was unable to get any answers during my short time in Copenhagen. Getting to the heart would take me months, maybe even a year. Maybe it's a worthy pursuit?
I originally flew to Copenhagen to hang out with friends, take advantage of my girlfriend's free hotel room, and dig up a story for my On the Road column in Bluff. In the end, I stumbled upon a different and more significant story, as poker became suddenly meaningless for me.
It's one thing if I lived in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and I wrote so nice things about the government or local religious leaders. I expected to have a fahtwah issued from a mullah that allows me to be killed under Islamic law. But Denmark, one of the more dour places in the bleakness of Scandinavia, the streets of Copenhagen were the last place I expected to be the flash point of a Holy War.
Deep down, I know that what happened in Copenhagen was just the beginning of a series of drastic events that will plunge all of us under a veil of darkness.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines
By Pauly
New York City
Since Wednesday, I played online poker while waiting for flights in two different airports... Bob Hope (Burbank) and McCarran (Las Vegas). Without fail, both of my flights were delayed and I lost almost two hours of my life that JetBlue will never give back to me. I played two airport SNGs on PokerStars. I bubbled in one and took second place in the other. At least I got something out of it.
I can't wait for the day where domestic flights in the US have internet service... and I can play online poker at cruising altitudes. I've also been patiently waiting for flying cars and true democracy in America. Sadly, I won't be alive to see either. But internet access on airplanes is something that exists... just not on the airlines that I fly the most.
I spent the weekend in New York City. Since the weather was blah, I hung out with my brother and played a slew of online poker. I did not play online that much in January. I spent a couple of days in Hollyweird to start February and took the opportunity to clear my bonus on Full Tilt. Just when I started to get back in the swing of online poker, I headed to Las Vegas for a week, and put the online games on hold.
Aside from Saturdays with Dr. Pauly, I have not played any tournaments, just a couple of SNGs to kill the time when I bored. I'm back to grinding it out at the 8/16 and 10/20 limit tables. ABC poker. Very boring. I'm like a bot. There's zero emotion in my game. I play a lot of raise or fold poker. I occasionally call when the situation dictates that's the most optimal move for me.
Flinging chips around every night in Las Vegas and calling waitresses "Sweetie" and trying to tilt locals reminded me about how much fun I used to have playing poker. You always forget about the love of the game when you focus on other aspects. A couple of years ago, I was mired in a losing streak, and lost all enthusiasm for the game. You really find out what type of person (and more importantly, what type of poker player) you really are when everything is going against you. And most recently, I have been consumed with my career in the poker industry. My passion for poker vanishes from time to time. Some days it disappears and does not reappear for weeks and months at a time.
Now that I have taken a step away from the poker scene, I have been able to enjoy poker as a spectator and player. It also helps that I've been winning.
When you win, poker seems so simple. And it's the simple things that are the hardest to explain.
And of course winning poker has a tinge of luck behind it. In order to post a winning session, your big hands have to hold up, you have to come from behind a beat a superior hand, you have to make your draws, your opponents have to miss their draws, your opponents have to make mistakes, and you have to minimize your mistakes. So many different situations make up any given session, and on the days you're a big winner it seems that everything falls on your side of the fence.
Then there are those dark and dismal days when you can't win a race, you can't hit a draw to save your life, and all of your big pairs get smoked like a cheap bag of ditch weed. That's when desperation sinks in and tilt circles your soul like hungry vultures waiting for the rest of your integrity to kick the bucket, so they can swoop in and feast on your dwindling bankroll. The lost ones are seeking a miracle... for the light to break where no sun shines.
I made a decision in early 2006 that affected my poker bankroll. I decided to stop playing tournaments and NL cash games. I focused on grinding it out at Limit hold'em. It was a tough decision to make and it was even tougher to admit that I had a big leak. By focusing on limit (and some PLO cash games to quell my inner action junkie), I managed to heal a bankroll that was in trouble. I had a good nine months on Party Poker, before they pulled the plug and left American soil.
Towards the end of 2007, I played a lot of live NL cash games. It felt weird for me to play 1/2 NL after consistently playing 15/30 limit. I also took a shots at 30/60 and even 50/100, so sitting down with just $200 took a bit to adjust to. I wanted to make sure I had re familiarized myself with playing low-limit NL. Once I was comfortable, I moved up to 2/5 NL. My goal is to play higher NL stakes this summer during the WSOP.
However, I feel that switching back and forth between limit and NL has been beneficial for my game. Limit for me is automatic. I'm constantly on auto-pilot and I'm playing my cards and the percentages. In NL, I'm relying more upon my instincts and my ability to read people at the tables. After covering the best players in the world for almost three straight years, I have picked up a lot about body language. What I also realized was the astute ability from pros to disguising tells.
After playing 1/2 or 2/5 NL against sloshed tourists in Las Vegas, I had forgotten about that extra edge you can gain by processing body language. Tourists have no idea on how to mask their tells or give off reverse tells. I made a lot of plays and calls in Las Vegas that I normally wouldn't make... but the majority of the time, it seemed so obvious when a player had a hand or didn't have a hand. If they showed weakness, I swiftly attacked. If they indicated strength or deception, I proceeded with caution.
The one thing I liked about NL was the ability to wait for a big hand, double up, then walk away. In limit, I'd have to grind it out for a couple of hours to get a score like that. For me the difference between limit and NL was risk assessment. Do I want to risk a little bit of my bankroll and get back a small amount, or rather I put more of it on the line at any given time... with potential of a big loss or a huge gain.
In early 2006, I was not confident in my game. I made too many mistakes at the NL tables. I played too aggressive and I tried to run over everyone on every single hand. I lacked patience and discipline. I switched to NL in order to focus on ABC poker. I grinded my way out of a losing streak and managed to boost my bankroll. Small weekly wins added up and I finally got my bankroll to a healthy amount, even though I got creamed playing 10/20 limit on PokerStars in 2007.
I'm a good player, but the reason I've done well playing NL cash games most recently has been my ability to contain my (many) mistakes and take advantage of the numerous mistakes from my opponents. Most of the time, I walk away a winner not because I played magnificently... rather, because my opponents played so bad that they spewed away their stacks. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Timing. Luck. Karma. Math. Instinct. Mental stability.
You need to master four or five of those six things. You are born with instinct. You can learn math and work on positive metal health. You make your own karma. And depending on who you talk too, some people have a predisposition for good luck or bad luck. Some people believe that they make their own luck.
I'm a firm believer in karma. You get back what you give off and more importantly you affect others with the type of energy you radiate onto the world. Karma is not something that can be calculated in Poker Tracker, and it extends to more important things beyond the poker table. Bottom line... those people who have their shit together and do not lug around hefty amounts of emotional baggage will have a more pleasant time at the tables.
Your emotional weaknesses in life will eventually be exposed at the poker tables. I see it happen all the time. Like so many things in life, such as business and relationships, you need to improve your personality flaws and focus on your assets. When you don't take your personal problems into work, dating, or to the poker tables... you will quickly discover that things run more smoothly instead of slowing things down... which usually happens.
So the next time you're caught in a rut at the tables... it might not be your opponents, or the poker site (or poker room) you're playing at, or the cards you are getting. Most likely, the biggest problem is... yourself.., and your reluctance to take account for your own actions. Time to step back. Reassess everything. Then make better decisions.
Self-knowledge is one of the most necessary steps towards self-fulfillment. The most important thing a human being needs to know... is him or herself. Once you figure out who you are, everything else in life becomes easier to understand. We often admire and replicate our lives based on what other successful people do. As many Eastern philosophers have stated, "The lock to the door of ego or self-consciousness, which separates us from our natural, spontaneous and true selves, cannot be opened by any other key than self-knowledge. There is no master key."
Basically, if you use someone else's way to play poker or to lose weight or to seek enlightenment, then you are setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment. The Hindus called that maya which means a false image. You are confusing yourself with a false image. And the result? A unsatisfying life caught up an illusion of dualism. That's the worst pursuit of all... trying to find enlightenment in a way that's not your own. The result is often an empty soul.
Bruce Lee explained this concept best in an essay he wrote in 1973 called "In My Own Process." Here's an excerpt...
In case you were wondering, this post was a regurgitated homage to several authors/philosophers/poets that I recently read including Alan Watts, Bruce Lee, Dylan Thomas, Betrand Russell, and Sun Tzu.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
New York City
Since Wednesday, I played online poker while waiting for flights in two different airports... Bob Hope (Burbank) and McCarran (Las Vegas). Without fail, both of my flights were delayed and I lost almost two hours of my life that JetBlue will never give back to me. I played two airport SNGs on PokerStars. I bubbled in one and took second place in the other. At least I got something out of it.
I can't wait for the day where domestic flights in the US have internet service... and I can play online poker at cruising altitudes. I've also been patiently waiting for flying cars and true democracy in America. Sadly, I won't be alive to see either. But internet access on airplanes is something that exists... just not on the airlines that I fly the most.I spent the weekend in New York City. Since the weather was blah, I hung out with my brother and played a slew of online poker. I did not play online that much in January. I spent a couple of days in Hollyweird to start February and took the opportunity to clear my bonus on Full Tilt. Just when I started to get back in the swing of online poker, I headed to Las Vegas for a week, and put the online games on hold.
Aside from Saturdays with Dr. Pauly, I have not played any tournaments, just a couple of SNGs to kill the time when I bored. I'm back to grinding it out at the 8/16 and 10/20 limit tables. ABC poker. Very boring. I'm like a bot. There's zero emotion in my game. I play a lot of raise or fold poker. I occasionally call when the situation dictates that's the most optimal move for me.
Flinging chips around every night in Las Vegas and calling waitresses "Sweetie" and trying to tilt locals reminded me about how much fun I used to have playing poker. You always forget about the love of the game when you focus on other aspects. A couple of years ago, I was mired in a losing streak, and lost all enthusiasm for the game. You really find out what type of person (and more importantly, what type of poker player) you really are when everything is going against you. And most recently, I have been consumed with my career in the poker industry. My passion for poker vanishes from time to time. Some days it disappears and does not reappear for weeks and months at a time.
Now that I have taken a step away from the poker scene, I have been able to enjoy poker as a spectator and player. It also helps that I've been winning.
When you win, poker seems so simple. And it's the simple things that are the hardest to explain.
And of course winning poker has a tinge of luck behind it. In order to post a winning session, your big hands have to hold up, you have to come from behind a beat a superior hand, you have to make your draws, your opponents have to miss their draws, your opponents have to make mistakes, and you have to minimize your mistakes. So many different situations make up any given session, and on the days you're a big winner it seems that everything falls on your side of the fence.
Then there are those dark and dismal days when you can't win a race, you can't hit a draw to save your life, and all of your big pairs get smoked like a cheap bag of ditch weed. That's when desperation sinks in and tilt circles your soul like hungry vultures waiting for the rest of your integrity to kick the bucket, so they can swoop in and feast on your dwindling bankroll. The lost ones are seeking a miracle... for the light to break where no sun shines.
I made a decision in early 2006 that affected my poker bankroll. I decided to stop playing tournaments and NL cash games. I focused on grinding it out at Limit hold'em. It was a tough decision to make and it was even tougher to admit that I had a big leak. By focusing on limit (and some PLO cash games to quell my inner action junkie), I managed to heal a bankroll that was in trouble. I had a good nine months on Party Poker, before they pulled the plug and left American soil.
Towards the end of 2007, I played a lot of live NL cash games. It felt weird for me to play 1/2 NL after consistently playing 15/30 limit. I also took a shots at 30/60 and even 50/100, so sitting down with just $200 took a bit to adjust to. I wanted to make sure I had re familiarized myself with playing low-limit NL. Once I was comfortable, I moved up to 2/5 NL. My goal is to play higher NL stakes this summer during the WSOP.
However, I feel that switching back and forth between limit and NL has been beneficial for my game. Limit for me is automatic. I'm constantly on auto-pilot and I'm playing my cards and the percentages. In NL, I'm relying more upon my instincts and my ability to read people at the tables. After covering the best players in the world for almost three straight years, I have picked up a lot about body language. What I also realized was the astute ability from pros to disguising tells.
After playing 1/2 or 2/5 NL against sloshed tourists in Las Vegas, I had forgotten about that extra edge you can gain by processing body language. Tourists have no idea on how to mask their tells or give off reverse tells. I made a lot of plays and calls in Las Vegas that I normally wouldn't make... but the majority of the time, it seemed so obvious when a player had a hand or didn't have a hand. If they showed weakness, I swiftly attacked. If they indicated strength or deception, I proceeded with caution.
The one thing I liked about NL was the ability to wait for a big hand, double up, then walk away. In limit, I'd have to grind it out for a couple of hours to get a score like that. For me the difference between limit and NL was risk assessment. Do I want to risk a little bit of my bankroll and get back a small amount, or rather I put more of it on the line at any given time... with potential of a big loss or a huge gain.
In early 2006, I was not confident in my game. I made too many mistakes at the NL tables. I played too aggressive and I tried to run over everyone on every single hand. I lacked patience and discipline. I switched to NL in order to focus on ABC poker. I grinded my way out of a losing streak and managed to boost my bankroll. Small weekly wins added up and I finally got my bankroll to a healthy amount, even though I got creamed playing 10/20 limit on PokerStars in 2007.
I'm a good player, but the reason I've done well playing NL cash games most recently has been my ability to contain my (many) mistakes and take advantage of the numerous mistakes from my opponents. Most of the time, I walk away a winner not because I played magnificently... rather, because my opponents played so bad that they spewed away their stacks. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Timing. Luck. Karma. Math. Instinct. Mental stability.
You need to master four or five of those six things. You are born with instinct. You can learn math and work on positive metal health. You make your own karma. And depending on who you talk too, some people have a predisposition for good luck or bad luck. Some people believe that they make their own luck.
I'm a firm believer in karma. You get back what you give off and more importantly you affect others with the type of energy you radiate onto the world. Karma is not something that can be calculated in Poker Tracker, and it extends to more important things beyond the poker table. Bottom line... those people who have their shit together and do not lug around hefty amounts of emotional baggage will have a more pleasant time at the tables.
Your emotional weaknesses in life will eventually be exposed at the poker tables. I see it happen all the time. Like so many things in life, such as business and relationships, you need to improve your personality flaws and focus on your assets. When you don't take your personal problems into work, dating, or to the poker tables... you will quickly discover that things run more smoothly instead of slowing things down... which usually happens.
So the next time you're caught in a rut at the tables... it might not be your opponents, or the poker site (or poker room) you're playing at, or the cards you are getting. Most likely, the biggest problem is... yourself.., and your reluctance to take account for your own actions. Time to step back. Reassess everything. Then make better decisions.
Self-knowledge is one of the most necessary steps towards self-fulfillment. The most important thing a human being needs to know... is him or herself. Once you figure out who you are, everything else in life becomes easier to understand. We often admire and replicate our lives based on what other successful people do. As many Eastern philosophers have stated, "The lock to the door of ego or self-consciousness, which separates us from our natural, spontaneous and true selves, cannot be opened by any other key than self-knowledge. There is no master key."
Basically, if you use someone else's way to play poker or to lose weight or to seek enlightenment, then you are setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment. The Hindus called that maya which means a false image. You are confusing yourself with a false image. And the result? A unsatisfying life caught up an illusion of dualism. That's the worst pursuit of all... trying to find enlightenment in a way that's not your own. The result is often an empty soul.
Bruce Lee explained this concept best in an essay he wrote in 1973 called "In My Own Process." Here's an excerpt...
Most people only live for their image. That is why where some have a self, a starting point, most people have a void. Because they are so busy projecting themselves as "this" or "that," they end up wasting and dissipating all their energy in projection and conjuring up the facade, rather than centering their energy and expanding and broadening their potential or expressing and relaying this unified energy for efficient communication. When another human being sees a self-actualizing person walk past, he cannot help but say: "Hey now, there is someone real!"Basically Lee said that you are headed in the wrong direction if you substituted the ways and beliefs of others in place of cultivating your own. It's your life. Your journey. Time to start following your game plan.
In case you were wondering, this post was a regurgitated homage to several authors/philosophers/poets that I recently read including Alan Watts, Bruce Lee, Dylan Thomas, Betrand Russell, and Sun Tzu.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Art and Masturbation
By Pauly
Melbourne, Australia
Much like 2007, I begin the new year hung over down under while on assignment covering the Aussie Millions for Poker News. If you were to ask me about my game plan for 2007... exactly one year ago... what I wanted to achieve and accomplish didn't exactly match up to what really happened. Life is funny like that. You can make plans and goals and commence on a journey with an intended destination, yet you always seem to get blown off course. Like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you are busy making plans."
Sweden is the perfect example. A year ago, if you said that I'd go to Sweden in August and end up working for a Swedish client (and getting paid in the almighty Euro after the US Dollar sunk to the equivalent of a third world currency and got smoked like a bag of cheap ditch weed), I would have told you that you were fuckin' nuts. That was not in my plans for 2007. It wasn't even on the radar, yet that's exactly happened.
So if you told me right now, that by the end of the summer Tony G and I will open up three fast food chicken franchises in Moscow, I might believe you since that's the last thing I have on my list of things to do in 2008.
The last decade or so of my life has been filled with a lot of reactionary living. I have been reacting to the atmosphere around me and making decisions on the fly and adjusting accordingly. Five years ago in a galaxy far far away, I wore a dark Brooks Brothers suit with freshly shined shoes as I reluctantly rode the downtown subway to Wall Street six days a week. I was a miserable 30-year old barely holding onto the last threads of humanity. When I prayed, I used to pray to God to send a deranged homeless man to shove me onto the train tracks, so I would die because I was so fuckin' depressed and caught up in a rueful rut, yet too chicken-shit to kill myself because suicide is a very un-Catholic thing to do. Like the majority of the herd, I was too confused and scared to make the necessary changes in my life which would put me onto a path of self-fulfillment and happiness. However, when I left Wall Street behind in the Spring of 2003 (for the second time in less than a decade), I had no idea what would happen to me but deep inside I felt alive for the first time since before 9.11. I embraced the unknown, because I was content on choosing an artistic life of constant struggle than a safer and more comfortable path.
Some days, I reflect upon a decade ago when I was in my mid-20s and living on the fringe of society in Seattle. I was flat broke and worked four jobs just to pay rent and have enough herb for my pipe and enough beer for my belly. I achieved a semblance of happiness then even though I wasn't living what my family considered a productive and fruitful life. Alas, my thoughts often drift to those foggy days. I'm confident that they were 100% necessary because I never would have gotten to where I am today, if I didn't migrate to the West Coast and live among the hippies and embark upon the necessary steps to find my voice as a writer. In Seattle, I was exposed to alternative artistic pursuits and immersed myself in books, films, music, and philosophy that I never would have pursued if I continued to live with the hipsters in Brooklyn.
It's weird how I'm constantly looking back at my life around a decade ago. I can't explain it, but for some reason I have been writing a lot about my time living in Seattle or being on the road at the end of the 1990s following Phish all over North America. I guess that something clicked in my head and there's a flashlight scouring the darkest corners of my mind where those memories have been tucked away. I can finally understand what was going on with me then... which at the time which I couldn't comprehend. It's a perfect example of what Kierkegaard said that... "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
In short, it's easier for me to write about stuff that happened ten years ago than it is for me to write about stuff ten days ago. I guess that's why I think I won't write a great book about the poker scene or Las Vegas until 2015... if I make it that far. By then I'll have a decade of life in between me and my first leap into the poker world. I'll be a little older and wiser then, and a more concise writer. Someday, I'll write that book although I dunno if I or anyone else can wait seven years for that to happen. Who knows if poker will fade away or be more popular than ever? I can't even tell you what poker will be like in America six months from now, let alone six years.
Like I stated earlier, I have ideas and goals for 2008, but I also know at this point that my hopes and expectations often dissolve into thin air. Fate often throws you a curveball when you least expect it. You actually have no control over how things transpire, and the illusion of control is one of the most dangerous things I have encountered in my short life.
It's important to have an intended destination in life and it's even more important to have the flexibility and patience in getting there. But the most vital aspect to living, is to allow yourself to leap into the unknown, because that's where the biggest mysteries of life are hidden.
There were days, weeks, and months in 2007 when I had almost every minute of my life mapped out, and then there were weeks where I refused to commit to anything and I lived life without any direction and boundaries. I seemed to have the most fun during my blocks of unstructured and unfettered time because my writing flourishes while the creative juices intoxicate and inspire me. What I'm really trying to say is that I thrive on chaos, while structure makes me despondent.
2007 was a banner year despite the ups and downs. My closest friends knew about the private struggles with accepting the mood swings that accompany a grumpy artist, or battling with addiction (pick any four), or overcoming multiple health issues which may or may have not been triggered by my addictions or the intense travel and unhealthy work schedule (like getting 15 hours of sleep per week during the WSOP). I would often say things to my friends like, "I'm burnt out and I'm so sick of poker."
Like the Kurgan mentioned in the Highlander movie, "It's better burn out, than to fade away!"
After a long and intense three years covering the poker scene, I am more than burnt out. The novelty of spanning the globe has worn out and I waste weeks of my life standing in airport security lines or waiting for another delayed flight or finding myself getting issued another bad beat by JetBlue when I get seated next to another crying baby on my flight from JFK to Burbank. I have been living the majority of the last 1,000 days of my life in hotels and hate having to worry if a horde of illegal immigrant maids with sticky fingers will steal my iPod or a wad of $100 bills that I have hidden somewhere in the room. Or worse, a maid will burst into my hotel room at 8am (even though I have the "Do Not Disturb" sign in full view) just so she can refold my toilet paper into that nifty little triangle.
My worst fears have become a reality. My immersion into poker is no longer cool and exciting. It has become a job instead of a lifestyle choice, and by definition, all jobs suck.
I knew it was a problem when I found myself being evasive when strangers ask, "What do you write about?"
I hate saying "poker" because it gets such an unusual reaction and then people (not in the industry) start asking me a million and one questions, or want to discuss poker strategy, or worse... they tell me a bad beat story. Poker is my job. It's not something I actively seek to discuss while bumping into old friends on cold street corners in New York City. That's why I respond, "I write freelance for a bunch of magazines and websites. Boring stuff. So how are your kids?"
It's time for a break. That's why I'm taking off several months in between the Aussie Millions and the 2008 WSOP. I had taken off the final two months of 2007 to write and relax, so in essence, I'm on the cusp of a hiatus where I would have only worked a 15 day assignment over a stretch of seven months. I figured that by the time I arrive at the 2008 WSOP, I will be refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to cover my fourth WSOP in a row. That time off will allow me to be in much better head space and I'll finally have that time to improve as a writer and hone my craft and then if I decide to choose to return to covering poker tournaments, I can easily do another year or so. I want to be prepared to be able to handle a couple of more years on the road... and I can't do that without taking some time off right now.
Of course, I have no idea what will happen in 2008. Opening up that chicken shack in Moscow with Tony G sounds pretty enticing the more that I think about it. But if I had any advice to give you... it's this... enjoy the Tao of Poker while you can. It might not be here in 2009.
Maybe I should walk away from poker right now? Cash out. Sell the Tao. I have a big stack in life thanks to my tremendous good luck in poker. I should quit while I'm ahead and use the money I earned to fund my personal projects. I have seen poker's ugly side and many of my friends have gotten their collective asses kicked by poker. They have left empty-handed.
Maybe I should just quit after the 2008 WSOP?
At the end of the 2008 WSOP, I'll make that tough decision. If I choose to walk away from poker entirely, well then that's what's going to happen.
I'm at a crossroads. I have grown bored with poker when there's so much other interesting and compelling stuff going on in the world right now. I could take an assignment to cover the Olympics in Beijing, or hit the campaign trail and follow the leading candidates on their run for the White House, or I could venture into one of the world's hot zones and become a combat correspondent, or most likely, I'll head for the plastic hills of Hollyweird and churn out mindless static for the motion picture industry (once the writer's strike is over).
As much as poker has given me more financial freedom (i.e. I'm out of debt), I have also found it suffocating me artistically. I have all these gestating ideas and my inability to follow through on them due to time or work constraints has been extremely frustrating to endure.
I have a personal writing project that I started in November. I'd like to finish that in the months leading up to the WSOP. That would require me to spend a lot more time in Hollyweird working out logistics and research. It also means more time in NYC because I seem to write my best stuff there. If I gave myself four months to write and create and have huge chunk of unstructured time, I know that I'll achieve a semblance of happiness that had been missing from my life in 2007. Sure, I made more money than I could have ever dreamed of in 2007, but money is not important to me. If it was, I'd still be the monkey with the grinder getting irrelevant chip counts on another young internet multi-accounting hot shot that will be broke in six months time.
As much as it's important for me to write, I also want to devote more time to the amazing people in my life. I have neglected a lot of older friendships and it is important to me to reconnect with a lot of people in my life that I respect and admire.
I also have a slew of other side projects like LasVegasVegas and Fantasy Sports Live. I'd like to get more involved in those sites and continue on with my other blogs like Tao of Pauly, Truckin', and my music blog. And you should keep your eye out on those sites over the next twelve months.
By eliminating the grueling travel schedule and scaling back on my freelance work (aside from my columns in Bluff and Poker Player Newspaper, but I can handle a mere three deadlines a month) and focusing more on living than working, I will have more time for my personal projects. I can finally rest up and get healthy and find more time to write on my blogs and sites, which means more stuff for you to read to distract and entertain you.
I guess to sum up...
I'm taking time off (around four months) after the Aussie Millions to regain control of my life. I'm back to my old self where I'm living life on my terms and ignoring what the brainwashed masses think. I have no idea if I can pull it off, but I'm gonna do my best to write a screenplay, travel for myself (like a trip to New Zealand with Change100 at the end of the month), listen to more live music, spend time with new friends and reconnect with old friends. I also have a pile a books that I want to read and I'll be constantly thinking about Johnny Hughes' advice about having just one girl, one drug, and one gambling vice.
In Stardust Memories, a 1980 film by Woody Allen, there's a quote from a character named Sandy Bates played by Allen. It goes something like, "You can't control life. It doesn't wind up perfectly. Only art you can control. Art and masturbation. Two areas in which I am an absolute expert."
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Melbourne, Australia
Much like 2007, I begin the new year hung over down under while on assignment covering the Aussie Millions for Poker News. If you were to ask me about my game plan for 2007... exactly one year ago... what I wanted to achieve and accomplish didn't exactly match up to what really happened. Life is funny like that. You can make plans and goals and commence on a journey with an intended destination, yet you always seem to get blown off course. Like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you are busy making plans."
Sweden is the perfect example. A year ago, if you said that I'd go to Sweden in August and end up working for a Swedish client (and getting paid in the almighty Euro after the US Dollar sunk to the equivalent of a third world currency and got smoked like a bag of cheap ditch weed), I would have told you that you were fuckin' nuts. That was not in my plans for 2007. It wasn't even on the radar, yet that's exactly happened.
So if you told me right now, that by the end of the summer Tony G and I will open up three fast food chicken franchises in Moscow, I might believe you since that's the last thing I have on my list of things to do in 2008.
The last decade or so of my life has been filled with a lot of reactionary living. I have been reacting to the atmosphere around me and making decisions on the fly and adjusting accordingly. Five years ago in a galaxy far far away, I wore a dark Brooks Brothers suit with freshly shined shoes as I reluctantly rode the downtown subway to Wall Street six days a week. I was a miserable 30-year old barely holding onto the last threads of humanity. When I prayed, I used to pray to God to send a deranged homeless man to shove me onto the train tracks, so I would die because I was so fuckin' depressed and caught up in a rueful rut, yet too chicken-shit to kill myself because suicide is a very un-Catholic thing to do. Like the majority of the herd, I was too confused and scared to make the necessary changes in my life which would put me onto a path of self-fulfillment and happiness. However, when I left Wall Street behind in the Spring of 2003 (for the second time in less than a decade), I had no idea what would happen to me but deep inside I felt alive for the first time since before 9.11. I embraced the unknown, because I was content on choosing an artistic life of constant struggle than a safer and more comfortable path.
Some days, I reflect upon a decade ago when I was in my mid-20s and living on the fringe of society in Seattle. I was flat broke and worked four jobs just to pay rent and have enough herb for my pipe and enough beer for my belly. I achieved a semblance of happiness then even though I wasn't living what my family considered a productive and fruitful life. Alas, my thoughts often drift to those foggy days. I'm confident that they were 100% necessary because I never would have gotten to where I am today, if I didn't migrate to the West Coast and live among the hippies and embark upon the necessary steps to find my voice as a writer. In Seattle, I was exposed to alternative artistic pursuits and immersed myself in books, films, music, and philosophy that I never would have pursued if I continued to live with the hipsters in Brooklyn.
It's weird how I'm constantly looking back at my life around a decade ago. I can't explain it, but for some reason I have been writing a lot about my time living in Seattle or being on the road at the end of the 1990s following Phish all over North America. I guess that something clicked in my head and there's a flashlight scouring the darkest corners of my mind where those memories have been tucked away. I can finally understand what was going on with me then... which at the time which I couldn't comprehend. It's a perfect example of what Kierkegaard said that... "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
In short, it's easier for me to write about stuff that happened ten years ago than it is for me to write about stuff ten days ago. I guess that's why I think I won't write a great book about the poker scene or Las Vegas until 2015... if I make it that far. By then I'll have a decade of life in between me and my first leap into the poker world. I'll be a little older and wiser then, and a more concise writer. Someday, I'll write that book although I dunno if I or anyone else can wait seven years for that to happen. Who knows if poker will fade away or be more popular than ever? I can't even tell you what poker will be like in America six months from now, let alone six years.
Like I stated earlier, I have ideas and goals for 2008, but I also know at this point that my hopes and expectations often dissolve into thin air. Fate often throws you a curveball when you least expect it. You actually have no control over how things transpire, and the illusion of control is one of the most dangerous things I have encountered in my short life.
It's important to have an intended destination in life and it's even more important to have the flexibility and patience in getting there. But the most vital aspect to living, is to allow yourself to leap into the unknown, because that's where the biggest mysteries of life are hidden.
There were days, weeks, and months in 2007 when I had almost every minute of my life mapped out, and then there were weeks where I refused to commit to anything and I lived life without any direction and boundaries. I seemed to have the most fun during my blocks of unstructured and unfettered time because my writing flourishes while the creative juices intoxicate and inspire me. What I'm really trying to say is that I thrive on chaos, while structure makes me despondent.
2007 was a banner year despite the ups and downs. My closest friends knew about the private struggles with accepting the mood swings that accompany a grumpy artist, or battling with addiction (pick any four), or overcoming multiple health issues which may or may have not been triggered by my addictions or the intense travel and unhealthy work schedule (like getting 15 hours of sleep per week during the WSOP). I would often say things to my friends like, "I'm burnt out and I'm so sick of poker."
Like the Kurgan mentioned in the Highlander movie, "It's better burn out, than to fade away!"
After a long and intense three years covering the poker scene, I am more than burnt out. The novelty of spanning the globe has worn out and I waste weeks of my life standing in airport security lines or waiting for another delayed flight or finding myself getting issued another bad beat by JetBlue when I get seated next to another crying baby on my flight from JFK to Burbank. I have been living the majority of the last 1,000 days of my life in hotels and hate having to worry if a horde of illegal immigrant maids with sticky fingers will steal my iPod or a wad of $100 bills that I have hidden somewhere in the room. Or worse, a maid will burst into my hotel room at 8am (even though I have the "Do Not Disturb" sign in full view) just so she can refold my toilet paper into that nifty little triangle.
My worst fears have become a reality. My immersion into poker is no longer cool and exciting. It has become a job instead of a lifestyle choice, and by definition, all jobs suck.
I knew it was a problem when I found myself being evasive when strangers ask, "What do you write about?"
I hate saying "poker" because it gets such an unusual reaction and then people (not in the industry) start asking me a million and one questions, or want to discuss poker strategy, or worse... they tell me a bad beat story. Poker is my job. It's not something I actively seek to discuss while bumping into old friends on cold street corners in New York City. That's why I respond, "I write freelance for a bunch of magazines and websites. Boring stuff. So how are your kids?"
It's time for a break. That's why I'm taking off several months in between the Aussie Millions and the 2008 WSOP. I had taken off the final two months of 2007 to write and relax, so in essence, I'm on the cusp of a hiatus where I would have only worked a 15 day assignment over a stretch of seven months. I figured that by the time I arrive at the 2008 WSOP, I will be refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to cover my fourth WSOP in a row. That time off will allow me to be in much better head space and I'll finally have that time to improve as a writer and hone my craft and then if I decide to choose to return to covering poker tournaments, I can easily do another year or so. I want to be prepared to be able to handle a couple of more years on the road... and I can't do that without taking some time off right now.
Of course, I have no idea what will happen in 2008. Opening up that chicken shack in Moscow with Tony G sounds pretty enticing the more that I think about it. But if I had any advice to give you... it's this... enjoy the Tao of Poker while you can. It might not be here in 2009.
Maybe I should walk away from poker right now? Cash out. Sell the Tao. I have a big stack in life thanks to my tremendous good luck in poker. I should quit while I'm ahead and use the money I earned to fund my personal projects. I have seen poker's ugly side and many of my friends have gotten their collective asses kicked by poker. They have left empty-handed.
Maybe I should just quit after the 2008 WSOP?
At the end of the 2008 WSOP, I'll make that tough decision. If I choose to walk away from poker entirely, well then that's what's going to happen.
I'm at a crossroads. I have grown bored with poker when there's so much other interesting and compelling stuff going on in the world right now. I could take an assignment to cover the Olympics in Beijing, or hit the campaign trail and follow the leading candidates on their run for the White House, or I could venture into one of the world's hot zones and become a combat correspondent, or most likely, I'll head for the plastic hills of Hollyweird and churn out mindless static for the motion picture industry (once the writer's strike is over).
As much as poker has given me more financial freedom (i.e. I'm out of debt), I have also found it suffocating me artistically. I have all these gestating ideas and my inability to follow through on them due to time or work constraints has been extremely frustrating to endure.
I have a personal writing project that I started in November. I'd like to finish that in the months leading up to the WSOP. That would require me to spend a lot more time in Hollyweird working out logistics and research. It also means more time in NYC because I seem to write my best stuff there. If I gave myself four months to write and create and have huge chunk of unstructured time, I know that I'll achieve a semblance of happiness that had been missing from my life in 2007. Sure, I made more money than I could have ever dreamed of in 2007, but money is not important to me. If it was, I'd still be the monkey with the grinder getting irrelevant chip counts on another young internet multi-accounting hot shot that will be broke in six months time.
As much as it's important for me to write, I also want to devote more time to the amazing people in my life. I have neglected a lot of older friendships and it is important to me to reconnect with a lot of people in my life that I respect and admire.
I also have a slew of other side projects like LasVegasVegas and Fantasy Sports Live. I'd like to get more involved in those sites and continue on with my other blogs like Tao of Pauly, Truckin', and my music blog. And you should keep your eye out on those sites over the next twelve months.
By eliminating the grueling travel schedule and scaling back on my freelance work (aside from my columns in Bluff and Poker Player Newspaper, but I can handle a mere three deadlines a month) and focusing more on living than working, I will have more time for my personal projects. I can finally rest up and get healthy and find more time to write on my blogs and sites, which means more stuff for you to read to distract and entertain you.
I guess to sum up...
I'm taking time off (around four months) after the Aussie Millions to regain control of my life. I'm back to my old self where I'm living life on my terms and ignoring what the brainwashed masses think. I have no idea if I can pull it off, but I'm gonna do my best to write a screenplay, travel for myself (like a trip to New Zealand with Change100 at the end of the month), listen to more live music, spend time with new friends and reconnect with old friends. I also have a pile a books that I want to read and I'll be constantly thinking about Johnny Hughes' advice about having just one girl, one drug, and one gambling vice.
In Stardust Memories, a 1980 film by Woody Allen, there's a quote from a character named Sandy Bates played by Allen. It goes something like, "You can't control life. It doesn't wind up perfectly. Only art you can control. Art and masturbation. Two areas in which I am an absolute expert."
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
2007 WSOP Epilogue: A Leap of Faith
By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV
Courtesy of Flipchip
When I visited Australia earlier in the year, for the first time since the UIGEA rippled through the American poker scene, I saw a glimmer of hope for the future of poker. The entire poker room (aptly called the Las Vegas Room) at the Crown Casino in Melbourne was packed with players. They were not just Australians and Kiwis but plenty of players from surrounding Asian-Pacific countries. That's when I knew that poker took a big hit in America, but overseas they were on a cusp of a poker gold rush.
When I flew out to Monte Carlo to cover the European Poker Tour Grand Finale I was more than impressed with the set up. Their media room was five times the size of the one at the Rio for less media reps. The participation numbers had been way up across the board during the third season of the EPT. And even when France cock-blocked one of their events, two other countries stepped up and wanted to add stops on the EPT.
Poker had also been popular in the UK, Ireland, and France for a few decades and over the last few years it has been rapidly sweeping through parts of Europe such as Germany, Italy, Russia, and the various Scandinavian countries like a viral phenomena. Depending on who you talk to, the Swedes will boast that per capita, they are the best poker players in the world. The Fins, Danes, and Norwegians will tell you otherwise. Right now in Norway, there are 16-year olds with bankrolls approaching seven figures. Not only are they're routinely crushing the competition, but after they felt you a couple of times in ring games, they cash out. They're not hitting and running or ratholing your money. They simply have to go to sleep and wake up to go to school the next day. What happens when they turn 21 and come to Las Vegas for the first time?
When it came to betting on main event players, I leaned towards the Scandis. Over the last few years, a Swedish player went deep at the WSOP. I expected unknown Scandi wearing capri pants and $600 designer sunglasses would amass a monster stack late in the tournament. That ended up being Philip Hilm from Denmark. I wasn't the only one thought Hilm had a great shot at winning the WSOP main event. Oddsmakers had him the favorite on their board. He had all the chips at the time and his playing style was difficult to adjust to. The reputations that Scandis have are that they are wild, erratic, constantly switching gears, and unable to read. They love playing big pots and will shove all in on any street and at any moment. However, what makes Hilm such a tough competitor also ended up being his down fall. He's the type of player would would see a flop with 8d-5d out of position after a player raised in front of him. And he's also the type of player who would try to semi-bluff his opponent off a pot with bottom pair and a weak flush draw.
Hilm did just that on the 15th hand of the final table. Instead of persuading Jerry Yang to lay down TPTK with A-K, Yang called. And just like that, the young gun from Denmark was standing off to the side and conducting an interview with ESPN, while Yang slowly stacked up all of his chips. The Hilm elimination would end up being an indication of things to come. Hilm would be one of seven players that Yang would knock out on his way towards the 2007 WSOP championship.
The first 60 hands went by faster than anyone imagined. A wave of giddiness swept everyone in media row. They wanted to go home. Badly. The space in front of the media room became a refuge for luggage. The European press was set to catch cabs to the airport and fly home as soon as the last hand was dealt. Plenty of other friends were dying to escape the Rio after seven weeks of insanity. Otis had that look in his eye that he was wrought with anguish. His hearts and mind was with his family back in G-Vegas, but his physical being was shuffling around the Rio, like a dead man walking back and forth from the ESPN stage back to the media room.
Everyone secretly wished for a fast final table. I also do in whatever event that I cover. I accept the fact that it will go late and often will take the over when anyone sets a line on ending time. It's win-win for me. If the table ends early, I win and get to go home. If the event runs late, at least I get monetary compensation for my troubles. Unlike a football game or timed sporting event, poker can be over super quick or become a marathon session like Chip Reese and Andy Bloch's heads up battle at the $50K HORSE event in 2006.
However, I knew history was a good indicator that I should not get my hopes up too high. The last two main events last anywhere from 13 to 14 hours. When BJ set the line at 3am, I quickly took the over. I figured it would go to about 3 or 4am. Phil Gordon had set the line at 5:32am (or something like that). Nolan Dalla wanted action. I heard that the amount of the wager was anywhere from $500 to $5,000. Gordon knew the event would go late, but he set his line a couple of hours too long. The final hand was actually completed around 3:46am.
With just four players remaining it appeared that everyone might get done by Midnight. My veteran experiences knew better. It's not the how fast the first five go... it's how fast that the last five go which matters.
Yang busted the most well-known pro at the table in Lee Watkinson on Hand #21. Yang was ahead on that hand and his better Ace held up. On Hand #28, Yang sent Lee Childs to the rail. Yang was trailing on that hand, but got caught up in the battle of the blinds with Childs. Alas, Childs was ahead until the turn when Yang spiked an 8. Childs could not improve and he was the third player to be busted by Yang.
Rain Khan was very quiet at the final table. I'll have to check the broadcast to see if he was playing passive or just card dead. He made a move with A-Q and unfortunately Yang woke up to pocket Jacks. Khan went out in 6th place and aside from Hilm, he was my pick to take it down.
On Hand #60, South Africa's Raymond Rahme picked up Jacks and won a race against England's Jon Kalmar's Big Slick. At that point, four players remained. Alex Kravchenko was shortstacked for the last three days and he managed to squeeze into the final four players. He survived all of his all in attempts and doubled up during the right spots. Players with much bigger stacks busted out before him. When it got down to 11 players, everyone expected Alex KGB to bust out next.
Unfortunate for Scotty Nguyen, he imploded and bluffed off his chips when he should have probably left the table and hung out in the hallway posing for autographs, smoking ciggies, and downing Coronas. But Nguyen made a few moves which cost him his third final table at the 2007 WSOP and a shot at $8.25 million while finally trying to quell his inner demons surrounding his previous world championship and the death of his brother.
When four-handed play began on Hand #61, Jerry Yang had over 70M and over 55% of the total chips in play. Alex Kravchenko was the super short stack with around 8M. But the Russian showed everyone why he's one of the toughest and baddest motherfuckers on the block. Once it got five-handed, Kravchenko was guaranteed to become #1 on the All Time Russian Money List surpassing Kirill Gerasimov. He had won a bracelet earlier in the WSOP and had stuck around to play a slew of events. You couldn't miss him wandering around the Amazon Ballroom during preliminary events. He carried a cold and blank expression on his face and glanced at you with the eyes of a sniper. Usually clad in an Adidas jumpsuit, I expected to see the old Soviet regimes' CCCP stamped on the back.
We started developing wild theories that Kravchenko was a hitman for the Russian mafia and came out to Las Vegas to whack Vinnie Vinh or collect a monster debt from Eskimo Clark, but he liked playing poker much more than extinguishing deadbeats, so he gave up his day job and settled on poker instead.
Joking aside, Kravchenko played the best poker at the final table when compared to the other eight players. How he survived with a short-stack is beyond me, but he managed to help slow down the action. It would take 107 hands before he would bust out. It another classic race, Yang ended up winning a coinflip. Kravchenko raised with Big Slick. Yang shoved with 8-8 and Kravchenko quickly called. Yang flopped a set and Kravchenko could not improve.
Two hands later, Raymond Rahme busted out on Hand #169 courtesy of Yang who outflopped his pocket Kings. The heads up match between Tuan Lam and Yang lasted 36 hands. That was much longer than Greg Raymer-David Williams; Joe Hachem-Steve Dannenmann; and Jamie Gold-Paul Wasicka's battles.
Lam played extremely passive at the final table. He gave Yang a walk at least four times (I'm too lazy to read my notes to confirm) in the big blind. Lam only won 12 out of 36 hands they played and aside from one double up, they were small pots. Yang won the one hand that counted the most. On Hand #205, Jerry Yang took out Lam. Yang would end up winning 91 out of 205 dealt hands at the final table. I wondered how many hands he was actually involved in? Again, I'm too lazy to check, but I'm guessing he was involved in more than 50% of the total hands at the final table. Talk about forcing the action.
The final table definitely had an international flavor to it as an Asian-born player eventually won this year's WSOP. The railbirds for the other final table players where showing their nationalistic pride. You could see flags from Canada, Russia, and South Africa proudly displayed. Lee Watksinon's fiancee busted out an American flag but she had it upside down, which is a symbol of distress. Perhaps she was foreshadowing Watkinson's early exit?
The final table was boring at times and filled with excitment during the other moments. When the audience was awake usually during big hands, the scene resembled a soccer match. There was plenty of singing, chanting, and rowdy railbirding going on in the crowd. The South African contingency was the most visible wearing green shirts that read "Everybody Loves Raymond" in support of their local hero Raymond Rahme. Several of the guys in the crowd had South African capes drapped over their shoulders. They had a cool chant which they would sing after Rahme won a hand. They also would scream, "Ship it to Africa!" as the dealer pushed him pots.
Tuan Lam's friends and family had miniature Canadian flags and one big one. They constantly waved those during the few hands he was in. At one point, Lam was draped in the Canadian flag after he doubled up against Yang during heads up play. He had some of the loudest railbirds and would break into a chorus of "O, Canada" whenever he won a pot.
Alex Kravchenko had a substantially smaller cheering section, but they brought along the Russian flag. They too would chant something. My Russian is bad and I couldn't make out what they were saying.
As I described, the stands surrounding the final table was devoted railbirds of the final table players. Jon Kalmar had to give his drinking buddies a talking to before the final table started. They showed up in a much behaved manner than on Day 6 when one of his mates was yanked out of the No Limit lounge for too much consumption of shitty beer which made him act belligerent.
Jerry Yang had his family and friend sweating him as well. Jen Creason pointed out one of his crew who sat on the floor and constantly prayed. Yang is a very religious person and he could also be spotted praying during big hands.
During his post-victory interview with ESPN, Yang constantly spoke about how he could not have achieved what he did without the help of God.
"I had a feeling inside," said Yang as he fought back tears. "I kept praying. If God could help me, I knew I could win. I had a funny feeling inside that I could do it. I thank the Lord. The glory goes to him. Thanks to the heavenly Father, I am here today and victorious. With this money, I can do a lot of good for people out there who need the help."
When Norman Chad asked him if he was having the best day of his life, Yang mentioned that when he came to America for the first time, "It was the first day I found freedom. My family tried to escape Laos and we failed. They (communist regime) hunted us down. Then we escaped to Thailand. When I found out that we were going to America was the happiest day of my life."
"Do you think this is the most poker that the Lord has ever watched over?" joked Chad.
"The Lord was watching over me," replied Yang. "When I had 4-4 and I was all in I prayed, 'Lord, give me a set.' Then the flop had a 4 and I survived that hand. I have seen the miracles of God at the World Series of Poker."
Yang also mentioned about his strategy. He knew that the only way he could win was to play aggressive.
"I did a lot of bluffing, trust me," he joked. "I played a lot of bad hands. 7-2o even."
You gotta love Yang for dropping the Hammer. He never showed it, but I hope the ESPN hole cams caught at least one of those hands.
When he was asked about his future, Yang joked, "When I made the final table, I called my boss and told him I needed a few extra days off. I plan to go back to work... to give my two weeks notice."
I think Yang was also holed up at the Redneck Riviera for a while because he said that he did not move to the Rio until he made the final table.
"I was staying at a local motel. I won't say its name. It's bad. Trust me. You don't want to go there."
Then he got serious when he said, "My wife works the night shift. I told her that she doesn't have to work anymore. We have six small children and we want to make sure they get the best life and education."
Yang will be donating 10% of his winnings to various charity including the Make a Wish Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, and Feed the Children. I suspect that he's going to use some more of that to help other people in his community. I'm glad that Yang won on that account. Instead of donking it off at the tables and pissing it away on high stakes games, he's going to use it to help ease the burden in people's lives that need it the most. Before the final table started, I wrote that Yang has all the karma points on his side because of his social consciousness. Maybe the poker gods were paying attention after all.
Yang's victory is good for poker because he will be an amazing goodwill ambassador. Check out the interview that Jerry Yang did with Tiffany Michelle. He's an honorable, articulate, and humble man. I really hope he does some good over the next year, not just for poker but for the people in his life.
Poker is dominated by the dark side of humanity. It doesn't help when the WSOP is held in the middle of flashiest blackest hole in the universe... Las Vegas. But sometimes, there are rays of hope. Guys like Barry Greenstein (Children Inc.) and Phil Gordon (Bad Beat on Cancer) are working hard to help charitable causes. Plenty of Asian players like Kenny Tran, Scotty Nguyen, and Liz Lieu donate their winnings to help their family and communities back home in Vietnam. The guys over at PokerStars teamed up with the cast from Ocean's Thirteen and helped raise money and awareness for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
We live in a time in America when the religious right has infiltrated our government and backed certain politicians who stiff-armed online poker. A devout Christian and religious man like Jerry Yang can help draw positive attention to the poker community. Poker can be a conduit for goodwill. Sure it's a form of gambling, but so is beating the stock market. Heck, praying for an imaginary being (aka God) is the ultimate gamble. What's the difference between shoving all in with a Big Slick vs. a middle pair and believing in God? There is none. Both are coinflip situations. God either exists or doesn't. That's a race situation that church goers gamble with every single Sunday.
I've long given up the quest to determine if our original creator is Allah, Buddha, Jesus' dad, or some alien scientists cross breeding themselves with apes. There is a more powerful force out there. Or maybe there isn't. The existentialist in me believes that this is a darkened, random, and godless universe. Spending too much time in Las Vegas makes you abandon hope and the entire notion of God.
The most important conversation I had the entire summer was with a French journalist named Benjo. And we talked about lobsters. He got me off of work and life tilt. Here's what I wrote at the end of June:
Just when I was ready to give up on humanity, I got a lesson in faith... in the middle of a casino in Las Vegas of all places.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Las Vegas, NV
Courtesy of Flipchip
When I visited Australia earlier in the year, for the first time since the UIGEA rippled through the American poker scene, I saw a glimmer of hope for the future of poker. The entire poker room (aptly called the Las Vegas Room) at the Crown Casino in Melbourne was packed with players. They were not just Australians and Kiwis but plenty of players from surrounding Asian-Pacific countries. That's when I knew that poker took a big hit in America, but overseas they were on a cusp of a poker gold rush.
When I flew out to Monte Carlo to cover the European Poker Tour Grand Finale I was more than impressed with the set up. Their media room was five times the size of the one at the Rio for less media reps. The participation numbers had been way up across the board during the third season of the EPT. And even when France cock-blocked one of their events, two other countries stepped up and wanted to add stops on the EPT.
Poker had also been popular in the UK, Ireland, and France for a few decades and over the last few years it has been rapidly sweeping through parts of Europe such as Germany, Italy, Russia, and the various Scandinavian countries like a viral phenomena. Depending on who you talk to, the Swedes will boast that per capita, they are the best poker players in the world. The Fins, Danes, and Norwegians will tell you otherwise. Right now in Norway, there are 16-year olds with bankrolls approaching seven figures. Not only are they're routinely crushing the competition, but after they felt you a couple of times in ring games, they cash out. They're not hitting and running or ratholing your money. They simply have to go to sleep and wake up to go to school the next day. What happens when they turn 21 and come to Las Vegas for the first time?
When it came to betting on main event players, I leaned towards the Scandis. Over the last few years, a Swedish player went deep at the WSOP. I expected unknown Scandi wearing capri pants and $600 designer sunglasses would amass a monster stack late in the tournament. That ended up being Philip Hilm from Denmark. I wasn't the only one thought Hilm had a great shot at winning the WSOP main event. Oddsmakers had him the favorite on their board. He had all the chips at the time and his playing style was difficult to adjust to. The reputations that Scandis have are that they are wild, erratic, constantly switching gears, and unable to read. They love playing big pots and will shove all in on any street and at any moment. However, what makes Hilm such a tough competitor also ended up being his down fall. He's the type of player would would see a flop with 8d-5d out of position after a player raised in front of him. And he's also the type of player who would try to semi-bluff his opponent off a pot with bottom pair and a weak flush draw.
Hilm did just that on the 15th hand of the final table. Instead of persuading Jerry Yang to lay down TPTK with A-K, Yang called. And just like that, the young gun from Denmark was standing off to the side and conducting an interview with ESPN, while Yang slowly stacked up all of his chips. The Hilm elimination would end up being an indication of things to come. Hilm would be one of seven players that Yang would knock out on his way towards the 2007 WSOP championship.
The first 60 hands went by faster than anyone imagined. A wave of giddiness swept everyone in media row. They wanted to go home. Badly. The space in front of the media room became a refuge for luggage. The European press was set to catch cabs to the airport and fly home as soon as the last hand was dealt. Plenty of other friends were dying to escape the Rio after seven weeks of insanity. Otis had that look in his eye that he was wrought with anguish. His hearts and mind was with his family back in G-Vegas, but his physical being was shuffling around the Rio, like a dead man walking back and forth from the ESPN stage back to the media room.
Everyone secretly wished for a fast final table. I also do in whatever event that I cover. I accept the fact that it will go late and often will take the over when anyone sets a line on ending time. It's win-win for me. If the table ends early, I win and get to go home. If the event runs late, at least I get monetary compensation for my troubles. Unlike a football game or timed sporting event, poker can be over super quick or become a marathon session like Chip Reese and Andy Bloch's heads up battle at the $50K HORSE event in 2006.
However, I knew history was a good indicator that I should not get my hopes up too high. The last two main events last anywhere from 13 to 14 hours. When BJ set the line at 3am, I quickly took the over. I figured it would go to about 3 or 4am. Phil Gordon had set the line at 5:32am (or something like that). Nolan Dalla wanted action. I heard that the amount of the wager was anywhere from $500 to $5,000. Gordon knew the event would go late, but he set his line a couple of hours too long. The final hand was actually completed around 3:46am.
With just four players remaining it appeared that everyone might get done by Midnight. My veteran experiences knew better. It's not the how fast the first five go... it's how fast that the last five go which matters.
Yang busted the most well-known pro at the table in Lee Watkinson on Hand #21. Yang was ahead on that hand and his better Ace held up. On Hand #28, Yang sent Lee Childs to the rail. Yang was trailing on that hand, but got caught up in the battle of the blinds with Childs. Alas, Childs was ahead until the turn when Yang spiked an 8. Childs could not improve and he was the third player to be busted by Yang.
Rain Khan was very quiet at the final table. I'll have to check the broadcast to see if he was playing passive or just card dead. He made a move with A-Q and unfortunately Yang woke up to pocket Jacks. Khan went out in 6th place and aside from Hilm, he was my pick to take it down.
On Hand #60, South Africa's Raymond Rahme picked up Jacks and won a race against England's Jon Kalmar's Big Slick. At that point, four players remained. Alex Kravchenko was shortstacked for the last three days and he managed to squeeze into the final four players. He survived all of his all in attempts and doubled up during the right spots. Players with much bigger stacks busted out before him. When it got down to 11 players, everyone expected Alex KGB to bust out next.
Unfortunate for Scotty Nguyen, he imploded and bluffed off his chips when he should have probably left the table and hung out in the hallway posing for autographs, smoking ciggies, and downing Coronas. But Nguyen made a few moves which cost him his third final table at the 2007 WSOP and a shot at $8.25 million while finally trying to quell his inner demons surrounding his previous world championship and the death of his brother.
When four-handed play began on Hand #61, Jerry Yang had over 70M and over 55% of the total chips in play. Alex Kravchenko was the super short stack with around 8M. But the Russian showed everyone why he's one of the toughest and baddest motherfuckers on the block. Once it got five-handed, Kravchenko was guaranteed to become #1 on the All Time Russian Money List surpassing Kirill Gerasimov. He had won a bracelet earlier in the WSOP and had stuck around to play a slew of events. You couldn't miss him wandering around the Amazon Ballroom during preliminary events. He carried a cold and blank expression on his face and glanced at you with the eyes of a sniper. Usually clad in an Adidas jumpsuit, I expected to see the old Soviet regimes' CCCP stamped on the back.
We started developing wild theories that Kravchenko was a hitman for the Russian mafia and came out to Las Vegas to whack Vinnie Vinh or collect a monster debt from Eskimo Clark, but he liked playing poker much more than extinguishing deadbeats, so he gave up his day job and settled on poker instead.
Joking aside, Kravchenko played the best poker at the final table when compared to the other eight players. How he survived with a short-stack is beyond me, but he managed to help slow down the action. It would take 107 hands before he would bust out. It another classic race, Yang ended up winning a coinflip. Kravchenko raised with Big Slick. Yang shoved with 8-8 and Kravchenko quickly called. Yang flopped a set and Kravchenko could not improve.
Two hands later, Raymond Rahme busted out on Hand #169 courtesy of Yang who outflopped his pocket Kings. The heads up match between Tuan Lam and Yang lasted 36 hands. That was much longer than Greg Raymer-David Williams; Joe Hachem-Steve Dannenmann; and Jamie Gold-Paul Wasicka's battles.
Lam played extremely passive at the final table. He gave Yang a walk at least four times (I'm too lazy to read my notes to confirm) in the big blind. Lam only won 12 out of 36 hands they played and aside from one double up, they were small pots. Yang won the one hand that counted the most. On Hand #205, Jerry Yang took out Lam. Yang would end up winning 91 out of 205 dealt hands at the final table. I wondered how many hands he was actually involved in? Again, I'm too lazy to check, but I'm guessing he was involved in more than 50% of the total hands at the final table. Talk about forcing the action.
The final table definitely had an international flavor to it as an Asian-born player eventually won this year's WSOP. The railbirds for the other final table players where showing their nationalistic pride. You could see flags from Canada, Russia, and South Africa proudly displayed. Lee Watksinon's fiancee busted out an American flag but she had it upside down, which is a symbol of distress. Perhaps she was foreshadowing Watkinson's early exit?
The final table was boring at times and filled with excitment during the other moments. When the audience was awake usually during big hands, the scene resembled a soccer match. There was plenty of singing, chanting, and rowdy railbirding going on in the crowd. The South African contingency was the most visible wearing green shirts that read "Everybody Loves Raymond" in support of their local hero Raymond Rahme. Several of the guys in the crowd had South African capes drapped over their shoulders. They had a cool chant which they would sing after Rahme won a hand. They also would scream, "Ship it to Africa!" as the dealer pushed him pots.
Tuan Lam's friends and family had miniature Canadian flags and one big one. They constantly waved those during the few hands he was in. At one point, Lam was draped in the Canadian flag after he doubled up against Yang during heads up play. He had some of the loudest railbirds and would break into a chorus of "O, Canada" whenever he won a pot.
Alex Kravchenko had a substantially smaller cheering section, but they brought along the Russian flag. They too would chant something. My Russian is bad and I couldn't make out what they were saying.
As I described, the stands surrounding the final table was devoted railbirds of the final table players. Jon Kalmar had to give his drinking buddies a talking to before the final table started. They showed up in a much behaved manner than on Day 6 when one of his mates was yanked out of the No Limit lounge for too much consumption of shitty beer which made him act belligerent.
Jerry Yang had his family and friend sweating him as well. Jen Creason pointed out one of his crew who sat on the floor and constantly prayed. Yang is a very religious person and he could also be spotted praying during big hands.
During his post-victory interview with ESPN, Yang constantly spoke about how he could not have achieved what he did without the help of God.
"I had a feeling inside," said Yang as he fought back tears. "I kept praying. If God could help me, I knew I could win. I had a funny feeling inside that I could do it. I thank the Lord. The glory goes to him. Thanks to the heavenly Father, I am here today and victorious. With this money, I can do a lot of good for people out there who need the help."
When Norman Chad asked him if he was having the best day of his life, Yang mentioned that when he came to America for the first time, "It was the first day I found freedom. My family tried to escape Laos and we failed. They (communist regime) hunted us down. Then we escaped to Thailand. When I found out that we were going to America was the happiest day of my life."
"Do you think this is the most poker that the Lord has ever watched over?" joked Chad.
"The Lord was watching over me," replied Yang. "When I had 4-4 and I was all in I prayed, 'Lord, give me a set.' Then the flop had a 4 and I survived that hand. I have seen the miracles of God at the World Series of Poker."
Yang also mentioned about his strategy. He knew that the only way he could win was to play aggressive.
"I did a lot of bluffing, trust me," he joked. "I played a lot of bad hands. 7-2o even."
You gotta love Yang for dropping the Hammer. He never showed it, but I hope the ESPN hole cams caught at least one of those hands.
When he was asked about his future, Yang joked, "When I made the final table, I called my boss and told him I needed a few extra days off. I plan to go back to work... to give my two weeks notice."
I think Yang was also holed up at the Redneck Riviera for a while because he said that he did not move to the Rio until he made the final table.
"I was staying at a local motel. I won't say its name. It's bad. Trust me. You don't want to go there."
Then he got serious when he said, "My wife works the night shift. I told her that she doesn't have to work anymore. We have six small children and we want to make sure they get the best life and education."
Yang will be donating 10% of his winnings to various charity including the Make a Wish Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, and Feed the Children. I suspect that he's going to use some more of that to help other people in his community. I'm glad that Yang won on that account. Instead of donking it off at the tables and pissing it away on high stakes games, he's going to use it to help ease the burden in people's lives that need it the most. Before the final table started, I wrote that Yang has all the karma points on his side because of his social consciousness. Maybe the poker gods were paying attention after all.
Yang's victory is good for poker because he will be an amazing goodwill ambassador. Check out the interview that Jerry Yang did with Tiffany Michelle. He's an honorable, articulate, and humble man. I really hope he does some good over the next year, not just for poker but for the people in his life.
Poker is dominated by the dark side of humanity. It doesn't help when the WSOP is held in the middle of flashiest blackest hole in the universe... Las Vegas. But sometimes, there are rays of hope. Guys like Barry Greenstein (Children Inc.) and Phil Gordon (Bad Beat on Cancer) are working hard to help charitable causes. Plenty of Asian players like Kenny Tran, Scotty Nguyen, and Liz Lieu donate their winnings to help their family and communities back home in Vietnam. The guys over at PokerStars teamed up with the cast from Ocean's Thirteen and helped raise money and awareness for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
We live in a time in America when the religious right has infiltrated our government and backed certain politicians who stiff-armed online poker. A devout Christian and religious man like Jerry Yang can help draw positive attention to the poker community. Poker can be a conduit for goodwill. Sure it's a form of gambling, but so is beating the stock market. Heck, praying for an imaginary being (aka God) is the ultimate gamble. What's the difference between shoving all in with a Big Slick vs. a middle pair and believing in God? There is none. Both are coinflip situations. God either exists or doesn't. That's a race situation that church goers gamble with every single Sunday.
I've long given up the quest to determine if our original creator is Allah, Buddha, Jesus' dad, or some alien scientists cross breeding themselves with apes. There is a more powerful force out there. Or maybe there isn't. The existentialist in me believes that this is a darkened, random, and godless universe. Spending too much time in Las Vegas makes you abandon hope and the entire notion of God.
The most important conversation I had the entire summer was with a French journalist named Benjo. And we talked about lobsters. He got me off of work and life tilt. Here's what I wrote at the end of June:
During one of the breaks of the HORSE event, I went outside for a few minutes for a smoke break. It was around 3am and Benjo told me a weird story regarding John-Paul Sartre. I actually started the conversation by asking him something about Sartre. I think it was about him banging Simone de Beauvoir. Anyway, Benjo told me how Simone de Beauvoir made him take a holiday in Southern France because he was too burnt out after experiencing hallucinations, specifically one about a lobster following him around. He had been doing too much mescaline and was feeling the residual effects of that drug. For years the lobster would follow him around and he made the decision that he was not going to see the lobster any more... and the lobster vanished and ceased to exist.If Jerry Yang thinks that he won the WSOP because of God's help, then so be it. Was it God or luck that brought him the 6 on the river to beat Tuan Lam? I'm not going to debate him on that fact. After all, it's great publicity and PR work for all of poker. You see, according to the new WSOP champion, the Lord loves poker. God is helping the good guys take away money from the bad guys to be distributed among the poor and needy. Maybe the Jesus freaks out there will see that there is some good to be made with poker and they will ease up on pressuring the government to keep online poker on the sidelines.
I had a moment of clarity and finally figured it out. Everything. Especially what Sartre was trying to teach us... that we have to make a choice in life. And not just about what we do, but what we believe, and the values we hold. Those choices are not going to be made for us or nor should they be dictated by those around us. He decided to stop seeing the lobsters and they were gone.
Just when I was ready to give up on humanity, I got a lesson in faith... in the middle of a casino in Las Vegas of all places.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
WSOP Day 29: Sartre's Lobster
By Pauly
Freddy Deeb mentioned that Chip Reese was the greatest poker player of all time and that they had swapped 5% of each other for the HORSE tournament. Moments after Deeb won the event, he said that he felt it was an honor that last year's winner thought confident enough in his game that he's take a piece of the action.
HORSE is a players players game. It's nod a fad. It's not great for TV. It's not the most popular game of poker on the internet. It is what it is... rotation poker. Sort of a throw back to the kitchen games with plastic chips or those beer-soaked fraternity house days when you played dealer's choice and knew that certain players didn't like specific games so when they were on tilt or having an insane rush, you called that game to either cool down the hot player or push your buddy further into tiltdom.
At the final table of HORSE, you could figure out what game was stronger for the players than others. Some went into lockdown mode the moment a round began. The better final table players switched gears within their rounds. If they were known to be a tight Stud 8 player, they'd jam pots and keep their opponents guessing.
What I respect most about the $50K HORSE is that consistent play over a variety of limit games is rewarded. The buy-in is also sizable enough investment that it weeds out the bottom feeders. I always felt that they should raise the buy-in of the WSOP main event to $25K if only for inflation reasons. When I was a kid (when the WSOP started), $10K was a lot of money. I don't know how much money my father earned in 1977, but I assume that $10K was at least 1/3 of his salary at that crappy desk job he humped in Midtown Manhattan. I'm too lazy to figure out inflation figures, but $25K seems about right.
At any rate, 148 players bought into HORSE and that represented some of the Top 75 or so of the premiere players in the world. Then there were a few players whom I couldn't figure out why they were in the event. I simply assumed someone staked them. Some of the players who I respected the most skipped out on HORSE. They said it was too expensive and the field was too strong. I also wondered how many horses that Lindgren and Patrik Antonius had the HORSE event. I betcha between two of them combined, they backed 75% of the field. An anonymous friend in the media room thought that number was higher and more like 90%. Sure, we knew that Chip Reese had 5% of Deeb, but who had the rest?
Moving on...
I returned to the Rio only seven hours after the HORSE final table ended I left it to cover Day 2 of the $5K NL Hold'em Short-handed event. Dutch Boyd started out as the chipleader, with Phil Hellmuth not too far behind. Tony G was also left along with Allen Cunningham, Jamie Gold, and Spiderman himself... Tobey Maguire. With all those stars, the spectators were tightly packed six or seven deep on the rail. Flashes were going off every few minutes despite the stern warnings from the TD that flash photography was not permitted.
We got the whole Hollywerid-ish PR bullshit before the event started regarding coverage of Tobey Maguire. I got instructions like, "Um... we're not going to be taking photos of Tobey today at his request. He doesn't want any attention until he goes deep."
He didn't want to be covered. Cool with me. I had Logan, Dave, and Drew covering the event with me and I told them specifically, "Fuck that Spiderman clown in the ear. We're not covering him."
I made sure that none of our guys sweated his table and left him alone. Maguire busted out early and we didn't get the specifics about the hand. One of the guys asked the players at the table what happened, and they were quick to let us know who busted Spidey.
Besides, we had bigger fish to fry with Jamie Gold cashing in an event (his first significant money win since he won the Main Event last year) and Phil Hellmuth being vintage Phil Hellmuth. That meant plenty of side drama and tons and tons of railbirds. His nemesis quckly became Raj Sawant after he sucked out on the Poker Brat. Hellmuth flopped a set and lost to a two outer. He lost most of his stack and his sanity. The verbal tirade began. Hellmuth even showed one of ours guys his hole cards before he folded to a raise from Sawant. A few hands earlier Sawant raised big with 10-4o and busted a player.
Hellmuth felt he was getting set up as he peeled off Ah-Qd. He called Drew over and showed him his cards.
"I'm the greatest player in the world and that is what the best players do," he said as he threw his cards into the muck.
Hellmuth ended up busting out under a tirade of donkey-f-bombs and Tony G took the spotlight. He doubled up on one hand against Erik Friberg when The G made a boat to beat Boyd's Broadway straight. That's when the old school Tony G jumped up and started yelling.
"Try making a move with J-10 again and you'll go broke!" he said.
When Dutch Boyd was moved to his table, The G tried to tilt him. His 4d-4s held up against Boyd's Ac-Qs. Tony G flopped a set and he jumped up and started trash talking with Dutch Boyd.
"I'm gonna take everything you have," said Tony G. "I'm gonna rip your stack apart! Keep calling and I'll keep taking all your chips."
The G had chips then Friberg and Boyd started making moves on him. Whenever The G would raise, they moved all in. He folded on two instances and lost about 40% of his stack.
Tony G eventually busted out in 10th place on a wicked bad beat. He got it all in with A-J against Emil Patel's A-8s. Patel turned an 8 and The G stormed away from the table in silence. I think he was also playing in the Triple Draw event.
Speaking of Triple Draw, Chris Fargis was back in town trying to win his first bracelet. And Garth was also playing in the event. He had both Sheiky and Jesus at his table at one point. Just like my buddy Coach playing the day before or Drizz last week, I barely had enough time to say hello and sweat them for a bit. That's been my biggest regret about the WSOP this year... is that with multiple events (some days as many as 6 at once) I don't get to follow the action outside of the event that I'm covering. I feel like I'm missing 80% of the WSOP since there are too many events.
Two years ago, I covered every single final table except two - I left the Razz marathon early and another one so I could go to one of the parties. That also doesn't include the bracelet events that went on during the main event. This year, I have only seen a handful of final tables... the ones that I covered. My main assignments are Day 2. What I have been seeing is how those players got to the final table, but what I am also seeing is who's been running good at the WSOP and who hasn't there are a few players who I've seen regularly this year. And there are some pros that I haven't covered yet... which means that they haven't been going deep. Ergo, bad series for them. Of course, all of that could change with one final table.
Anyway, Justin Shronk and Oliver Tse cashed in the events they were playing on Day 29. Congrats to both. Garth survived a Day 1 which is a feat considering the field he was up against. Nice work, kangadonkey!
Here's a random thought...
Over the last month I've been having several Sandy Bates moments. For the six of you who picked up on that reference, you can understand the existentialist and artistic dilemma that I have been experiencing over the last couple of weeks. For those of you who haven't, go rent Stardust Memories on Netflix.
I had a moment of clarity and finally figured it out. Everything. Especially what Sartre was trying to teach us... that we have to make a choice in life. And not just about what we do, but what we believe, and the values we hold. Those choices are not going to be made for us or nor should they be dictated by those around us. He decided to stop seeing the lobsters and they were gone.
* * * * *
Don't forget to check out LasVegasVegas for Flipchip's WSOP photos and there's the Poker Prof's cool 2007 WSOP Info page.
And come back at the Tao of Poker for daily recaps and head over at PokerNews for live coverage and updates including chipcounts.
For all you fantasy sports junkies, check out our new site... Fantasy Sports Live.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Freddy Deeb mentioned that Chip Reese was the greatest poker player of all time and that they had swapped 5% of each other for the HORSE tournament. Moments after Deeb won the event, he said that he felt it was an honor that last year's winner thought confident enough in his game that he's take a piece of the action.
HORSE is a players players game. It's nod a fad. It's not great for TV. It's not the most popular game of poker on the internet. It is what it is... rotation poker. Sort of a throw back to the kitchen games with plastic chips or those beer-soaked fraternity house days when you played dealer's choice and knew that certain players didn't like specific games so when they were on tilt or having an insane rush, you called that game to either cool down the hot player or push your buddy further into tiltdom.
At the final table of HORSE, you could figure out what game was stronger for the players than others. Some went into lockdown mode the moment a round began. The better final table players switched gears within their rounds. If they were known to be a tight Stud 8 player, they'd jam pots and keep their opponents guessing.
What I respect most about the $50K HORSE is that consistent play over a variety of limit games is rewarded. The buy-in is also sizable enough investment that it weeds out the bottom feeders. I always felt that they should raise the buy-in of the WSOP main event to $25K if only for inflation reasons. When I was a kid (when the WSOP started), $10K was a lot of money. I don't know how much money my father earned in 1977, but I assume that $10K was at least 1/3 of his salary at that crappy desk job he humped in Midtown Manhattan. I'm too lazy to figure out inflation figures, but $25K seems about right.
At any rate, 148 players bought into HORSE and that represented some of the Top 75 or so of the premiere players in the world. Then there were a few players whom I couldn't figure out why they were in the event. I simply assumed someone staked them. Some of the players who I respected the most skipped out on HORSE. They said it was too expensive and the field was too strong. I also wondered how many horses that Lindgren and Patrik Antonius had the HORSE event. I betcha between two of them combined, they backed 75% of the field. An anonymous friend in the media room thought that number was higher and more like 90%. Sure, we knew that Chip Reese had 5% of Deeb, but who had the rest?
Moving on...
I returned to the Rio only seven hours after the HORSE final table ended I left it to cover Day 2 of the $5K NL Hold'em Short-handed event. Dutch Boyd started out as the chipleader, with Phil Hellmuth not too far behind. Tony G was also left along with Allen Cunningham, Jamie Gold, and Spiderman himself... Tobey Maguire. With all those stars, the spectators were tightly packed six or seven deep on the rail. Flashes were going off every few minutes despite the stern warnings from the TD that flash photography was not permitted.
We got the whole Hollywerid-ish PR bullshit before the event started regarding coverage of Tobey Maguire. I got instructions like, "Um... we're not going to be taking photos of Tobey today at his request. He doesn't want any attention until he goes deep."
He didn't want to be covered. Cool with me. I had Logan, Dave, and Drew covering the event with me and I told them specifically, "Fuck that Spiderman clown in the ear. We're not covering him."
I made sure that none of our guys sweated his table and left him alone. Maguire busted out early and we didn't get the specifics about the hand. One of the guys asked the players at the table what happened, and they were quick to let us know who busted Spidey.
Besides, we had bigger fish to fry with Jamie Gold cashing in an event (his first significant money win since he won the Main Event last year) and Phil Hellmuth being vintage Phil Hellmuth. That meant plenty of side drama and tons and tons of railbirds. His nemesis quckly became Raj Sawant after he sucked out on the Poker Brat. Hellmuth flopped a set and lost to a two outer. He lost most of his stack and his sanity. The verbal tirade began. Hellmuth even showed one of ours guys his hole cards before he folded to a raise from Sawant. A few hands earlier Sawant raised big with 10-4o and busted a player.
Hellmuth felt he was getting set up as he peeled off Ah-Qd. He called Drew over and showed him his cards.
"I'm the greatest player in the world and that is what the best players do," he said as he threw his cards into the muck.
Hellmuth ended up busting out under a tirade of donkey-f-bombs and Tony G took the spotlight. He doubled up on one hand against Erik Friberg when The G made a boat to beat Boyd's Broadway straight. That's when the old school Tony G jumped up and started yelling.
"Try making a move with J-10 again and you'll go broke!" he said.
When Dutch Boyd was moved to his table, The G tried to tilt him. His 4d-4s held up against Boyd's Ac-Qs. Tony G flopped a set and he jumped up and started trash talking with Dutch Boyd.
"I'm gonna take everything you have," said Tony G. "I'm gonna rip your stack apart! Keep calling and I'll keep taking all your chips."
The G had chips then Friberg and Boyd started making moves on him. Whenever The G would raise, they moved all in. He folded on two instances and lost about 40% of his stack.
Tony G eventually busted out in 10th place on a wicked bad beat. He got it all in with A-J against Emil Patel's A-8s. Patel turned an 8 and The G stormed away from the table in silence. I think he was also playing in the Triple Draw event.
Speaking of Triple Draw, Chris Fargis was back in town trying to win his first bracelet. And Garth was also playing in the event. He had both Sheiky and Jesus at his table at one point. Just like my buddy Coach playing the day before or Drizz last week, I barely had enough time to say hello and sweat them for a bit. That's been my biggest regret about the WSOP this year... is that with multiple events (some days as many as 6 at once) I don't get to follow the action outside of the event that I'm covering. I feel like I'm missing 80% of the WSOP since there are too many events.
Two years ago, I covered every single final table except two - I left the Razz marathon early and another one so I could go to one of the parties. That also doesn't include the bracelet events that went on during the main event. This year, I have only seen a handful of final tables... the ones that I covered. My main assignments are Day 2. What I have been seeing is how those players got to the final table, but what I am also seeing is who's been running good at the WSOP and who hasn't there are a few players who I've seen regularly this year. And there are some pros that I haven't covered yet... which means that they haven't been going deep. Ergo, bad series for them. Of course, all of that could change with one final table.
Anyway, Justin Shronk and Oliver Tse cashed in the events they were playing on Day 29. Congrats to both. Garth survived a Day 1 which is a feat considering the field he was up against. Nice work, kangadonkey!
Here's a random thought...
Over the last month I've been having several Sandy Bates moments. For the six of you who picked up on that reference, you can understand the existentialist and artistic dilemma that I have been experiencing over the last couple of weeks. For those of you who haven't, go rent Stardust Memories on Netflix.
Random Guy: Can I have your autograph?During one of the breaks of the HORSE event, I went outside for a few minutes for a smoke break. It was around 3am and Benjo told me a weird story regarding John-Paul Sartre. I actually started the conversation by asking him something about Sartre. I think it was about him banging Simone de Beauvoir. Anyway, Benjo told me how Simone de Beauvoir made him take a holiday in Southern France because he was too burnt out after experiencing hallucinations, specifically one about a lobster following him around. He had been doing too much mescaline and was feeling the residual effects of that drug. For years the lobster would follow him around and he made the decision that he was not going to see the lobster any more... and the lobster vanished and ceased to exist anymore.
Sandy Bates: Oh, jeez.
Random Guy: Could you just write: "To Phyllis Weinstein, you unfaithful, lying bitch."
I had a moment of clarity and finally figured it out. Everything. Especially what Sartre was trying to teach us... that we have to make a choice in life. And not just about what we do, but what we believe, and the values we hold. Those choices are not going to be made for us or nor should they be dictated by those around us. He decided to stop seeing the lobsters and they were gone.
Don't forget to check out LasVegasVegas for Flipchip's WSOP photos and there's the Poker Prof's cool 2007 WSOP Info page.
And come back at the Tao of Poker for daily recaps and head over at PokerNews for live coverage and updates including chipcounts.
For all you fantasy sports junkies, check out our new site... Fantasy Sports Live.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
No Exit and Broken Mirrors
By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV
"Fuck!" I screamed.
Change100 and I were in our new Las Vegas apartment for less than ten minutes when I broke a mirror on the wall in the bedroom. I rented a furnished apartment in the Del Bocca Vista close to the Rio in a gated community to keep out all the tweakers and gangbangers. Unfortunately for me, I accidentally knocked a mirror off its nail and it crashed on the floor. A large sliver broke apart from the mirror and I was overcome with emotion. The last thing I wanted to do in the first hour I was in Las Vegas was break a mirror. Even if you don't believe in that superstition, its never a good sign.
The number 13. A black cat. A $50 bill. SirWaffles. Someone touching your head. What do all of these things have in common?
Most people associate those things with bad luck. Within an hour of that mirror breaking, the internet in the apartment wouldn't work. I lost $300 playing online poker and then I scratched Change100's new car trying to pull out of the parking space.
"Fuck!" I screamed again as I inspected the damage.
"I'm gonna drive," she said sensing that I was on mega-broken-mirror-tilt.
When I eventually calmed down, I played some poker at Red Rock. When my name was called the kid at the desk said, "Table 13."
The illusion of control allows gamblers to feel more comfortable about their fate. By eliminating anything associated with bad luck, gamblers feel more comfortable at the tables and while they gained a slight cosmic edge over the casino and other players. Their x-factor is their symbol of good luck. Whether it's old ladies at bingo parlors with their good luck trinkets or Cyndy Violette and her lucky stones or Derek Jeter rubbing the head of Don Zimmer before every game (Ah... no wonder the Yankees have not been doing well! No more Zim as a good luck charm) people engage in rituals that they believe will affect the outcome of their gambling ventures.
The over-inflated beliefs and the illusion of control is one of the biggest contributing factors to problem gambling. It's a shortcut or easy excuse that consistent losers use to justify why they dire loses at the tables instead of owning up to the fact that they either lack the necessary skills to play the game or simply fell on the bad side of mathematics and probability. Pocket Aces are supposed to lose a percentage of the time and against Pocket Kings, they might be an overwhelming favorite... but Aces get beat by underpairs. That's the beauty of poker and why I love playing against superstitious people. They are easy to tilt and as soon as you sense that they are succumbing to the dark side of bad luck... go in for the kill.
Rituals are things that make people comfortable, like flipping the on and off switch to the lights eight times before you leave the apartment or why I used to knock twice on the outside of a plane in the jetway before I boarded any flight. I firmly believed that touching the outer shell of the plane would prevent it from crashing and improve my flight karma which meant avoiding sitting next to babies, chatty people, and folks with morose body odor.
The inflated expectation of winning by adhering to superstitions is the ultimate downfall to any gambler that sets foot in Las Vegas. You will not get blackjack or flop a set if you do or do not follow the delirium of a specific superstition. The randomness of luck is more powerful that your willingness to increase your edge with lucky items or fulfilling a ritual that's nothing more than a waste of your time and your crutch against facing the harsh realities of the world.
Gambling is a chaotic, godless, and random universe.
Asian people view luck in vastly different ways than those of us in the Western world. Chinese people believe that the ebbs and flows of luck can be predicted by astrology. The firmly believe that you can gain an edge by taking advantage of an instance when celestial luck is in your favor. That's why Chinese New Year is a popular time among Asian gamblers. They believe that winning at any form of gambling on New Year's Day will bring them positive luck for the rest of the year.
In some Asian cultures, people save up for decades before checking the stars to find out the right time to head to Macau, Las Vegas, or a local casino. They feel that the outcome for the remainder of their life is up to the gambling gods. If they are supposed to lead a blessed and wealthy life... then they will score big on their gambling sojourn. If they lose on that epic trip, then they accept the fact that they are not predispositioned to have a fortunate life and can accept the role of mediocrity or poverty for their remaining years.
There's a Vietnamese saying, "Winning is luck. Losing is bad luck."
Some poker players will find some truth to that statement. There is a sort of randomness associated with the shuffle of the cards along with the shuffle of luck. When you are running bad, the player at the other end of the table is often referred to as a "luckbox" or a "lucky fucker." But if you get sucked out on, you might chalk up your negative experience to a run of bad luck.
Is a run of bad cards just a run of bad luck? Or is simply... a random event?
That depends on the belief systems and psychological temperment of the person experiencing the rush or the dismay of the awful run of cards. When I get J-J and two overcards flop five straight times, it does not mean I have bad luck or failed to adhere to a silly superstition (I forgot to recite the Our Father in Latin... Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.) set forth to ensure that I flop a set. There are many instances when mathematics and statistics dictate the flow of the cards. Of course if you are running bad and on mega-tilt, you tweak the stats in your favor.
I used to give bums on the subway $1 bills if I encountered them on my way to the Blue Parrot. I didn't associate my good luck with helping out a homeless person buy food or score some malt liquor, but I felt that my overall karma would improve by helping out the homeless. Good karma might come back in a form of a winning session at the tables.
Last night, Change100 had A-A three times at our table. They held up every time. Was that good luck or the fact that Aces win more statistically than any other hand preflop? If she got them cracked three times, our favorite Hollyweird blonde would have been steaming and alluded to a run of bad luck and called her opponent a douchebag or cumstain.
Why did her K-K hold up against a guy with Q-5 and when did my cowboys lose to Q-5? Are her stars aligned in a way that she's more apt to catch a string of good cards? Or did my Kings get cracked because I broke a mirror and my soul was drowning in unfortunate circumstances?
One of the hardest superstitions to shake is the theory that bad luck is passed along from one player to another like a wicked case of the clap or the bird flu. Derek and I often joke around that certain bloggers are "The Cooler." We have a running theory that specific bloggers were symbols of death at the tables. I won't out The Coolers, but there were instances when blogger XYZ walked up to the blackjack table and Derek picked up his chips and walked away. At the IP last year during my awful run at Pai Gow, I walked away when a blogger/cooler walked into the pits.
I have a specific example involving SirWaffle. Is it proof that he's a cooler and he's the reincarnation of Semyazza? If you read his blog regularly, you know that the gambling gods have a hard on for fucking with Waffles. His karma is a black hole of bad luck. Sometimes it rubs off on others. At one of the blogger gatherings, he had just busted out of the tournament and came over to talk to me. I found K-K. I flashed him my hand and he said, "That sucks because you know an ace is going to flop."
The door card was an Ace and I snapped at Waffles, "Get the fuck out of here! You're bad luck is infecting my card mojo."
I was joking, of course. If I had flopped a set I still would have told Waffles to bugger off. I've been around enough casinos to know that bad luck does not rub off on other people. However, I do believe that negative people attract negativity and have a proclivity to the darkside of the universe. I try to avoid those people in life, not just at the tables. If I'm sitting next to a Prince or Princess of Darkness... I ask for a seat change right away.
During March Madness, Miami Don and I discussed certain sports bettors who historically lost. If you found out they liked a certain team, then you bet big against them everytime. One of our cocktail waitresses was the perfect example of someone whom we faded their picks. During one morning, we already put our bets in and the waitress came by to hang out and shoot the shit. We asked her who she liked.
"North Carolina," she said. "I bet that one."
A panicked look blanketed Derek's face as he shook his head. We bet UNC heavily and the fact that our waitress bet them did not bode well for all of us.
"We should have made our bets after we spoke to her," he said.
And yes, UNC lost but not because our waitress bet on them. However, at the time of desperation when gamblers are on the brink of insanity, your decision making processes are seriously impaired and you allow thoughts like "SirWaffle is a Cooler" or "Fade my cocktail waitresses picks" to seep into your mind.
Believing in luck whether it is good or bad is a form of tilt. Stat and math geeks will tell you that there is no such thing as a rush and pushing your luck is nothing more than feeling confident about your cards. Conversely, when stuck in a losing streak, worrying about the outcome of your hands due to an unlucky streak is simply playing without confidence. Like I said, math and science rule the universe over hokey superstitions. That is... if you believe in that.
Some people believe in God and some people firmly believe that praying to God will affect the outcome of your cards. I come from the school of thought that if there is a God, the last thing he wants to do is to turn off the doom switch on PokerStars for you or help you catch your two outer on the river.
Here's a tip... the next time you are in Las Vegas, realize that you are hanging out in the post-modern version of Sodom or Gomorrah. Didn't God send his angels to burn those cities to the ground?
Poker dealers are often associated with good or bad luck. Ask Linda to tell you stories about the regulars who view her as their good luck charm or the sign of the apocalypse. It's simply easier to project your losses onto someone else and blame the dealer. Sit in a locals casino for a few hours and watch the expressions on the faces of the players during a deal change. Some are happy to see a dealer go.
"That bastard cold decked me," they would say.
Or if the dealer had a history of giving them good cards, they would be giddy with excitement like a little kid on Christmas morning.
"Thank God you're here! I've been waiting for my luck to change."
Sometimes I laugh because I see these people playing their hands terribly. Their excuse for poor playing or lack of decent skills at the tables is all because of the dealer. Yes, all poker dealers are just vehicles for the poker gods. They get messages whispered to them by the consortium of angels (or fallen angels if you think that God has abandoned casinos and they place is run by Satan and his crew of Hell's Angels) and determine whether or not you catch your flush or get busted out of a tournament by a donkalope with A-2o.
You have heard of all those wacky superstitions such as a hat on a bed is bad luck or having a dead person in your dream means that someone close to you is going to die. Then there are the universal ones... like a black cat or walking under a ladder or having SirWaffles railbird you. I don't believe in any of those because once you start to believe one... you have to believe all of them and then you become a slave to your superstitions. Well fuck... why ever leave the house when there's too many ominous signs of bad luck?
There is one tiny superstition that I have and it's all because of Grubby. It involves $50 bills. I refuse to carry them in my wallet. Why? Because $50 bills are historically bad luck for gamblers.
The hardest part about traveling overseas is getting an influx of 50 bills whether it was Aussie bucks or Euros. I freak out when changing US dollars and get 50s. I quickly ask for a wad of 20s which often pisses off the person at the change booth. They obviously had no concept of Grubby's $50 rule or they would not have given me guff. In Las Vegas, workers at the cage are so used to the $50 rule that they rarely give out $50 bills because they know most of the people will give it back. And if you walk up to the cage to change a $50 bill, they'll quickly do that transaction for you. After all, a happy gambler is better than a grumpy gambler. And if you feel like you are having a string of good luck, you are more likely to gamble more than when you are soaked under a wet blanket of bad luck.
Aside from the $50 bills, I don't have any superstitions. I don't say three Hail Marys when I am dealt pocket Queens. I don't believe in the "secret" and ask the universe for good cards at the tables. I don't wait until both cards are dealt to me before I peek at them.
I often find myself avoiding unlucky people in life (or rather people who feel they are unlucky) not because I'm afraid it will rub off on me... but rather because I'd rather not be around negative people. Hearing about people's bad beats in life is probably the least entertaining thing for me in the universe. Just as Jean Paul Sartre explained that hell is other people in his play No Exit, to me... hell would be me locked in a small room and having to read bad beat hand histories posted by bloggers or listen to poker players tell me their bad beat stories... for the rest of eternity.
People who believe that bad luck is the reason why they lost are simply gamblers who are lazy or selfish and are unwilling to accept that they are bad players and did not accept the fact that they played poorly and made bad decisions. Even the top pros in the world rarely play flawless poker. People make mistakes at the tables and it's easier to mask their bad play under a string of bad luck.
Sartre's character Garcin said it best in No Exit, "I made my choice deliberately. A man is what he wills himself to be."
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Las Vegas, NV
"Fuck!" I screamed.
Change100 and I were in our new Las Vegas apartment for less than ten minutes when I broke a mirror on the wall in the bedroom. I rented a furnished apartment in the Del Bocca Vista close to the Rio in a gated community to keep out all the tweakers and gangbangers. Unfortunately for me, I accidentally knocked a mirror off its nail and it crashed on the floor. A large sliver broke apart from the mirror and I was overcome with emotion. The last thing I wanted to do in the first hour I was in Las Vegas was break a mirror. Even if you don't believe in that superstition, its never a good sign.
The number 13. A black cat. A $50 bill. SirWaffles. Someone touching your head. What do all of these things have in common?
Most people associate those things with bad luck. Within an hour of that mirror breaking, the internet in the apartment wouldn't work. I lost $300 playing online poker and then I scratched Change100's new car trying to pull out of the parking space.
"Fuck!" I screamed again as I inspected the damage.
"I'm gonna drive," she said sensing that I was on mega-broken-mirror-tilt.
When I eventually calmed down, I played some poker at Red Rock. When my name was called the kid at the desk said, "Table 13."
The illusion of control allows gamblers to feel more comfortable about their fate. By eliminating anything associated with bad luck, gamblers feel more comfortable at the tables and while they gained a slight cosmic edge over the casino and other players. Their x-factor is their symbol of good luck. Whether it's old ladies at bingo parlors with their good luck trinkets or Cyndy Violette and her lucky stones or Derek Jeter rubbing the head of Don Zimmer before every game (Ah... no wonder the Yankees have not been doing well! No more Zim as a good luck charm) people engage in rituals that they believe will affect the outcome of their gambling ventures.
The over-inflated beliefs and the illusion of control is one of the biggest contributing factors to problem gambling. It's a shortcut or easy excuse that consistent losers use to justify why they dire loses at the tables instead of owning up to the fact that they either lack the necessary skills to play the game or simply fell on the bad side of mathematics and probability. Pocket Aces are supposed to lose a percentage of the time and against Pocket Kings, they might be an overwhelming favorite... but Aces get beat by underpairs. That's the beauty of poker and why I love playing against superstitious people. They are easy to tilt and as soon as you sense that they are succumbing to the dark side of bad luck... go in for the kill.
Rituals are things that make people comfortable, like flipping the on and off switch to the lights eight times before you leave the apartment or why I used to knock twice on the outside of a plane in the jetway before I boarded any flight. I firmly believed that touching the outer shell of the plane would prevent it from crashing and improve my flight karma which meant avoiding sitting next to babies, chatty people, and folks with morose body odor.
The inflated expectation of winning by adhering to superstitions is the ultimate downfall to any gambler that sets foot in Las Vegas. You will not get blackjack or flop a set if you do or do not follow the delirium of a specific superstition. The randomness of luck is more powerful that your willingness to increase your edge with lucky items or fulfilling a ritual that's nothing more than a waste of your time and your crutch against facing the harsh realities of the world.
Gambling is a chaotic, godless, and random universe.
Asian people view luck in vastly different ways than those of us in the Western world. Chinese people believe that the ebbs and flows of luck can be predicted by astrology. The firmly believe that you can gain an edge by taking advantage of an instance when celestial luck is in your favor. That's why Chinese New Year is a popular time among Asian gamblers. They believe that winning at any form of gambling on New Year's Day will bring them positive luck for the rest of the year.
In some Asian cultures, people save up for decades before checking the stars to find out the right time to head to Macau, Las Vegas, or a local casino. They feel that the outcome for the remainder of their life is up to the gambling gods. If they are supposed to lead a blessed and wealthy life... then they will score big on their gambling sojourn. If they lose on that epic trip, then they accept the fact that they are not predispositioned to have a fortunate life and can accept the role of mediocrity or poverty for their remaining years.
There's a Vietnamese saying, "Winning is luck. Losing is bad luck."
Some poker players will find some truth to that statement. There is a sort of randomness associated with the shuffle of the cards along with the shuffle of luck. When you are running bad, the player at the other end of the table is often referred to as a "luckbox" or a "lucky fucker." But if you get sucked out on, you might chalk up your negative experience to a run of bad luck.
Is a run of bad cards just a run of bad luck? Or is simply... a random event?
That depends on the belief systems and psychological temperment of the person experiencing the rush or the dismay of the awful run of cards. When I get J-J and two overcards flop five straight times, it does not mean I have bad luck or failed to adhere to a silly superstition (I forgot to recite the Our Father in Latin... Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.) set forth to ensure that I flop a set. There are many instances when mathematics and statistics dictate the flow of the cards. Of course if you are running bad and on mega-tilt, you tweak the stats in your favor.
I used to give bums on the subway $1 bills if I encountered them on my way to the Blue Parrot. I didn't associate my good luck with helping out a homeless person buy food or score some malt liquor, but I felt that my overall karma would improve by helping out the homeless. Good karma might come back in a form of a winning session at the tables.
Last night, Change100 had A-A three times at our table. They held up every time. Was that good luck or the fact that Aces win more statistically than any other hand preflop? If she got them cracked three times, our favorite Hollyweird blonde would have been steaming and alluded to a run of bad luck and called her opponent a douchebag or cumstain.
Why did her K-K hold up against a guy with Q-5 and when did my cowboys lose to Q-5? Are her stars aligned in a way that she's more apt to catch a string of good cards? Or did my Kings get cracked because I broke a mirror and my soul was drowning in unfortunate circumstances?
One of the hardest superstitions to shake is the theory that bad luck is passed along from one player to another like a wicked case of the clap or the bird flu. Derek and I often joke around that certain bloggers are "The Cooler." We have a running theory that specific bloggers were symbols of death at the tables. I won't out The Coolers, but there were instances when blogger XYZ walked up to the blackjack table and Derek picked up his chips and walked away. At the IP last year during my awful run at Pai Gow, I walked away when a blogger/cooler walked into the pits.
I have a specific example involving SirWaffle. Is it proof that he's a cooler and he's the reincarnation of Semyazza? If you read his blog regularly, you know that the gambling gods have a hard on for fucking with Waffles. His karma is a black hole of bad luck. Sometimes it rubs off on others. At one of the blogger gatherings, he had just busted out of the tournament and came over to talk to me. I found K-K. I flashed him my hand and he said, "That sucks because you know an ace is going to flop."
The door card was an Ace and I snapped at Waffles, "Get the fuck out of here! You're bad luck is infecting my card mojo."
I was joking, of course. If I had flopped a set I still would have told Waffles to bugger off. I've been around enough casinos to know that bad luck does not rub off on other people. However, I do believe that negative people attract negativity and have a proclivity to the darkside of the universe. I try to avoid those people in life, not just at the tables. If I'm sitting next to a Prince or Princess of Darkness... I ask for a seat change right away.
During March Madness, Miami Don and I discussed certain sports bettors who historically lost. If you found out they liked a certain team, then you bet big against them everytime. One of our cocktail waitresses was the perfect example of someone whom we faded their picks. During one morning, we already put our bets in and the waitress came by to hang out and shoot the shit. We asked her who she liked.
"North Carolina," she said. "I bet that one."
A panicked look blanketed Derek's face as he shook his head. We bet UNC heavily and the fact that our waitress bet them did not bode well for all of us.
"We should have made our bets after we spoke to her," he said.
And yes, UNC lost but not because our waitress bet on them. However, at the time of desperation when gamblers are on the brink of insanity, your decision making processes are seriously impaired and you allow thoughts like "SirWaffle is a Cooler" or "Fade my cocktail waitresses picks" to seep into your mind.
Believing in luck whether it is good or bad is a form of tilt. Stat and math geeks will tell you that there is no such thing as a rush and pushing your luck is nothing more than feeling confident about your cards. Conversely, when stuck in a losing streak, worrying about the outcome of your hands due to an unlucky streak is simply playing without confidence. Like I said, math and science rule the universe over hokey superstitions. That is... if you believe in that.
Some people believe in God and some people firmly believe that praying to God will affect the outcome of your cards. I come from the school of thought that if there is a God, the last thing he wants to do is to turn off the doom switch on PokerStars for you or help you catch your two outer on the river.
Here's a tip... the next time you are in Las Vegas, realize that you are hanging out in the post-modern version of Sodom or Gomorrah. Didn't God send his angels to burn those cities to the ground?
Poker dealers are often associated with good or bad luck. Ask Linda to tell you stories about the regulars who view her as their good luck charm or the sign of the apocalypse. It's simply easier to project your losses onto someone else and blame the dealer. Sit in a locals casino for a few hours and watch the expressions on the faces of the players during a deal change. Some are happy to see a dealer go.
"That bastard cold decked me," they would say.
Or if the dealer had a history of giving them good cards, they would be giddy with excitement like a little kid on Christmas morning.
"Thank God you're here! I've been waiting for my luck to change."
Sometimes I laugh because I see these people playing their hands terribly. Their excuse for poor playing or lack of decent skills at the tables is all because of the dealer. Yes, all poker dealers are just vehicles for the poker gods. They get messages whispered to them by the consortium of angels (or fallen angels if you think that God has abandoned casinos and they place is run by Satan and his crew of Hell's Angels) and determine whether or not you catch your flush or get busted out of a tournament by a donkalope with A-2o.
You have heard of all those wacky superstitions such as a hat on a bed is bad luck or having a dead person in your dream means that someone close to you is going to die. Then there are the universal ones... like a black cat or walking under a ladder or having SirWaffles railbird you. I don't believe in any of those because once you start to believe one... you have to believe all of them and then you become a slave to your superstitions. Well fuck... why ever leave the house when there's too many ominous signs of bad luck?
There is one tiny superstition that I have and it's all because of Grubby. It involves $50 bills. I refuse to carry them in my wallet. Why? Because $50 bills are historically bad luck for gamblers.
The hardest part about traveling overseas is getting an influx of 50 bills whether it was Aussie bucks or Euros. I freak out when changing US dollars and get 50s. I quickly ask for a wad of 20s which often pisses off the person at the change booth. They obviously had no concept of Grubby's $50 rule or they would not have given me guff. In Las Vegas, workers at the cage are so used to the $50 rule that they rarely give out $50 bills because they know most of the people will give it back. And if you walk up to the cage to change a $50 bill, they'll quickly do that transaction for you. After all, a happy gambler is better than a grumpy gambler. And if you feel like you are having a string of good luck, you are more likely to gamble more than when you are soaked under a wet blanket of bad luck.
Aside from the $50 bills, I don't have any superstitions. I don't say three Hail Marys when I am dealt pocket Queens. I don't believe in the "secret" and ask the universe for good cards at the tables. I don't wait until both cards are dealt to me before I peek at them.
I often find myself avoiding unlucky people in life (or rather people who feel they are unlucky) not because I'm afraid it will rub off on me... but rather because I'd rather not be around negative people. Hearing about people's bad beats in life is probably the least entertaining thing for me in the universe. Just as Jean Paul Sartre explained that hell is other people in his play No Exit, to me... hell would be me locked in a small room and having to read bad beat hand histories posted by bloggers or listen to poker players tell me their bad beat stories... for the rest of eternity.
People who believe that bad luck is the reason why they lost are simply gamblers who are lazy or selfish and are unwilling to accept that they are bad players and did not accept the fact that they played poorly and made bad decisions. Even the top pros in the world rarely play flawless poker. People make mistakes at the tables and it's easier to mask their bad play under a string of bad luck.
Sartre's character Garcin said it best in No Exit, "I made my choice deliberately. A man is what he wills himself to be."
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
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