Tao of Four
By Pauly
(AMSTERDAM)
I'm celebrating the Tao of Poker's fourth blog birthday in Amsterdam. I've come a long way and it's fitting that I celebrate this milestone on the road. Earlier in 2007, Tao of Pauly turned 5 years old as did Truckin'.
In the summer of 2003, my friends started a mutiny on Tao of Pauly and demanded that I start a new blog to post the massive influx of poker content. Bullies. Never thought anyone would read the new blog. One's man's trash is another man's art. God bless the internet.
A couple of months after I started Tao of Poker, I stumbled upon Iggy's blog Guinness and Poker and noticed his blogroll. I soon discovered other blogs like Royal, HDouble, MeanGene, BoyGenius and Grubby. Those strangers eventually became my friends and peers. Together, we helped build a community with other bloggers (too many to mention - you know who you are) which continues to thrive today. And within a year of contact, we started the first of many excursions together to Las Vegas.
Those initial friendships and bonds were important. Without the support of my brother, loving girlfriend, and friends over the last four years, I never would have gotten out of the life slump I was stuck in. The fact that this blog has been around for so long is due to their existence in my life. For that, I'm eternally humbled and grateful.
Had I taken a temporary desk job somewhere in Manhattan or moved to Japan to teach English (which I was in the process of doing four years ago)... then I wouldn't have taken the first steps in the journey through poker. I never gave up and kept gambling during the dismal losing streaks and kept writing during the uninspired stretches. Gritty and courageous determination or utter and foolish degeneracy? Who knows the real reason why I stuck Tao of Poker. Probably a little of both.
Ripples. Every little decision you make in life does matter.
The major highlight of the past year came to light when John Caldwell hired me for PokerNews to cover the Aussie Millions at a point when I lost the majority of my clients due to the effects of the UIGEA.
The best part of this ride has been the people I have met along the way. I had the opportunity to become friends with many amazing and inspirational people despite working in an industry rotten to the core. They are the ones who should get the accolades and praise. They helped guide me through a vicious world.
I often remind myself that when things are not going right, it's not that big of a deal since I'm sitting on a big stack in life. I'm been extremely fortunate over the last couple of years. Should cash out now and walk away with a monster profit? or keep playing on while risking everything with the chance that I'll lose it all?
Greater men than me have fallen aside in this wicked world. I'm foolish to think I can keep up this pace without sacrificing more of my sanity and soul. However, I'm intoxicated by the endless possibilities of the path I'm on. The ride, the path, the road, the way, the Tao... is an undescribed entity which has played a tremendous role in the development of my career, craft, social life, and understanding the unique situation that I have found myself in.
There are too many majestic places that I've been itching to see and too many unanswered questions that have been haunting me. Some of them are still within the realm of poker. Thus, the incandescent journey continues...
Next stop, Sweden.
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.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Amsterdam Apartment
By Pauly
(AMSTERDAM)
I arrived in Amsterdam over the weekend. On Monday, I moved into an apartment in the Jordaan neighborhood about four blocks from the Anne Frank House and around the corner from the window hookers. After being on the road for the last three years, I'm totally sick of living in hotels and rented two different apartments (the other one in Barcelona) during my six weeks in Europe.
The Amsterdam apartment is over five stories high and occupies an entire building along a canal. The owner told us that the house was built in 1650. My roommates include Benjo (a famous French poker journalist) and RK who is an Aussie poker pro. Those two have been gambling non-stop on heads-up blackjack, a game called poker dice, flipping coins, and picking out numbers 1 through 9. Not too mention random sessions of online poker like RK beating Thomas Wahlroos heads up in a $500 PLO SNG.
Anyway, we rented the flat for two weeks. The lovely Change100 arrives next week sometime. I've been getting plenty of rest, lots of exercise, and been sitting in coffeeshops reading books by Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Michel Houellebecq. I've also been writing a fair amount and taking tons of pictures. Head over to Tao of Pauly to read all about my adventures in Europe including the occasional picture dump.
Check out a short video tour of our apartment that I whipped up on You Tube.
Click here to view the Amsterdam video via RSS or Bloglines
Enjoy!
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.
By Pauly
(AMSTERDAM)
I arrived in Amsterdam over the weekend. On Monday, I moved into an apartment in the Jordaan neighborhood about four blocks from the Anne Frank House and around the corner from the window hookers. After being on the road for the last three years, I'm totally sick of living in hotels and rented two different apartments (the other one in Barcelona) during my six weeks in Europe.
The Amsterdam apartment is over five stories high and occupies an entire building along a canal. The owner told us that the house was built in 1650. My roommates include Benjo (a famous French poker journalist) and RK who is an Aussie poker pro. Those two have been gambling non-stop on heads-up blackjack, a game called poker dice, flipping coins, and picking out numbers 1 through 9. Not too mention random sessions of online poker like RK beating Thomas Wahlroos heads up in a $500 PLO SNG.
Anyway, we rented the flat for two weeks. The lovely Change100 arrives next week sometime. I've been getting plenty of rest, lots of exercise, and been sitting in coffeeshops reading books by Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Michel Houellebecq. I've also been writing a fair amount and taking tons of pictures. Head over to Tao of Pauly to read all about my adventures in Europe including the occasional picture dump.
Check out a short video tour of our apartment that I whipped up on You Tube.
Click here to view the Amsterdam video via RSS or Bloglines
Enjoy!
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, August 13, 2007
Low Life, the Rat Pit, and George Washington's Poker Blog
By Pauly
(AMSTERDAM)
I have been on a reading kick since the WSOP ended. I'm finally finishing off a few books that I started, yet never finished. That's been my goal for the rest of 2007... to read more and alternate between new books and older books (that I once picked up to read but for some reason never finished). I highly recommend Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer, where he explores the violent history behind the Mormon religion. I finished it on Zuma Beach in Malibu. I started it in 2003 and failed to complete it.
When I returned to NYC last weekend, I picked up Low Life by Luc Sante. I read excerpts and chapters over a decade ago. I always wanted to finish it and finally started from the beginning and read all the way to the end. Sante wrote an exceptional book about the seedy underbelly of New York City from the 1840s to the 1919. It's broken up into four sections and Part Two is devoted to "vice and entertainment - theatres and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution."
For many decades in the early 19th Century, New Orleans was the gambling Mecca in North America, with Mobile, Alabama a close second. Attention eventually shifted to New York City shortly before the Civil War and eventually out west to Las Vegas in the middle part of the 20th Century.
All the derelicts and sketchy characters of the day ran rampant down the filthy streets of the Lower East Side in New York City. They had a particular fondness for the Bowery... the epicenter of the underbelly. At that time, the Bowery made modern-day Las Vegas seem as squeaky clean as Salt Lake City. Lawlessness ruled as a dark blanket of vice blanketed that section of New York. It was not uncommon to find a bar, a brothel, and a backroom casino all in one building. Debauchery flourished at a time when the politicians and cops were as crooked as the criminal enterprises that set up shop. Heck, most of the men in power frequented those seedy establishments, which is why so many of them were able to continue to operate.
In his chapter titled Saloon Culture, Sante wrote about the insane spectacles that occurred at Kit Burn's Sportsmen Hall also known as the Rat Pit, a three-story building which doubled as both a bar and a whorehouse, where vices were pursued on every floor...
Before the inception of off-track horse betting and before organized team sports, the gambling vices of the day involved wagering on animals trying to kill other animals. The ASPCA eventually banned rat-baiting in NYC by the turn of the century, and the degenerate gamblers had to get their fix wagering on other things like bear fights.
New York City was a dark and evil place filled with hustler, hookers, pimps, and street thugs that didn't think twice about slashing your throat to rob you out of your last nickel.
Swindled like a fool. Ship it.
This is probably my favorite passage from Sante's chapter titled Chance...
* * * * *
Gambling has always played a part in America, even before this land was called America. Native Americans tribes engaged in gambling events and rituals way before they had their first encounters with European colonists. According to David Schwartz's epic book Roll the Bones, gambling in the American Southwest was a serious and sacred pursuit among the Native Americans.
The Navajos played a game where two different sides took turns hiding a ball (or usually a small rock or pebble) in one of eight moccasins that were buried in the sand. Each side took turns guessing where the ball was and depending how far off you were, each team lost points. The origins of the game were rooted in a disagreement between the animals of the day and the animals of the night. Each group of animals wanted either perpetual darkness or never ending sunlight. The animals met at twilight and played hide the pebble game. They could not determine a winner, so their match was a push... and the cycle of night and day continued.
By the early 18th century, the wealthy colonists in Virginia had been engaging in a deeply rooted gambling culture which included cards, dice, backgammon, and billiards. They also had an intense passion for horse racing and held informal races in the fields on their plantations or engaged in formal races at tracks. When the British took control of New Amsterdam in the late 17th century, they renamed it New York, they also set up a racetrack.
During the Revolutionary war, widespread gambling was common in base camps on both sides of the line. Even though George Washington dabbled in gambling from time to time, he had a famous quote stating that, "Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief." He frowned upon gambling among his soldiers. According to Schwartz's chapter titled Star-Spangled Gamblers...
George Washington... not only did he grow marijuana, but he also played poker and wrote about it. God Bless him.
During the war with the British, many of the colonies started up lotteries to help pay for the escalating costs of war. Freedom had a price and the best way to raise money quick was to have a drawing amongst the populace, where the proceeds went to a worthy cause. In one instance, a citizen could win a few bucks gambling and help expel the British at the same time. Gambling for freedom. Only in America.
* * * * *
Here is some more information about the books that I mentioned in this post:
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.
By Pauly
(AMSTERDAM)
I have been on a reading kick since the WSOP ended. I'm finally finishing off a few books that I started, yet never finished. That's been my goal for the rest of 2007... to read more and alternate between new books and older books (that I once picked up to read but for some reason never finished). I highly recommend Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer, where he explores the violent history behind the Mormon religion. I finished it on Zuma Beach in Malibu. I started it in 2003 and failed to complete it.
When I returned to NYC last weekend, I picked up Low Life by Luc Sante. I read excerpts and chapters over a decade ago. I always wanted to finish it and finally started from the beginning and read all the way to the end. Sante wrote an exceptional book about the seedy underbelly of New York City from the 1840s to the 1919. It's broken up into four sections and Part Two is devoted to "vice and entertainment - theatres and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution."
For many decades in the early 19th Century, New Orleans was the gambling Mecca in North America, with Mobile, Alabama a close second. Attention eventually shifted to New York City shortly before the Civil War and eventually out west to Las Vegas in the middle part of the 20th Century.
All the derelicts and sketchy characters of the day ran rampant down the filthy streets of the Lower East Side in New York City. They had a particular fondness for the Bowery... the epicenter of the underbelly. At that time, the Bowery made modern-day Las Vegas seem as squeaky clean as Salt Lake City. Lawlessness ruled as a dark blanket of vice blanketed that section of New York. It was not uncommon to find a bar, a brothel, and a backroom casino all in one building. Debauchery flourished at a time when the politicians and cops were as crooked as the criminal enterprises that set up shop. Heck, most of the men in power frequented those seedy establishments, which is why so many of them were able to continue to operate.
In his chapter titled Saloon Culture, Sante wrote about the insane spectacles that occurred at Kit Burn's Sportsmen Hall also known as the Rat Pit, a three-story building which doubled as both a bar and a whorehouse, where vices were pursued on every floor...
"But none so famously as its matches to the death between terriers and rats, held in a pit in the first-floor amphitheater, hence the resort's more common name, the Rat Pit. Rat-baiting was the premier betting sport of the 19th century. Its prestige can be gauged in economic terms, circa 1875: admission to a then illegal prize fight between humans cost fifty cents, to dogfights and cockfights $2, while a fight pitting a dog against rats ran anywhere from $1.50 if the dog faced five rats or fewer, up to $5, in proportion to the number of rats.Just think that 130 years earlier, on the same block in New York City where I spend too much money on imported beer in dive bar overrun by hipsters, there were daily dog-rat fights to the death in the same building as the local hooker bar.
For a while, dog-vs.-racoon contests were popular, but rats were so readily available that they came to dominate the scene; boys were paid to catch them, at a rate of five to twelve cents a head. The dogs were always fox terriers, and they trained for six months before being sent out.
Matches drew no fewer than a hundred betting spectators, from all walks of life, with purses starting at $125. A good rat dog could kill a hundred rats in a half an hour to forty-five minutes."
Before the inception of off-track horse betting and before organized team sports, the gambling vices of the day involved wagering on animals trying to kill other animals. The ASPCA eventually banned rat-baiting in NYC by the turn of the century, and the degenerate gamblers had to get their fix wagering on other things like bear fights.
New York City was a dark and evil place filled with hustler, hookers, pimps, and street thugs that didn't think twice about slashing your throat to rob you out of your last nickel.
"The golden age of gambling in New York lasted from shortly after the Civil War until just after the turn of the century. During that time, there were untold hundreds of gambling house of all sorts for all classes and for every specialty.One of the scam games introduced was banco, which was also known as bunco, hence the term bunco-artist. It's a game played with eight cards or eight dice. It's a game where you're not supposed to win and even the author Oscar Wilde got caught up in one bunco scheme where he donked off $5,000. The thieves running the ring foolishly accepted a personal check. After Wilde figured out what went down, he was able to get his bank to cancel the check. But the majority of the bunco victims were not so lucky.
This period also saw cheating and fakery achieve new heights. Three-card Monte and its cousin the shell game clew in from the West and flourished; they are believed to be the only major gambling games invented in the United States." (Luc Sante, Low Life)
Swindled like a fool. Ship it.
This is probably my favorite passage from Sante's chapter titled Chance...
"Tammany Mayor Robert Van Wyck (1898-1901) let gambling house run wide open all over town. Broadway and the Bowery were both chockablock with joints offering 'high play at cards,' roulette, dice, off-track-betting, and wagering on prizefights, dogfights, and cockfights, while in Chinatown there were scores of places specializing in fan-tan and pi-gow."Pi-gow? That's what they used to call Pai-Gow. Yeah, if you wanted a Pai Gow fix at the turn of the century, you ended up in Chinatown.
Gambling has always played a part in America, even before this land was called America. Native Americans tribes engaged in gambling events and rituals way before they had their first encounters with European colonists. According to David Schwartz's epic book Roll the Bones, gambling in the American Southwest was a serious and sacred pursuit among the Native Americans.
The Navajos played a game where two different sides took turns hiding a ball (or usually a small rock or pebble) in one of eight moccasins that were buried in the sand. Each side took turns guessing where the ball was and depending how far off you were, each team lost points. The origins of the game were rooted in a disagreement between the animals of the day and the animals of the night. Each group of animals wanted either perpetual darkness or never ending sunlight. The animals met at twilight and played hide the pebble game. They could not determine a winner, so their match was a push... and the cycle of night and day continued.
By the early 18th century, the wealthy colonists in Virginia had been engaging in a deeply rooted gambling culture which included cards, dice, backgammon, and billiards. They also had an intense passion for horse racing and held informal races in the fields on their plantations or engaged in formal races at tracks. When the British took control of New Amsterdam in the late 17th century, they renamed it New York, they also set up a racetrack.
During the Revolutionary war, widespread gambling was common in base camps on both sides of the line. Even though George Washington dabbled in gambling from time to time, he had a famous quote stating that, "Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief." He frowned upon gambling among his soldiers. According to Schwartz's chapter titled Star-Spangled Gamblers...
"Despite George Washington's mild fondness for gambling, he demanded that his troops put down their cards for the good of the nation."Washington might be the first ever poker blogger. He kept detailed accounts of his gambling ventures in a journal. Between 1772 and 1775, he played cards about twice a week. Although he had more losing sessions than winning ones, he never had a losing session where he lost more than six pounds and his winning sessions were usually big ones. Washington's strategy was to limit his losses, while waiting for the big score. His card playing philosophy carried over to the battlefield during the Revolutionary War. Washington might have lost more battles than he won, but in the end, he prevailed.
George Washington... not only did he grow marijuana, but he also played poker and wrote about it. God Bless him.
During the war with the British, many of the colonies started up lotteries to help pay for the escalating costs of war. Freedom had a price and the best way to raise money quick was to have a drawing amongst the populace, where the proceeds went to a worthy cause. In one instance, a citizen could win a few bucks gambling and help expel the British at the same time. Gambling for freedom. Only in America.
Here is some more information about the books that I mentioned in this post:
Roll the Bones: The History of GamblingAnd just in case you were wondering, not one rat or dog was harmed during the writing of this post.by David Schwartz
Low Life
Under the Banner of Heaven
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, August 12, 2007
Truckin' - August 2007, Vol. 6, Issue 8
We're back with the last issue of the summer featuring some of your favorite writers.
I ask that if you like these stories, then please do me and the rest of the writers a huge favor: Tell your friends about your favorite stories.
Thanks to the writers who exposed their souls to the world and wrote for free. I'm lucky that you were willing to take that leap of faith with me.
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.
We're back with the last issue of the summer featuring some of your favorite writers.
1. Pyramid by Paul McGuireThe August issue Truckin' features veterans such as May B. Yesno, Susan B. Bentley, Change100 and everyone's favorite Norwegian writer... Sigge S. Amdal. I also penned a short story about a bad job that I held when I first moved to Seattle.
I quickly discovered that Seattle was a bastion for the super weird. You needed to have layered eccentricies in order to stick out among the masses of freaks. Goth-dykes with foot fetishes might freak people out in conservative cities and small towns, but in Seattle, that puts you in the core group of "normal people."... More
2. Cross-word by Sigge S. Amdal
Her hair was in explosive disarray across the pillow like the blood spurt pattern from a shotgun blast. It was slightly blond, streaked with brown and very beautiful. It looked like the crossroad of infinite options where only a handful suggested returning to the bed. She was fast asleep... More
3. Meeting Mama McGrupp by Change100
I had yet to meet Mama McGrupp. Pauly assured me it was for a good reason. All I knew about this woman was that she was five feet tall, chain-smoked, had a wicked New York accent, was overly fond of Amaretto, and never had anything nice to say about anyone... More
4. Kansas Clouds by Susan B. Bentley
Click. I got a photo of Kat just before she gave me the finger. Lying back down, I moved the lens across the sky, trying to capture a cloud on its journey. I sat up and took a picture of the track ahead. Nothing but mud and dust, bordered by fields of corn slowly moving in the breeze, nothing but empty for miles ahead... More
5. Summer Story by May B. Yesno
Friends are a difficult thing. As a matter of fact they are almost impossible. Difficult to find for the first thing and just as difficult to keep - especially in a mobile society... More
I ask that if you like these stories, then please do me and the rest of the writers a huge favor: Tell your friends about your favorite stories.
Thanks to the writers who exposed their souls to the world and wrote for free. I'm lucky that you were willing to take that leap of faith with me.
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, August 9, 2007
Paranoid Android
By Pauly
(NEW YORK)
Over the last two weeks, I racked up an unknown number of hours playing online poker. A year ago at this time, there were a myriad of fish swimming around the abundant waters of Party Poker. I'd log into my account on a nightly basis and cast out my net. The results were staggering. The 15/30 games were beyond juicy. I'd hop onto the $1,000 buy-in PLO tables, which became the equivalent of printing money. I had many Hellmuthian moments when I just sat there and basked in the warm glow of my own greatness and patiently waited as my opponents donked off their stacks and willingly pissed away their stacks to me. At the end of last summer, I'd log off almost every session with more money that I started with.
The games were soft. The players were atrocious and abundant. Then like the Mayans... they vanished without a trace.
Shortly before I moved to Las Vegas for the 2007 WSOP, the online games had become increasingly tougher over the prior six months, particularly at the limits I had been playing. The 15/30 and 30/60 LHE games used to be super soft. I knew regular joes from all over who were making a killing at those tables and happily lived off of those winnings. They bought luxury cars, made house payments, paid for tropical vacations, and accumulated other nonsensical material items.
In a short time, online poker had become a post-modern gold rush. Like a prospector in California during the 19th century gold rush, adventurous personalities of my generation set out for unchartered waters of online poker to stake a claim. Some of them became successful and vacuumed up wads and wads of cash, while more inexperienced newbies jumped online an attempted to strike it rich... and consequently succumbed to the better players.
These days the tides have turned. Perhaps it's my own deeply-rooted paranoia or lack of confidence, but a few months ago, I became a mark at those tables. Once infested with trout that could barely swim, the games had become dominated by sharks. I was no longer one of the hunters. I had become the hunted.
At any given time at a full ring table (nine handed) there are approximately three players who usually play higher limits. There are three people who are "punching their weight" and there are three people who should be playing lower limits and for whatever reason... they are taking a shot or straight up gambling. Those are the players I always gun for. When I sit down at a 8/16 LHE table, I'm slumming. Yet when I sit at 30/60, I'm that guy who is playing over his head and I have a big red bullseye located over my avatar.
I took a shot at 30/60 before the WSOP started and although I made solid decisions, I played tentative at times (which is expected at a new level but still that's no excuse) and I eventually lost a few grand... 50% of it in one hand to David Grey on Full Tilt who flopped a set of 3s against my Big Slick when I missed a nut flush draw.
In the last week or so that I've been in NYC, I went back to taking another shot at 30/60 LHE. After a couple of sessions on PokerStars, I have almost wiped out those initial loses. On Tuesday night, I took down consecutive monsterpottens... the first one with Ks-Js and on the next hand, I flopped a set of 7s.
I'm much better about detaching myself from the monetary value of chips in play and pot sizes. When I used to lose a big hand in PLO, I'd say things like... "That jizzmopper sucked out on me and cost me the equivalent a round-trip ticket to Paris..." or "Fuckwad over here cracked my set and that could have paid for half of my new laptop." And these days, I don't blink.
If I want to play and succeed at higher levels, I have to implement a total detachment from money and play every hand as they come. I'm winning and losing pots the size of what my total bankroll used to be a couple of years ago. The swings are tremendous. Heck, in only a handful of hit and run sessions I nearly wiped out a 2K loss. Chasing a loss in lower limits would have taken me weeks or even months to grind myself out of that hole.
Sometimes, you have to take chances and risk losing some of your profit in order to gain experience and to make some money. One of my fraternity brothers from college had an odd saying that we used to scream out when we gambled on the riverboats in Biloxi. Teddy B uttered the infamous words... "To win big, you gotta (be willing to) lose big."
I have a stop-loss in place so I won't lose more than a specific percentage of my bankroll playing 30/60. I have friends who took shots at higher limits and lost it all. That's my biggest fear so I set aside an amount of money I am comfortable losing and that I'm willing to gamble with. I'm sticking with the hit and run strategy until I suffer a defeat at the hands of a couple of losing sessions in a row before I abandon the 30/60 level. My goal is to accumulate as much as possible during my hit and runs so that my bankroll is sufficient enough to make that jump completely.
Over the last two weeks, I played LHE anywhere from 8/16 to 10/20 on FT and playing multiple tables at 10/20, 15/30, and 30/60 on PokerStars. Finding full ring limit cash games on FT is tough. The players are softer but the infrequency of games is what sucks the most. There are plenty of full ring cash games on PokerStars, but the players are much better - which means that I have to be more careful about the tables I select. There are a few fishy players that I hunt down and track, but aside from them, I avoid some of the better players that I have come across. My goal is not to beat the best... my goal is simply to fleece the worst... before they go busto and are never heard from again.
My fundamental philosophy on making money in poker is to find the one thing that you are the best at... then maximize your earning potential within that genre. Since LHE cash game skills are the most profitable for me, I play those tables as much as possible. I encourage my friends to find their edge in poker, and then maximize it. Whether it's online NL MTTs or PLO SNGs or live cash games, you must figure out what your "bread and butter" game is... and stop fucking around the places where you are not profitable.
Of course, I am a walking contradiction at all times. I have been ignoring my own philosophy out of sheer boredom. I should be playing LHE cash games non-stop, but I find myself dabbling in other games... for entertainment value. I don't mind investing my time and money into educating myself and learn how to play a certain game (like PLO) better... because over the long term that's a winning investment. But, I have been farting around too much in places where I'm not as profitable... such as the 1/2 and 2/4 NL tables. I have to cut back in that area and stick to mid-level LHE.
I have been dabbling in NL SNGs to switch things up. I used to be an SNG guru back in the day under the sage-like advice of HDouble, The Poker Penguin and the (original) Poker Nerd. (Side note: I wish all three would start posting again!) I used to clean up on the $30 and $50 SNGs on PartyPoker. I'd start my sessions at a low-limit NL table and try to double up early. I'd use my winnings to play SNGs. Things were going great for several months until I hit a cold streak. That's when I decided to focus on Limit cash games and I never looked back.
I started playing token SNGs on FT earlier in the year to win a few cheap seats to different blogger events like Miami Don's Big Game. In fact, the one time that I won the Big Game in February, I had qualified via a token. I missed the excitement and instant gratification of playing SNGs. Shortly after the WSOP ended, I found myself playing $50 and $100 NL SNGs during late nights when I couldn't sleep in Las Vegas or in Hollyweird. The results have been luke-warm to moderate. I turned a small amount, but deep down I'm playing those more out of entertainment than to make money.
Of course, my inner action junkie takes over from time to time and I find myself at the turbo PLO SNGs or playing short-handed 1/2 PLO. That is just flat out gambling... but then again, I want to become a better short-handed PLO player, so whatever experience that I can get... I'll take. I love it when I can justify aberrant behavior to myself.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have not been using PokerTracker. I have individual notes on players and have been using those when applicable, but for the most part in between a fried laptop and setting up a brand new one, I haven't had the chance to install PokerTracker to my new computer. That's been good for me because I'm not obsessing over the numbers for my daily sessions. I base the quality of my sessions on the quality of my decisions. If I made solid decisions and minimized my mistakes, then it's a positive session. If I played like shit with too many errors, then I had a bad session.
The monetary outcome often skews my perspective of results. Too many times in the past, I played like crap, but since I won a few bucks, I shrug off my less than optimal play instead of sitting down and reviewing my mistakes. On the other hand, there were numerous instances when I made excellent decisions and played a nearly flawless session, yet the cards didn't fall my way or I encountered too many suck outs which translated into a negative session. I tend to be too hard on myself during those days when I need to ease up and admit that I played well. Variance got the better part of me.
I play with more confidence when I'm not paying attention to daily wins/losses and focusing more on the bigger picture... to make solid decisions and limit my mistakes.
And of course, the cycle continues. As soon as I get into the swing of playing everyday again... it's time for me to hit the road.
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.
By Pauly
(NEW YORK)
Over the last two weeks, I racked up an unknown number of hours playing online poker. A year ago at this time, there were a myriad of fish swimming around the abundant waters of Party Poker. I'd log into my account on a nightly basis and cast out my net. The results were staggering. The 15/30 games were beyond juicy. I'd hop onto the $1,000 buy-in PLO tables, which became the equivalent of printing money. I had many Hellmuthian moments when I just sat there and basked in the warm glow of my own greatness and patiently waited as my opponents donked off their stacks and willingly pissed away their stacks to me. At the end of last summer, I'd log off almost every session with more money that I started with.
The games were soft. The players were atrocious and abundant. Then like the Mayans... they vanished without a trace.
Shortly before I moved to Las Vegas for the 2007 WSOP, the online games had become increasingly tougher over the prior six months, particularly at the limits I had been playing. The 15/30 and 30/60 LHE games used to be super soft. I knew regular joes from all over who were making a killing at those tables and happily lived off of those winnings. They bought luxury cars, made house payments, paid for tropical vacations, and accumulated other nonsensical material items.
In a short time, online poker had become a post-modern gold rush. Like a prospector in California during the 19th century gold rush, adventurous personalities of my generation set out for unchartered waters of online poker to stake a claim. Some of them became successful and vacuumed up wads and wads of cash, while more inexperienced newbies jumped online an attempted to strike it rich... and consequently succumbed to the better players.
These days the tides have turned. Perhaps it's my own deeply-rooted paranoia or lack of confidence, but a few months ago, I became a mark at those tables. Once infested with trout that could barely swim, the games had become dominated by sharks. I was no longer one of the hunters. I had become the hunted.
At any given time at a full ring table (nine handed) there are approximately three players who usually play higher limits. There are three people who are "punching their weight" and there are three people who should be playing lower limits and for whatever reason... they are taking a shot or straight up gambling. Those are the players I always gun for. When I sit down at a 8/16 LHE table, I'm slumming. Yet when I sit at 30/60, I'm that guy who is playing over his head and I have a big red bullseye located over my avatar.
I took a shot at 30/60 before the WSOP started and although I made solid decisions, I played tentative at times (which is expected at a new level but still that's no excuse) and I eventually lost a few grand... 50% of it in one hand to David Grey on Full Tilt who flopped a set of 3s against my Big Slick when I missed a nut flush draw.
In the last week or so that I've been in NYC, I went back to taking another shot at 30/60 LHE. After a couple of sessions on PokerStars, I have almost wiped out those initial loses. On Tuesday night, I took down consecutive monsterpottens... the first one with Ks-Js and on the next hand, I flopped a set of 7s.
I'm much better about detaching myself from the monetary value of chips in play and pot sizes. When I used to lose a big hand in PLO, I'd say things like... "That jizzmopper sucked out on me and cost me the equivalent a round-trip ticket to Paris..." or "Fuckwad over here cracked my set and that could have paid for half of my new laptop." And these days, I don't blink.
If I want to play and succeed at higher levels, I have to implement a total detachment from money and play every hand as they come. I'm winning and losing pots the size of what my total bankroll used to be a couple of years ago. The swings are tremendous. Heck, in only a handful of hit and run sessions I nearly wiped out a 2K loss. Chasing a loss in lower limits would have taken me weeks or even months to grind myself out of that hole.
Sometimes, you have to take chances and risk losing some of your profit in order to gain experience and to make some money. One of my fraternity brothers from college had an odd saying that we used to scream out when we gambled on the riverboats in Biloxi. Teddy B uttered the infamous words... "To win big, you gotta (be willing to) lose big."
I have a stop-loss in place so I won't lose more than a specific percentage of my bankroll playing 30/60. I have friends who took shots at higher limits and lost it all. That's my biggest fear so I set aside an amount of money I am comfortable losing and that I'm willing to gamble with. I'm sticking with the hit and run strategy until I suffer a defeat at the hands of a couple of losing sessions in a row before I abandon the 30/60 level. My goal is to accumulate as much as possible during my hit and runs so that my bankroll is sufficient enough to make that jump completely.
Over the last two weeks, I played LHE anywhere from 8/16 to 10/20 on FT and playing multiple tables at 10/20, 15/30, and 30/60 on PokerStars. Finding full ring limit cash games on FT is tough. The players are softer but the infrequency of games is what sucks the most. There are plenty of full ring cash games on PokerStars, but the players are much better - which means that I have to be more careful about the tables I select. There are a few fishy players that I hunt down and track, but aside from them, I avoid some of the better players that I have come across. My goal is not to beat the best... my goal is simply to fleece the worst... before they go busto and are never heard from again.
My fundamental philosophy on making money in poker is to find the one thing that you are the best at... then maximize your earning potential within that genre. Since LHE cash game skills are the most profitable for me, I play those tables as much as possible. I encourage my friends to find their edge in poker, and then maximize it. Whether it's online NL MTTs or PLO SNGs or live cash games, you must figure out what your "bread and butter" game is... and stop fucking around the places where you are not profitable.
Of course, I am a walking contradiction at all times. I have been ignoring my own philosophy out of sheer boredom. I should be playing LHE cash games non-stop, but I find myself dabbling in other games... for entertainment value. I don't mind investing my time and money into educating myself and learn how to play a certain game (like PLO) better... because over the long term that's a winning investment. But, I have been farting around too much in places where I'm not as profitable... such as the 1/2 and 2/4 NL tables. I have to cut back in that area and stick to mid-level LHE.
I have been dabbling in NL SNGs to switch things up. I used to be an SNG guru back in the day under the sage-like advice of HDouble, The Poker Penguin and the (original) Poker Nerd. (Side note: I wish all three would start posting again!) I used to clean up on the $30 and $50 SNGs on PartyPoker. I'd start my sessions at a low-limit NL table and try to double up early. I'd use my winnings to play SNGs. Things were going great for several months until I hit a cold streak. That's when I decided to focus on Limit cash games and I never looked back.
I started playing token SNGs on FT earlier in the year to win a few cheap seats to different blogger events like Miami Don's Big Game. In fact, the one time that I won the Big Game in February, I had qualified via a token. I missed the excitement and instant gratification of playing SNGs. Shortly after the WSOP ended, I found myself playing $50 and $100 NL SNGs during late nights when I couldn't sleep in Las Vegas or in Hollyweird. The results have been luke-warm to moderate. I turned a small amount, but deep down I'm playing those more out of entertainment than to make money.
Of course, my inner action junkie takes over from time to time and I find myself at the turbo PLO SNGs or playing short-handed 1/2 PLO. That is just flat out gambling... but then again, I want to become a better short-handed PLO player, so whatever experience that I can get... I'll take. I love it when I can justify aberrant behavior to myself.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have not been using PokerTracker. I have individual notes on players and have been using those when applicable, but for the most part in between a fried laptop and setting up a brand new one, I haven't had the chance to install PokerTracker to my new computer. That's been good for me because I'm not obsessing over the numbers for my daily sessions. I base the quality of my sessions on the quality of my decisions. If I made solid decisions and minimized my mistakes, then it's a positive session. If I played like shit with too many errors, then I had a bad session.
The monetary outcome often skews my perspective of results. Too many times in the past, I played like crap, but since I won a few bucks, I shrug off my less than optimal play instead of sitting down and reviewing my mistakes. On the other hand, there were numerous instances when I made excellent decisions and played a nearly flawless session, yet the cards didn't fall my way or I encountered too many suck outs which translated into a negative session. I tend to be too hard on myself during those days when I need to ease up and admit that I played well. Variance got the better part of me.
I play with more confidence when I'm not paying attention to daily wins/losses and focusing more on the bigger picture... to make solid decisions and limit my mistakes.
And of course, the cycle continues. As soon as I get into the swing of playing everyday again... it's time for me to hit the road.
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.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Butterfly Dreams
By Pauly
(NEW YORK CITY)
After ten weeks of being on the road in Las Vegas and Hollyweird, I have returned to New York City. My time here is short and I'm prepping for another arduous journey. In the next couple of days, I'll board a flight to Amsterdam which begins a six week stint in Europe with work assignments at the EPT Barcelona and the WSOP-Europe in London.
Upon my arrival home (it's not really home per se, more like base camp) after a long trip or assignment, the snail mail backs up. I have a pile of mail to sift through and a stack of packages to check out. PR reps, publishing companies, and literary agents send me books to review on the Tao of Poker or the other places I write. Most of them are poker or gambling books, but I also get random CDs from indie bands that I never heard of. After writing for a German music magazine, I was placed on a weird mailing list from a small PR firm based out of Toronto that handles record labels on the east coast that I never heard. I have a stack of CDs from bands like Panda of the Purple Promise, Muppets Collide, Miserable Neptune, and my favorite new band... Crank Detour. I'm not usually fond of four guys in Ed Harvey t-shirts with messy hair that can't play their instruments fronted by a chick covered in tattoos who sounds like Cyndi Lauper getting anally raped by a garden hose... but when a band has a name like Crank Detour and sing songs about meeting Jesus in an A.A. meeting in downtown Oakland and then skipping out early to shoot dice in the alley, I quickly hit their MySpace page and see if they are touring.
One thing that I like to do before a long adventure is to get a haircut. Vinny the barber is my go to guy. I've been seeing him on and off for the last twenty or so years. When I had long hair in my 20s, I saw him once a year. He was the only person I trusted not to fuck it up. As my hairline began the retreat into oblivion, I rely on him to make it look good. He always does top notch work. A true artist.
Our discussions during the haircut always revolve around local sports and gambling. Over the weekend, he touched briefly on A-Rod's 500th homerun, Barry Bonds and the legalization of steroids in sports, the non-smoking rules at the Borgata in Atlantic City, playing golf in Westchester, and his favorite topic... the buffet at the Wynn.
Vinny the barber is from the old country. Originally from the rough and tumble streets of Sicily, he came to America in the late 1950s. As a teenager, he ended up making money as an amateur boxer who fought in the dimly lit and smokey armories and gymnasiums in the Bronx and in Manhattan. After getting his nose broken a few times, he decided the life of a pugilist was not his calling. Instead, he fought until he saved up his money to pay for barber school. The rest is history.
Vinny the barber turned to running in the 1970s and became a marathon runner. At one point, he was my running coach when I ran a series of 10K races during grammar school. He's a guy who has always been in good shape ever since I met him. These days, his sporting activity of choice is no longer boxing or long distance running... it's golf. All three are similar to poker in that they are solo pursuits (not a team activity). Boxing is like a heads up match. Golf and running are like MTTs where you are competing against a large field. Ultimately, all three hinge on the individual making solid decisions. The slightest error or mistake, and everything you worked hard at is in jeopardy.
At the tail end of my haircut, Vinny the barber and I were figuring out a good workout routine for my week in NYC. I told him that ever since I made an effort to eat smarter and exercise (when I could), that my body was able to survive a rigorous travel schedule, a slew of partying, and a lot of late nights at the WSOP.
And he said, "You have one body. You have one mind. Don't fuck up either."
It was not just important to get in better physical shape. He said that I needed to be in a good head space as much as possible. I have been living a lifestyle where every few weeks everything around me is different; including the city, the people, the food, the climate, the local TV, the accents, the laws, the attitudes, and the vibe. That's enough to make your head spin. Having to adapt and adjust on the fly is something I'm forced to deal with. I have no alternatives. A flexible mind is something that I must have in order to survive.
The wisdom of my barber reminded me of the teachings of Zhuangzi (also known as Chuang Tzu). He wrote a text titled Zhuangzi (yeah, it was named after himself) which is considered the second foundational text for Taoist philosophy. He was born around 370 BC and died around 300 BC. Zhuangzi was a hermit and looked like one.
Zhuangzi suggested a retreat from societal pressures and recommended pursuing "an individual life of freedom." A life of self-cultivation was more enriching than a life of self-sacrifice. Many of his teaches laid the groundwork for modern Chinese and Japanese Buddhism.
One of his most famous discussions involved a butterfly. He dreamed that he was a butterfly floating and fluttering around. He had no concept of being a human. When he woke up, Zhuangzi was back to being himself. He could not figure out if he was a person who was dreaming that he was a butterfly or rather, a butterfly who was dreaming that they were a person. In his text, he called that "The Transformation of Things."
The butterfly dream ended up being one of the most influential dreams in Chinese philosophy. According to C.W. Chan, "This shows that, although in ordinary appearance there are differences between things, in delusions or in dreams one thing can also be another. The transformation of things proves that the differences among things are not absolute."
Perception. Reality. For centuries philosophers have debated both concepts. Nietzsche wrote a lot about dreams and concluded that reality is subjective and that dreams are objective. Nietzsche said that dreams would be a good guide in our daily lives. Zhuangzi's take on the butterfly dream was that in reality... we are dreaming. The fact that his dream was about a butterfly is interesting since butterflies flutter and float. They have no set pattern.
Zhuangzi's teachings can be broken down into three points:
There are a handful of online players like RainKhan, ElkY, and the (original) Poker Nerd who could easily play thirty SNGs at one time. Whether they knew it or not, they are examples of cultivating skill to the point of spontaneous flow. They were Zen masters and seamlessly made instant decisions for in more than thirty separate scenarios.
I'm at point in my online poker game where I'm comfortable playing up to four or five limit cash tables at once. I play ABC poker and almost all of my actions replicate a bot. It's sort of like driving on speed control. You're not pressing down on the gas, but at any moment you can speed up or slow down depending on the situation. I have evolved into a Zen bot... with fishlike tendencies.
* * * * *
If you are a food junkie, then you have to check out a project of mine that I have been working on over the last seven months. It is a Flickr gallery made up of over 120 photos of food that I encountered along the way over the last year or so.... Pauly Food Photo Gallery.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
(NEW YORK CITY)
After ten weeks of being on the road in Las Vegas and Hollyweird, I have returned to New York City. My time here is short and I'm prepping for another arduous journey. In the next couple of days, I'll board a flight to Amsterdam which begins a six week stint in Europe with work assignments at the EPT Barcelona and the WSOP-Europe in London.
Upon my arrival home (it's not really home per se, more like base camp) after a long trip or assignment, the snail mail backs up. I have a pile of mail to sift through and a stack of packages to check out. PR reps, publishing companies, and literary agents send me books to review on the Tao of Poker or the other places I write. Most of them are poker or gambling books, but I also get random CDs from indie bands that I never heard of. After writing for a German music magazine, I was placed on a weird mailing list from a small PR firm based out of Toronto that handles record labels on the east coast that I never heard. I have a stack of CDs from bands like Panda of the Purple Promise, Muppets Collide, Miserable Neptune, and my favorite new band... Crank Detour. I'm not usually fond of four guys in Ed Harvey t-shirts with messy hair that can't play their instruments fronted by a chick covered in tattoos who sounds like Cyndi Lauper getting anally raped by a garden hose... but when a band has a name like Crank Detour and sing songs about meeting Jesus in an A.A. meeting in downtown Oakland and then skipping out early to shoot dice in the alley, I quickly hit their MySpace page and see if they are touring.
One thing that I like to do before a long adventure is to get a haircut. Vinny the barber is my go to guy. I've been seeing him on and off for the last twenty or so years. When I had long hair in my 20s, I saw him once a year. He was the only person I trusted not to fuck it up. As my hairline began the retreat into oblivion, I rely on him to make it look good. He always does top notch work. A true artist.
Our discussions during the haircut always revolve around local sports and gambling. Over the weekend, he touched briefly on A-Rod's 500th homerun, Barry Bonds and the legalization of steroids in sports, the non-smoking rules at the Borgata in Atlantic City, playing golf in Westchester, and his favorite topic... the buffet at the Wynn.
Vinny the barber is from the old country. Originally from the rough and tumble streets of Sicily, he came to America in the late 1950s. As a teenager, he ended up making money as an amateur boxer who fought in the dimly lit and smokey armories and gymnasiums in the Bronx and in Manhattan. After getting his nose broken a few times, he decided the life of a pugilist was not his calling. Instead, he fought until he saved up his money to pay for barber school. The rest is history.
Vinny the barber turned to running in the 1970s and became a marathon runner. At one point, he was my running coach when I ran a series of 10K races during grammar school. He's a guy who has always been in good shape ever since I met him. These days, his sporting activity of choice is no longer boxing or long distance running... it's golf. All three are similar to poker in that they are solo pursuits (not a team activity). Boxing is like a heads up match. Golf and running are like MTTs where you are competing against a large field. Ultimately, all three hinge on the individual making solid decisions. The slightest error or mistake, and everything you worked hard at is in jeopardy.
At the tail end of my haircut, Vinny the barber and I were figuring out a good workout routine for my week in NYC. I told him that ever since I made an effort to eat smarter and exercise (when I could), that my body was able to survive a rigorous travel schedule, a slew of partying, and a lot of late nights at the WSOP.
And he said, "You have one body. You have one mind. Don't fuck up either."
It was not just important to get in better physical shape. He said that I needed to be in a good head space as much as possible. I have been living a lifestyle where every few weeks everything around me is different; including the city, the people, the food, the climate, the local TV, the accents, the laws, the attitudes, and the vibe. That's enough to make your head spin. Having to adapt and adjust on the fly is something I'm forced to deal with. I have no alternatives. A flexible mind is something that I must have in order to survive.
The wisdom of my barber reminded me of the teachings of Zhuangzi (also known as Chuang Tzu). He wrote a text titled Zhuangzi (yeah, it was named after himself) which is considered the second foundational text for Taoist philosophy. He was born around 370 BC and died around 300 BC. Zhuangzi was a hermit and looked like one.
Zhuangzi suggested a retreat from societal pressures and recommended pursuing "an individual life of freedom." A life of self-cultivation was more enriching than a life of self-sacrifice. Many of his teaches laid the groundwork for modern Chinese and Japanese Buddhism.
One of his most famous discussions involved a butterfly. He dreamed that he was a butterfly floating and fluttering around. He had no concept of being a human. When he woke up, Zhuangzi was back to being himself. He could not figure out if he was a person who was dreaming that he was a butterfly or rather, a butterfly who was dreaming that they were a person. In his text, he called that "The Transformation of Things."
The butterfly dream ended up being one of the most influential dreams in Chinese philosophy. According to C.W. Chan, "This shows that, although in ordinary appearance there are differences between things, in delusions or in dreams one thing can also be another. The transformation of things proves that the differences among things are not absolute."
Perception. Reality. For centuries philosophers have debated both concepts. Nietzsche wrote a lot about dreams and concluded that reality is subjective and that dreams are objective. Nietzsche said that dreams would be a good guide in our daily lives. Zhuangzi's take on the butterfly dream was that in reality... we are dreaming. The fact that his dream was about a butterfly is interesting since butterflies flutter and float. They have no set pattern.
Zhuangzi's teachings can be broken down into three points:
1. Be open to new ways and flexible in incorporating them in your own way of life.I apply Zhuangzi's philosophy to writing, poker, and everyday life. The third point is what Howard Lederer often talks about with regard to Zen and poker. What you do at the poker table is neither an action or reaction... it just is.... playing poker with all of your focus on the present moment, without worrying about the past or the future.
2. Understand both the usefulness and limitations of convention.
3. Cultivate skill to the point of spontaneous flow.
There are a handful of online players like RainKhan, ElkY, and the (original) Poker Nerd who could easily play thirty SNGs at one time. Whether they knew it or not, they are examples of cultivating skill to the point of spontaneous flow. They were Zen masters and seamlessly made instant decisions for in more than thirty separate scenarios.
I'm at point in my online poker game where I'm comfortable playing up to four or five limit cash tables at once. I play ABC poker and almost all of my actions replicate a bot. It's sort of like driving on speed control. You're not pressing down on the gas, but at any moment you can speed up or slow down depending on the situation. I have evolved into a Zen bot... with fishlike tendencies.
If you are a food junkie, then you have to check out a project of mine that I have been working on over the last seven months. It is a Flickr gallery made up of over 120 photos of food that I encountered along the way over the last year or so.... Pauly Food Photo Gallery.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Kafka's Shake
By Pauly
(HOLLYWEIRD)
Flashback to about a week ago...
Las Vegas. Almost 2am. I sat in a circular red leather booth inside Planet Dailies, the 24 hour cafe at Planet Ho. Michalski was starving and dug into a plate of calamari. We had been playing in the poker room for Benjo's last night in America with a few other international media reps such as Benjo and Ed from Gutshot. I had a good session at the tables. Not only did I felt Michalski, but I also won a high hand jackpot with quad Queens. We left the poker room to take a break and wandered over to the cafe.
Red Auerbach, the legendary coach of the Boston Celtics, used to light up a cigar during the end of the game as soon as he knew that his team had clinched the victory. The Celtics blew out a lot of teams during those days, so it was not uncommon to see Red at the end of the bench smoking a stogie with more than half of the 4th quarter to go. Red celebrated his good fortune with cigars. I celebrate with sweets... and that night at Planet Ho, I celebrated my high hand bonus with a shake.
In the past, I had rewarded my good poker play with a victory dessert. No matter what time of the day, as soon as my live play ended, I'd get something to eat while I reflected upon my bountiful session. At Foxwoods, it would be a piece of cheesecake or at the Borgata I'd get gelato. If I did well at a Station's Casino poker room like Green Valley Ranch or Red Rock, I'd head over to Fatburger for one of their yummy shakes. At Planet Ho, their shake selection is the best thing on the menu at Planet Dailies, particularly the chocolate shake. They mix it with a full banana which adds flavor to the already tasty dessert.
Anyway...
As I slowly sipped on my shake, I realized that I was not just celebrating a winning session of poker. I was also acknowledging my entire output over the previous two months. I survived another scorching hot summer in Las Vegas I completed a brutal assignment at the WSOP (which I thought was a suicide mission when I first took my position with PokerNews). And I finally cashed in a WSOP event and earned enough money from freelance work that I could take off two full years and write. When that day comes, who knows? I put three years of research into this damn Las Vegas book and I still have no idea when I'll get six months of unfettered time to sit down and write the fucker.
My mission at the 2007 WSOP was finally complete. I was exhausted. Mentally drained. Morally bankrupt. My irritated eyes burned every second. My body was beaten down like an AC hooker limping away at the end of her shift. Once I finished the shake, I didn't want to gamble anymore. The passion for poker dried up. I slowly made my exit out of the casino through a labyrinth of zombies chained to slot machines. The itch to play cards had disappeared. My inner action junkie (who looks like Gary Coleman) had finally fallen asleep. It was time to leave the bright lights of Las Vegas behind.
I walked down the Strip past the shuffling tourists and the porn slappers, and made my way to the front of the Paris Casino. I grabbed a taxi back to my apartment at Del Bocca Vista. As the driver pulled out onto Las Vegas Blvd., I came to a realization that this city has affected me more than any other place that I lived or traveled. The metamorphosis has been occurring for the last couple of years. Maybe I'll understand it all... eventually. Then again, maybe not. For now, I'm as confused, terrified, aroused, and addicted to the sultry and dark side of Las Vegas just like millions of others who visit America's playground every single day by bus, car, and plane. I won't fully understand how much Las Vegas has changed me until years from now. How much of my soul did I lead astray in the middle of the Nevada dessert? Maybe I'll figure it out when I sit down to write.
Soren Keirkagard summed it up best when he said, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."
I took some time off from the grind as I fled to Los Angeles. You know you're in trouble when you're eager to escape luminous Sin City in order to be around normal people in Hollyweird.
I have been bumming around Zuma everyday reading books and basking under the sun in Malibu. I have been limiting my contact with the outside world to just an hour of email a day and less than an hour of chat on my cellphone... that is when I actually have the thing turned on. Unplugging is the only way I know that will force myself to slow down... stop... and listen to the waves roll up on the beach.
At the end of the week, I fly home to NYC to unload my gear and read all of my mail after being on the road since the end of May. It's been a long 10 weeks and after a short time in NYC to patch my bones, I'll be back on the road. This time, for almost six weeks. I'm tired but as Jack Kerouac wrote, "We lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."
On the road. Again.
My next assignment is the European Poker Tour, which kicks off the fourth season of the EPT at the Casino Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain. PokerStars is currently running satellites as we speak. Hurry up for your chance to win a trip to Europe!
Barcelona is my second favorite city in Europe besides Amsterdam. This upcoming trip will be my second visit there. I'm part of the PokerNews coverage team for the EPT Barcelona and a couple of days after the final table on September 1st, the WSOP-Europe starts on September 6 thru the 16th in London, England. Since Bluff is the official provider of the WSOP, that deal with Harrah's also includes coverage of the various Circuit events and the WSOP-Europe. PokerNews will be the place to go for live updates for the EPT Barcelona and the WSOP-Europe.
I have about 16 days of actual work spread out over six weeks abroad. Should be a fun adventure. Of course, I'll be stopping off in Amsterdam at some point during my three-country journey. I will set aside time before and after the tournaments to explore the streets, museums, and bars of Barcelona and London. If you are a local of any of those places or know them pretty well, any suggestions for chill bars, rowdy pubs, and inexpensive restaurants will be appreciated. Shoot me an email.
PokerNews also hired for two more assignments in Australia. There's the inaugural Poker News Cup starts at the end of October and the 2008 Aussie Millions in January. I'm going back to the Crown Casino in Melbourne in mid-October and will spend another month down under to explore that amazing country. Check out my Australia 2007 photo gallery.
With two big trips on the horizon, it's important that I focus on decompressing from the Las Vegas existentialist meat grinder in order to get myself mentally and physically prepared go back to work. Back to eating healthy, working out, and reading.
For now, I'm in that murky place when the last thing I want to write about is poker and Las Vegas. I have been playing online the last few nights and have plenty of closing thoughts about the WSOP. But when I sit down to write, the words flow freely but very little is about poker. I'm not going to force myself to write about poker. That should change soon.
In the meantime, you should go over to see Flipchip's various Las Vegas photos or go read what Otis has had to say in TLDNR.
And if you haven't signed up for a Fantasy Sports Live account, then what are you waiting for? Football season is just around the corner...
Bonus Code: Pauly
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.
By Pauly
(HOLLYWEIRD)
Flashback to about a week ago...
Las Vegas. Almost 2am. I sat in a circular red leather booth inside Planet Dailies, the 24 hour cafe at Planet Ho. Michalski was starving and dug into a plate of calamari. We had been playing in the poker room for Benjo's last night in America with a few other international media reps such as Benjo and Ed from Gutshot. I had a good session at the tables. Not only did I felt Michalski, but I also won a high hand jackpot with quad Queens. We left the poker room to take a break and wandered over to the cafe.
Red Auerbach, the legendary coach of the Boston Celtics, used to light up a cigar during the end of the game as soon as he knew that his team had clinched the victory. The Celtics blew out a lot of teams during those days, so it was not uncommon to see Red at the end of the bench smoking a stogie with more than half of the 4th quarter to go. Red celebrated his good fortune with cigars. I celebrate with sweets... and that night at Planet Ho, I celebrated my high hand bonus with a shake.
In the past, I had rewarded my good poker play with a victory dessert. No matter what time of the day, as soon as my live play ended, I'd get something to eat while I reflected upon my bountiful session. At Foxwoods, it would be a piece of cheesecake or at the Borgata I'd get gelato. If I did well at a Station's Casino poker room like Green Valley Ranch or Red Rock, I'd head over to Fatburger for one of their yummy shakes. At Planet Ho, their shake selection is the best thing on the menu at Planet Dailies, particularly the chocolate shake. They mix it with a full banana which adds flavor to the already tasty dessert.
Anyway...
As I slowly sipped on my shake, I realized that I was not just celebrating a winning session of poker. I was also acknowledging my entire output over the previous two months. I survived another scorching hot summer in Las Vegas I completed a brutal assignment at the WSOP (which I thought was a suicide mission when I first took my position with PokerNews). And I finally cashed in a WSOP event and earned enough money from freelance work that I could take off two full years and write. When that day comes, who knows? I put three years of research into this damn Las Vegas book and I still have no idea when I'll get six months of unfettered time to sit down and write the fucker.
My mission at the 2007 WSOP was finally complete. I was exhausted. Mentally drained. Morally bankrupt. My irritated eyes burned every second. My body was beaten down like an AC hooker limping away at the end of her shift. Once I finished the shake, I didn't want to gamble anymore. The passion for poker dried up. I slowly made my exit out of the casino through a labyrinth of zombies chained to slot machines. The itch to play cards had disappeared. My inner action junkie (who looks like Gary Coleman) had finally fallen asleep. It was time to leave the bright lights of Las Vegas behind.
I walked down the Strip past the shuffling tourists and the porn slappers, and made my way to the front of the Paris Casino. I grabbed a taxi back to my apartment at Del Bocca Vista. As the driver pulled out onto Las Vegas Blvd., I came to a realization that this city has affected me more than any other place that I lived or traveled. The metamorphosis has been occurring for the last couple of years. Maybe I'll understand it all... eventually. Then again, maybe not. For now, I'm as confused, terrified, aroused, and addicted to the sultry and dark side of Las Vegas just like millions of others who visit America's playground every single day by bus, car, and plane. I won't fully understand how much Las Vegas has changed me until years from now. How much of my soul did I lead astray in the middle of the Nevada dessert? Maybe I'll figure it out when I sit down to write.
Soren Keirkagard summed it up best when he said, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."
I took some time off from the grind as I fled to Los Angeles. You know you're in trouble when you're eager to escape luminous Sin City in order to be around normal people in Hollyweird.
I have been bumming around Zuma everyday reading books and basking under the sun in Malibu. I have been limiting my contact with the outside world to just an hour of email a day and less than an hour of chat on my cellphone... that is when I actually have the thing turned on. Unplugging is the only way I know that will force myself to slow down... stop... and listen to the waves roll up on the beach.
At the end of the week, I fly home to NYC to unload my gear and read all of my mail after being on the road since the end of May. It's been a long 10 weeks and after a short time in NYC to patch my bones, I'll be back on the road. This time, for almost six weeks. I'm tired but as Jack Kerouac wrote, "We lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."
On the road. Again.
My next assignment is the European Poker Tour, which kicks off the fourth season of the EPT at the Casino Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain. PokerStars is currently running satellites as we speak. Hurry up for your chance to win a trip to Europe!
Barcelona is my second favorite city in Europe besides Amsterdam. This upcoming trip will be my second visit there. I'm part of the PokerNews coverage team for the EPT Barcelona and a couple of days after the final table on September 1st, the WSOP-Europe starts on September 6 thru the 16th in London, England. Since Bluff is the official provider of the WSOP, that deal with Harrah's also includes coverage of the various Circuit events and the WSOP-Europe. PokerNews will be the place to go for live updates for the EPT Barcelona and the WSOP-Europe.
I have about 16 days of actual work spread out over six weeks abroad. Should be a fun adventure. Of course, I'll be stopping off in Amsterdam at some point during my three-country journey. I will set aside time before and after the tournaments to explore the streets, museums, and bars of Barcelona and London. If you are a local of any of those places or know them pretty well, any suggestions for chill bars, rowdy pubs, and inexpensive restaurants will be appreciated. Shoot me an email.
PokerNews also hired for two more assignments in Australia. There's the inaugural Poker News Cup starts at the end of October and the 2008 Aussie Millions in January. I'm going back to the Crown Casino in Melbourne in mid-October and will spend another month down under to explore that amazing country. Check out my Australia 2007 photo gallery.
With two big trips on the horizon, it's important that I focus on decompressing from the Las Vegas existentialist meat grinder in order to get myself mentally and physically prepared go back to work. Back to eating healthy, working out, and reading.
For now, I'm in that murky place when the last thing I want to write about is poker and Las Vegas. I have been playing online the last few nights and have plenty of closing thoughts about the WSOP. But when I sit down to write, the words flow freely but very little is about poker. I'm not going to force myself to write about poker. That should change soon.
In the meantime, you should go over to see Flipchip's various Las Vegas photos or go read what Otis has had to say in TLDNR.
And if you haven't signed up for a Fantasy Sports Live account, then what are you waiting for? Football season is just around the corner...
Bonus Code: Pauly
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