Space Poker

I had an interesting discussion with someone at my "day job" the other day. He asked me how my Christmas was and if I got everything I wanted. I told him about Annie Duke's Epic Poker seminar that my mom got me as a combo gift for Christmas and my birthday, and how she had already ordered some poker books for me before she decided to get me the seminar, so I got the books too.

He said to me, "Wow, you're really into poker." And I said, "Yeah, I'm trying to become a poker pro."

It was at this point that he kind of chuckled and had a slight look of disbelief on his face, as if I was a five year-old telling him I wanted to be an astronaut. "That's nice, Kevin, but I heard outer space is really cold."

And that's when I realized that's exactly what I was telling him. I was basically telling him that I want to be an astronaut.

There's a certain mythos that people associate with being an astronaut. People see shuttles being launched into space, into outer space, and people walking on the moon, and it becomes this "larger than life" thing to them. And on top of it, so few people do it, that it seems impossible. But what a lot of people don't realize is that there is a body of work, a base, that all astronauts have. Sure it involves lots of physics and advanced physics and aeronautical engineering, and probably thousands of hours in a lab, and for some, time in the military. And yes, there are some who suffer setbacks and others that just don’t make the cut, but it's there, and it's something that any one of us could have done if we'd just decided that we wanted to do it.

I get the feeling that people see "professional poker" in much the same way. People watch poker on tv and they see these pros playing for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, and that’s what they think it’s all about. It’s larger than life. For most of America, dollar figures like that are a fairy tale; something the Average Joe will never see in his lifetime.

But what people don’t see are the thousands of hours of work poker players put in. They don’t see the hand analyses, the book reading, the coaching, the tournament bust-outs, the year-long card droughts, the days upon days spent at the poker table learning and re-learning their craft. They don’t understand that what they see on tv is not only the culmination of years of struggle and hard work, but it’s also just a small piece of professional poker. Just like they don’t really comprehend all the years of struggle and hard work it took to be an astronaut on the shuttle they just watched get launched into space, but also that a shuttle launch is just a small piece of being an astronaut.

But what they don’t realize about poker, just like becoming an astronaut, is that there is no mythos. It’s not magical. It’s work. Anybody can do it if they’re willing to put in the work and put themselves on the line.

To me, being a professional poker player means making a living playing poker. It means that I play poker so that I can put food on my table and pay my bills. At its simplest, that’s what it is. Sure, there’s more to it once you get to the big stage. In fact, Matt Glantz wrote a great blog about responsibility in poker. But, for now, I just want to pay my rent.

And the best part of the whole thing, as a 32, nigh 33, year-old bachelor bartender college dropout, is that I’ve finally realized that I can do it to. I can become a professional poker player. In poker I’ve found something that I’m passionate about; something for which I’ve been searching for damn near 12 years. I’m willing to put in the work. I want to read the books. I’m happy to do the homework.

I’ve already seen more improvement in my poker game in the last three months than I did in the previous eight years. I can only imagine what I’ll be able to do as I put in more and more hours at the table and in the books.

This is what I want to do for the rest of my life and I expect people to be skeptical when I tell them what I want to be when I “grow up.” But it’s fun telling them I want to be an astronaut.

The Epic Weekend, Part 1

Just over a week ago I had the chance to go to Vegas for Annie Duke's Epic Poker seminar. In a word, it was AWESOME.

Check-in was Friday night, with a full day of poker planned for Saturday. I decided to goof around a bit in the poker room Friday night and ended up donking off $100 pretty quickly in a $2/$4 limit game. I immediately changed to the $1/$3 no-limit game and my fortunes changed as well. I played the hand of the night pretty early. I called a $10 pre-flop raise with 77 and three of us went to the flop. The flop came 979 for a flopped boat for me and I was able to get all my money in on the turn. Just to make sure I was good, I rivered a 7 for quads and a $50 high-hand bonus. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful and I ended up cashing out for +$74 on the night.

The next day I had breakfast with Mom and headed off for the noon start of the seminar. The two-hour classroom portion of the seminar was based on Annie Duke's book, Decide To Play Great Poker, obviously, and she pointed out that she would be focusing on pre-flop decision making, as she would need three days to cover everything she writes about in her book (a three day poker seminar with Annie Duke? Where do I sign up?).

I've read Annie's book, but there were times my brain would sort of "tune out" what I was reading. There is a lot of game theory in what she teaches and at times it can get sort of complicated in regards to the multiple levels of thought you have to put into the game. Luckily, she taught this seminar as if none of us had read the book. She was able to illustrate and reinforce what I had read in the book and all of a sudden it just "clicked" in my brain. I could clearly see the benefits, but more importantly, the detriments of playing certain hands in certain situations - hands I typically played as if they were the nuts.

No wonder I haven't become a winning poker player in almost ten years of playing this game.

We broke for lunch, got our gift bags with a sweatshirt, hat, and copy of Annie's book, and then reconvened for the practical portion of the seminar. For this, Annie brought in four poker pros to sit at the table with us and deal while we played hands and then discussed the decision-making process behind everything we were doing. This portion of the seminar was, quite simply, worth every penny. The pros were Annie (@AnnieDuke), Ali Nejad (@Ali_Nejad), Matt Glantz (@MattGlantz), McLean Karr (@mcleankarr), and Tim West (@TheTmay).

Matt was first up at my table. For those of you who may not know, Matt is one of the pre-eminent mixed game players in the world. He was a little nervous at first, admitting that it was probably his first time dealing cards and definitely his first time teaching, but once he started talking about the game he loves, he got totally comfortable.

McLean was next at the table and his genuine enthusiasm for the game was infectious. When someone would ask a question about how to play a hand, he wouldn't discount the proposition, but typically answered with something along the lines of, "Yeah, you could do that. And then maybe if he bets into you on the turn, you can come over the top and crush him. That's what's so great about his game, there's no one way to play a hand." His enthusiasm was made more legit when, before leaving our table, Matt had told us that McLean is one of the "great young minds" in the game.

Annie, Ali, and Tim all rotated through our table as well, and all with the same message: making a good decision before the flop will make your decisions throughout the hand a lot easier, and that's what you want. It was really great to get five different perspectives on the same thing and see how you can take different routes to reach the same goal.

This was an absolutely incredible seminar. And if there were ever another one, maybe covering post-flop play, I wouldn't hesitate to make my way back out to Vegas for it.

Epically Excited

So I'm sitting around my mom's house after my de-herniation surgery and I'm scrolling through Twitter. I casually mention the Living Social deal for the Epic Poker League (@EpicPoker) and poker training by Annie Duke (@AnnieDuke) on Dec. 9th and 10th. I mention that it seems like a pretty good deal for two nights at the Palms, four hours total of poker training, entry into an Epic satellite, and various other little "gifts." Honestly, I'm just making conversation. My mom looks me dead in the eye and says, "You want an early Christmas/birthday present?"

Is that a real question?

I scoffed and said that plane tickets were probably outrageous, as the event was only a week away. Mom said that if I paid for the ticket, she'd buy me the package.

So of COURSE I checked. And of COURSE the tickets were still affordable. And of COURSE I'm going.

I've recently made a conscious effort and taken necessary steps to try to make poker my life. I want to make a living playing the game and I want to make a living writing about the game. Hell, I even have a part-time financial backer. This trip seems like the perfect storm of serendipity-ness. Serendipitiousness. Serendipiocity. You know what I mean.

Not only do I get world class poker training from Annie Duke, but Ali Nejad (@Ali_Nejad), Matt Glantz (@MattGlantz), and McLean Karr (@mcleankarr) are also part of the teaching roster.

I feel like that reads like a commercial, but I don't care. I'm fricken' excited.

In addition, numerous poker media types will be converging on the Palms that weekend for all of the Epic Poker festivities, and this is what I'm really looking forward to.

A while back I tweeted to a few writers and photogs and asked if they had any words of advice for someone wanting to break into the industry. The first response I got was from Jessica Welman (@jesswelman), Managing Editor of BLUFF Magazine and WPT reporter. In a phrase, her advice was "don't expect it to be easy, work hard, get lucky." Fair enough. A couple others tweeted their agreement with her, but added nothing themselves.

Then I got a response from Jennifer Newell (@writerjen), writer for Epic Poker, amongst other publications, and this one was much more in depth. She asked about what I'd done so far and what my specific interests are. She told me to keep blogging to build an audience and email poker websites and ask if they need part-time help. Bingo. She even did me a solid and followed me on Twitter and has re-tweeted a couple of my blog posts. Awesome.

So, needless to say, between all the poker lessons and poker playing and running around introducing myself (without seeming like a stalker) to poker media types, this weekend should be full of fun and excitement and has a lot of potential for changing my future.