Monday, December 25th: Best of...

Yikes -- a whole 2 weeks since my last post; I hate it, but things had been really hectic: I've slept in beds in Sydney, LA, NY, Philadelphia, and Toronto in the last 2 weeks, and then came the holidays, etc. (Yes, my Australian interlude has now come to an end.) I've actually sat down and started no fewer than 4 posts, each of which on topics that interest me greatly, and which I'm pretty motivated to finish, but I've been frequently distracted and interrupted...but I guess the silver lining is that I've got at least a few more (hopefully) good posts in me before throwing in the towel...for now, though, I'm going to do something I did at the end of last year: in the spirit of all the year end "best of" review shows on TV, I've gone back through my posts from 2006 and picked out my 10 favorites. Yeah, it's a little bit of filler, but I'd like to think it's not a complete waste of your time...in fact, in re-reading these myself, I'm reminded of how worthwhile I've always felt it to be glancing over my shoulder to remind myself how far along this path I've come.

10. Tournaments Are Gay

One of the more controversial posts I made, but I still like it -- the post is undoubtedly somewhat colored by the fact that I have a particular distaste for tournament poker because I just don't know how well it reflects actual long-term expected value, but that's my math background speaking. I think they attract a lot of people lured particularly by the prospect of fame, whereas I'm more inclined to continue to grind away relatively anonymously in the cash game circuit. As I wrote before, though, I think I'm going to play in a few events in this year's WSOP just for fun; more to experience the spectacle than anything else.

9. The $20,000 Day!

Not sure how "good" a post this one actually was, but it was important in teaching me how to deal with a downswing the likes of which I had never seen before (nor would I have even believed it were possible, had you warned me in advance.) The 2+2 forums have seen scattered reports this year from very well-regarded players (especially on the limit side) who have been getting crushed -- absolutely crushed for amounts of 1,000 big-bets and more. Just a year or so ago, 300 big-bets was assumed to be an appropriate bankroll for an average-or-better LHE player, and anyone unlucky enough to suffer through a 300+ big-bet swoon was quick to be labeled a fish who undoubtedly had simply been running well beforehand. How times have changed -- consider as illustrative the admissions of bicyclekick, a relatively well-regarded high-stakes LHE player who has played as high as 300/600, but who found himself relegated to the 5/10 games after a downswing of over 1,500 big bets. These stories are popping up with alarming frequency, and should give serious pause to anyone thinking about giving poker a serious go...can you mentally handle swings like this? Because they're not just for fish anymore, but coming to a poker table near you.

8. Hard Work and Leverage

I'd like to have put this a little higher on my list, but I'll keep it at #8 for now, even though I think the stuff I wrote about leverage might be some of the more important content I got down over the course of keeping this blog. In fact, I've gone back and re-read this post perhaps more than any other, simply because when living a poker-fueled lifestyle, it's so easy to forget the motivation and drive that helped me get to this point...so I'm constantly on guard against allowing too much complacency leak into my life.

7. Deep Thoughts, Part I, and Part II

A heck of a lot of mental masturbation. Not sure I ever came to any concrete conclusions, but they were thoughts that had been nipping at the fringes of my psyche for what had seemed like the entire duration of my poker "career".

6. The Golden Age of Online Poker

This was another one of those posts that I had swirling around in the nether-regions of my cranium for months before I actually decided to take a crack at it. In fact, as I re-read it just now, I remembered how much I had been preoccupied when I wrote the post with the question of just how much poker I should be playing, and just when the financial incentive simply wasn't worth the opportunity cost of missing out on "real life." I think I laid out my philosophy relatively succinctly at the end of the post, but I've got to admit that I always feel a twinge of remorse every time I see 2+2 posts with guys who manage 6-figure profits in a month, not because they have higher winrates than me (in fact, their rate is sometimes 50% or more lower than mine), but simply because they have the discipline to sit at their computers for 10 hours / day, and get in 90 to 100 thousand hands / month. I don't think I've ever cracked the 40K-hand mark. Even when I did my $40,000 surgery recovery challenge, where I had nothing to do but sit in my apartment with my jaw wired shut and play poker, I "only" managed 51,000. The idea that there are people out there who routinely play double that amount hurts my brain to think about.

5. Mike McWho?

Actually, I would have liked to put this post higher on my list, if for no other reason than that Rounders is the quintessential poker movie for so many guys of my generation. And yet it has so quickly been superseded in so many ways, as I mentioned in the post. Amounts of money that were supposed to stagger the viewer in the movie are now won and lost every few minutes online by twenty year olds who have bankrolls that would have poor ol' Mike McD soiling himself.

4. Table Selection

It's no secret that this blog isn't exactly chalk full of strategy info (nor have I ever claimed as much, but I think it makes up for it in other ways), but there are a few nuggets in here that I think are especially worthwhile to assimilate. I'm still shocked at how little emphasis most "good" players put on table selection, preferring instead to just take the first seat that becomes available. Well, do yourself a favor: buy PT and PAHUD if you don't already have them, invest the time to learn how to datamine, etc. and watch for an immediate reflection in your winrate.

3. The Great Beyond

I wrote this at a time that felt as though it were some kind of "crossroads" in my life (although I've since come to appreciate that these 'decision points' are more illusion than fact.) All of my friends from law school had just taken the bar exam (they all passed, by the way...it was a much higher passage rate last summer than the years before...for first-time test takers from ABA-accredited law schools, I think the passage rate last summer was 85%, instead of the mid-70s that was the norm; I only know a couple kids who failed.)

2. 24/7 P.O.C.

I know I hammer away at this principle like it's my job, but I do so for one reason: no aspect of poker has changed my life away from the table as much as this one -- to be able to assign a quantitative value to the sands of time that pour through the hourglass that is our brief time here has really changed in a surprisingly positive how I think about and value my leisure time, and that spent in the company of my family and good friends.

1. The unfortunately-titled Poker-boomers, trust fund babies, and bears -- oh my!

A post that was months in the making, although as much as I enjoyed finally getting these thoughts down "on paper", I'm not quite sure that I "solved" anything at all...because I still have those persistent thoughts: e.g. I'm happy about the modest degree of financial independence that poker has brought me, but I've got a few friends who are financially comfortable via family/inheritance and it's still sometimes hard to decipher just how we're differently situated...I actually just read a passage on money (and the making of it) from a classic book that resonated with me more than any other passage I've ever read, and I'm going to post it here in the next few days for a little perspective.

Well, that's all for the countdown for now, but as I wrote above, I've got a few half-finished posts that I've been working on for a while that I hope to publish here soon...

happy holidays,

Saturday, December 9th: Secret Superheroes

To first address a couple reader comments – one person suggested that I thank the readership of this blog, which was a bit of a kick in the butt, reminding me that if I haven’t made clear by this point how much I appreciate the audience and the consistent feedback, it’s merely a function of carelessness, and not ingratitude. I would have stopped writing long ago if it weren’t for the steady stream of emails and positive reinforcement that I’ve got from you guys, with many of you penning heartfelt emails and comments, which I’ve always done my best to respond to. While the blog may have started out as a purely personal project that provided me with an outlet for my own angst about my journey up the poker ladder, that benefit to me was long ago outstripped by the significance I think this thing has taken on to others as well. And although it may resonate as a purely selfish motive, the primary reason I’ve kept at this thing is…well, because I got the sense that it mattered to people, which was a feeling I’d never really experienced and which is pretty satisfying. So to ensure that I don’t forget to say so explicitly before the sun sets on this blog, the past year of posts has been fueled nearly exclusively by the interest of my readership, and I say “thanks”.

Second comment I saw was something that keeps popping up as a reaction to individuals who enjoy a certain degree of financial success playing poker, but who wonder what role it might play in a long-term career. To paraphrase the opinion in question, it’s something along the lines of “Listen, just build yourself a nice little nest-egg via poker, even if you’re not really digging it all that much at the moment, and then you’ll have the financial freedom to do what you really want in life.” It seems so intuitively appealing: bite the bullet now, and then you’ll be able to pursue your real passion. And it’s not a train of thought restricted only to poker…in fact, it’s probably invoked far more in the context of high-stress / high-income jobs in the financial and law sectors, where junior employees take home a nice paycheck but get worked to the bone. I present the following only for consideration, without passing judgment on the issue myself. I read a book a couple years ago by Po Bronson called What Should I Do With My Life. (Sidebar: You can download it as an e-book from Amazon. E-books are great little tools, which I really exploited at my old consulting job, and I encourage anyone with an office job that drags at times to do the same: buy e-books and read them at work. It’ll look like you’re actually reading something work-related if anyone walks by, and it really helps you “make time” for reading, if it’s one of your hobbies that you don’t find time for anymore.) Anyway, back to Po Bronson’s book: it was a pretty fascinating concept: the book was collection of a few dozen interviews with people who had done complete one-eighties in their professional life, abruptly giving up careers that they had prepared themselves for their entire lives for something they were truly passionate about. If I recall correctly, there was an interview with a high-powered financial executive who one day up and decided that he hated his job and wanted to start a salmon farm in the countryside. So he did. There was an interview with a med school graduate who, within weeks of her graduation, decided that she wanted no part of medicine and left to pursue something else. The thing is that they weren’t just a collection of “success stories”…a lot of the interviewees admitted that they often had a really tough go of it, and experienced significant self-doubt about whether they had made the right decision. But the book was one hell of an inspiring read: it was like a jolt of energy reminding me that I’m at all times in control of my own life, and changing any aspect of it is as easy as making a single decision.

Anyway, that’s enough background about the book…why do I bring it up here? Well, even though I read it 4 years ago, one thing has always stuck with me. Po Bronson says that he interviewed hundreds of people for the book, and you know how many of them had found success with the “nest egg” philosophy mentioned above (e.g. building up one’s bank account, and then pursuing one’s life passion.) Zero. Not a single one. Of all his interviewees who had dramatically changed their career path, not a single one said anything about the decision being made easier because of money they had accumulated from their previous, unfulfilling careers. The money was never cited as an enabling factor; rather, the interviewees by and large testify about an overwhelming belief that they were not following the pursuit for which they were meant, irrespective of their financial situation. Bronson cites that as the most surprising revelation of the entire process for him, and I found it pretty amazing as well. Because so many of us subscribe to that exact train of thought: who among us hasn’t gritted our teeth while carrying out some tedious task at a job we dislike, driven only by the conscious reminder that we’re making a few bucks that will one day allow us not to perform tasks such as that one. It’s related to something that I wrote a long, long time ago in this blog about how the popular interpretation of retirement as an incentive is just so maddeningly perverted: ‘I’ll work my butt off at job X so that one day down the road I won’t have to do X anymore.’ There’s an old (stupid) Yiddish joke about a guy coming across another man who’s repeatedly bashing his head against a brick wall, and he asks him “Why the heck are you doing that!??”, to which the man replies “Because it feels so good when I stop.” And yet Bronson feeds us this idea that based on his interviews, it just might be that this “nest egg” philosophy that we find so intuitively appealing might be a big fallacy subscribed to exclusively by people who don’t have the courage to take the scary and undefined steps required to pursue one’s life passion, at the expense of security. Anyway, I’ll just leave that hanging out there without taking sides, since it’s something I’m always reminded of whenever I hear the “Tough it out now, and then you’ll have the money to pursue what you want” philosophy espoused..

Here’s another quickie that’s neither here nor there, but which for me held a certain refreshing appeal as I try and decide what role poker is going to play in my life going forward. I was absent-mindedly perusing an online photo album belonging to a friend of mine who I’ve only hung out with a half-dozen times, and who struck me as friendly and outgoing, although perhaps unremarkable, when I came across a series of drawings from her sketchbook that simply blew my mind. Here’s one of them:

Don’t ask me why, but I’ve always been impressed to no end by artists…it’s just something that’s so foreign to my own set of abilities that those who possess the talent seem almost like magicians. Next time we talked, I think I gushed about how incredible her drawings were, and about I had no idea that she had that kind of talent (especially because it’s not what she went to school for, nor had she really pursued it professionally since.) She responded by saying something that I found pretty endearing: that she liked to think of herself as something of a superhero, and her artistic talent was like her secret super-power. And she even liked how well-hidden it was, because it made people all the more astounded (as was I) when they discover it. It reminded me of a mid-career guy I used to know at my consulting firm, who struck everyone as a bit of a weirdo (and with whom I had personally had a pretty serious confrontation about my work, although he wasn’t a bad guy…just completely socially inept.) Anyway, at some point we found out that he actually moonlighted as a concert violinist with a symphony in New York…I forget which one it was, but it was a pretty big deal in music circles. A bunch of us went to watch him perform, and it was incredible how seeing his “secret superpower” on display absolutely transformed him in the eyes of his peers, and almost overnight he went from being the office recluse to a guy that people really respected, even if he still struggled with social awkwardness. I’m not going to entertain a discussion about whether elite poker skill has the potential to “wow” people to the same extent as musical or artistic expertise (I think the short answer is that it doesn’t), but I found it to be a pretty neat little validation that it’s OK if one of your greatest skills doesn’t form the backbone of your professional career. It’s a lesson that’s so easy to forget, since every day we’re inundated with imagery of athletes, actors, and orators – in short, nearly anyone whose profession has a substantial presence in the public domain – who do exploit their chief talent as their principle life pursuit. But meeting these “secret superheroes” was a refreshing reminder that I may very well find career fulfillment with poker playing no more than a supporting role.

Monday, December 4th: School's Out

Two weeks ago, I did something that I had never done in the 2.5 years since I began playing online: feeling that I needed to do some preparation for my last set of law school exams, I withdrew every penny I had from every site where I play (which wasn't all that much, since I was still licking my wounds from one of my top 2 losingest days ever: -16K / yuck). And I didn't play for a whole 5 days. Cue the band.

But the good news is that as of last week, I am -- believe it or not -- a law school graduate, rendering the title of this blog somewhat inaccurate...or at least misleading (since i guess I'm still technically a 'dropout', albeit one that returned to school and finished up.) The past few weeks have been rife with activity, some good, some bad: birthday #27, conclusion of formal education, grandmother's unfortunately rapidly-deteriorating health -- a lot of stuff going on in my head. A ton of stuff I'd like to write about, so I'd imagine the next few posts will kind of run into each other, and might at times seem a tad disorganized. But such is life. At the very least, they'll come at more frequent intervals: the past couple weeks were a bit of a blur, since I was trying to make up for the past few months of academic delinquency.

I'm 27. I have without a doubt dragged this school thing out as long as freakin’ possible, and I've come to the following conclusion: I don't want to hear any college or grad school kid ever complain about how much "school sucks", or the like, because the fact of the matter is this: school rocks. I miss it already. The only people who say that and actually believe it are those who have never held down a real job -- the kind that gives you 2-3 weeks of vacation / year. Don't feel like going into work? Hung over? Just all-around lazy? Too bad. The freedom you get in school is like nothing you'll really ever experience again, so don't take it for granted.

Sidebar: In the 2+ years I've been part of the 2p2 community, I've noticed an interesting little evolution in the tone of responses to posts from kids who are thinking about dropping out of college, or taking some time after high school to play poker full-time. The general responses those posters used to get were very pro-poker, along the lines of: 'go for it!', 'strike while the iron's hot', 'don't let your parents tell you what's best for you!’ Funny to see how the standard response has changed in a somewhat-encouraging, or at least more responsible way. "Stay in school, idiot!" is the new official 2+2 party line when it comes to "dropping-out"-type posts. Could it be that 2+2 is growing up?? I don't think that's all that misplaced a suggestion either: the 19-20 year olds who were the high-volume posters a few years ago are now 22-23, and it's actually somewhat refreshing to see that the more poker they've played, the more they've come to realize the importance of a having (at the very least) a college degree in this world. Of course, that's not the only factor that has fueled this new attitude: the legislation, of course, better competition and decreased win-rates have really drilled into our collective minds the precarious nature of this golden-egg.

Being completely done with school, and just sitting here without any responsibilities or deadlines is a strange feeling. It’s somewhat reminiscent of how I felt after I moved to New York after undergrad…and it didn’t really phase me until I’d been there a week or two, and settled into my apartment, and I was walking home after work one day down the tree-lined street, watching a couple kids shoot hoops in a park, and moms push baby strollers, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks: This is my life. This is it. This was where the charted waters ended. I had somehow made it 22 years without making any real decisions for myself: primary school, high school, college (as if any of those were an actual choice), and then I had interviewed for and accepted a consulting job in New York. Maybe one of the most well-worn paths ever trodden, and there I was: “free” for the first time ever, and at the same time petrified, suddenly wishing for some kind of structure or safety net. That’s probably one of the factors that led me to enroll in law school in the first place: it was in many ways the ultimate security blanket: study hard, pass the bar exam, and go work for a law firm, and there’s really no way you won’t be a millionaire in 10 years. It's a fool's paradise that I've written about many times. So it’s somewhat strange now that I’ve more or less soured on that career path to be sitting around wondering just what direction I’m going to take my life next.

I've been battling some really frustrating demons the past few weeks as I contemplate the crossroads that I’m at, and I take stock of all the differently-situated people in my life. All my good law school friends graduated in May (as I would have had I not taken a semester off way back when), and have been working at their respective law firms for anywhere between 2 and 8 weeks. It’s been interesting to observe how they’ve all adjusted to firm life, many of them being flung into 70-hour work-weeks within their first 10 days on the job. Nearly all of them I’ve spoken with had to go into work either 1 or 2 days of this 4-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Some of them hate it, others claim not to mind it, while others take a bit of a helpless approach, acknowledging that their #1 priority is paying off their law school loans within 3 to 5 years, and viewing Big Law as the only reasonable option to do so. All the while I watch the situation unfold with binoculars from an ocean away.

While I don't know if the following is related, for maybe the first time ever, I’ve been overcome with a desire to do something worthwhile with my life. Something from which I can really derive a sense of pride. A lot of people frame the issue as one about contribution-to-society, and expend a lot of mental energy evaluating whether playing poker is any less of a contribution than many other so-called “respectable” professions: stock traders, real estate brokers, etc. I've often contemplated the same. But lately, I've felt driven by a different need: the need to do something worthwhile with my life. And perhaps it's just a semantic switch, but the idea of a "worthwhile" life strikes me as different than merely making a contribution.

In the first few months I kept this blog (immediately after I had left law school), I posted a lot about how frustrated I was that most people in the field of law seemed to be so unhappy and unfulfilled, and I did a lot of soul-search about the importance (or potential lack thereof) about choosing a profession that contributes something toward our society.I look at my fellow law school graduates now, and instead of evaluating the actual importance of the roles they are playing as cogs in the legal machinery of our society, I have begun to realize how high a value I place on doing something that gives me a sense of pride. It’s even a little refreshing to see that even when my friends are bitching about the hours they put in, they derive a sense of pride over what it is they do for a living, and it’s got me thinking that there's only so much pride one can take in being an elite poker player.

When I was working in my consulting job prior to law school, I remember asking one of my coworkers what she most wanted out of her career, and her life; e.g. what she thought would make her happiest and most fulfilled. And she gave me a definition that, while I didn't quite realize it at the time, I have yet to see equalled in terms of personal resonance: She said that whatever she did, she just wanted to feel as though she were applying all of her natural and acquired talents to the maximum of her ability. We're not all blessed with the athletic talents of Lebron James, or Sydney Crosby, each of whom was being touted as a potential superstar as early as the age of 12. Nor do we all necessarily possess the intellectual capacity of a Da Vinci, Einstein, Hawking, and so on. So what? Does that mean that we should just throw in the towel because we'll never equal those prodigies in their respective strongsuits? Of course not! The only way we "lose" in this game is if we don't put what we have been blessed with to optimal use. I've been blessed with some pretty impressive natural abilities, but I've also worked my ass off to get to where I am today, and poker, while it has fulfilled my intellectual and emotional needs for the past few years has simply been doing so to a lesser and lesser degree of late. I'm certainly not at the top of the food chain, but I'm damn close, relatively speaking. It just doesn't challenge me like it used to. "Challenge": that's an interesting concept. It's the reason I've taken (and then quit) jobs, left girlfriends, changed majors, traveled abroad, etc. I need it. I crave it. Poker has fit that bill for quite some time now, perhaps because it contains such an instantaneous and measurable barometer of progress, but I'm wondering if I've taken it nearly as far as I can. The fact of the matter is that I've got 2 Ivy League degrees. Is poker really the most worthwhile contribution I can make to this world? Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, but this much is sure: if you had told me when I started at college that the career path I'd choose would be one that could be mastered by high school dropouts (Negraneu) as readily as Stanford PhD students (Ferguson), I would have wondered whether my life had taken a wrong turn somewhere! Making money was a very important objective of mine when I was younger, but it's funny how actually reaching certain financial summits has made realize how important other life pursuits are as well. I can’t play poker full-time for the same reason that I would turn down an offer to pump gas for the next 10 years, even if it was accompanied by, for examle, a $5 Millino / year salary: it’s just not the reason that I’m here. Creating and nurturing a solid academic foundation isn’t important solely for its ability to command a healthy income, but for producing, creating, improving, teaching. Sigmund Freud, when asked what he believed was the meaning of life, responded “to love, and to work." When I'm on my deathbed and I'm asked by my wife, or grandchildren, or spiritual advisor whether I'm satisfied with the way I spent my life, I'm faintly beginning to grasp the idea that I want a tangible body of work to look back upon that will allow me to say "I took my God-given abilities, and I used them to the absolute best of my ability. " And the question I find myself asking more than any other of late is to what extent teaching myself to be an expert poker player will contribute to that, if at all. These thoughts I know are pretty jumbled at the moment; I dragged my feet for a good week in making this post, fearing that not everything would come out as eloquently as I would like, but decided to go ahead and post it, and hope that perhaps when placed in context along with the next few posts, they'll contribute to a more complete picture.