Poker is a part of me and always will be

I love the game of poker.  I always have enjoyed playing and I probably haven't gone ten days without playing in a poker game in the past 9 years.  I probably haven't gone a few days more than a handful of times.  It doesn't hurt that I have always made money playing the game either.  In the past year or so and even more so since the spring, I have tested my skill and my love of the game by playing more hours than I ever have before.  The result has been far from burnout, but a better understanding, love, and knowledge of the game.  And some money has come with it which is always nice.

I have already played 700 hours of live poker in 2012. In the past three months alone I have played about 300 hours.  This is while still working a Monday thru Friday job that takes up about 43 hours of my week on average. Lately I have been taking one or two days a week off from poker.  It is nice to rest at home and watch a movie or go for a walk in the park on a day off but after just one day off I find myself itching to play again.  After playing so much over the past 9 years and so much lately I think I can finally conclude that I will not burn out on this game.  And how could I burn out on such an awesome game?

At the poker table you experience and see so much of real world reality.  You see life and human beings at their best and worst and everything in between.  I have made some great friends in the poker room and I have made a couple of enemies too.  I have met beautiful women, grumpy old men, people just out of prison, people about to go to prison, lawyers, drug dealers, doctors, athletes, unemployed losers, hard working laborers, students, actors and actresses (I played with Ricki Lake), former world champions of poker (I played with Tom McEvoy), poker authors (I played with Mason Malmuth) and even played with a man who seemed to have wise guy connections at the Venetian in Las Vegas a couple of years ago.  I use to prefer online poker--and sometimes I really do miss it--but I love the social aspect of the game when playing live poker.  As I said, you see the best and the worst in people that you can't see when sitting behind a flickering computer monitor.  Poker is a metaphor for life in many ways.  Poker is as American as it gets.  You are matched up in a battle of wits, discipline, logic, money management, and self control just like so many men at women are at negotiating tables in corporations all over the world.  The CEO of Mirage Resorts, Bobby Baldwin once said, "The only difference between a boardroom table and a poker table is the shape."

In poker you need to be able to read situations, read opponents, recognize patterns, sense deceit, avoid traps, calculate equity, estimate return on investment, analyze situations with imperfect information, know when to buy, know when to sell, and all the while keep complete control of your emotions and ego.  This is business 101.  The skills that you need in the poker room will serve you well in the business world.  And that is what is so beautiful about poker--it is a business and it is a game.  I play for money and making money is my number one priority but I love the challenge and the competition as well as the social camaraderie.  I will never stop playing poker.  In fact, in the coming months and years I will only play more. 

I have long considered playing poker full time.  I have heard the stories about when it becomes your job it becomes less fun.  I think that could happen to me if the only thing I cared about was the money.  Yes the money is most important, but I also love the competition and the challenge to get better and improve my game every day.  So for me, it will never get old.  Whether it becomes my career or remains my paying hobby, poker and I are attached at the hip.  It is a part of me and always will be.

Disciplined Degenerate