Balance

By Pauly

"Be soft, yet not yielding. Be firm, yet not hard." - Bruce Lee

I spent the past week down in sunny and breezy Florida visiting several old college friends and taking in the Langerado Music festival which featured some of my favorite bands and musicians. Over four days, I caught 21 different musical acts... Grey Boy All Stars, Yerba Buena, JJ Grey & Mofro, Perpetual Groove, Medeski Martin & Wood, My Morning Jacket, STS9, The Heavy Pets, Dubconcious, Lotus, Tea Leaf Green, New Monsoon, North Mississippi All Stars, Galactic, Bela Fleck, Trey Anastasio Band, Taj Mahal, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Matisyahu, Toots & the Maytals, and Widespread Panic. The major highlight was My Morning Jacket's set. Once again they proved why they are my new favorite band. Check their website and the next time they come to your town... go see them.

I went to this musical festival with the usual crew of Change100, the Joker, and Professional Keno Player Neil Fontenot. Sweet Pablo and his buddy Chris made a cameo as well. Feel free to stop by the Tao of Pauly for setlists, recaps, and pictures. I have not had time to edit the video footage.

Here are the recaps:

Langerado Day 1
Langerado Day 2
Langerado Day 3

The music and partying was fun, as usual. However, the best part of my week in Florida was the reunion with some old friends from college. I had not seen them in a few years and it was amazing to be around people who have known me since I started college in 1990. I must have lived a couple of lifetimes since then. Seeing college friends reminded me about the journey I have taken in the last 17 years since I first left home in NYC and moved to the South for college. The reunion experience was humbling, entertaining, and inspiring.

I often draw inspiration from my close friends, especially those I've known for a decade or more. They are the ones who have encouraged me to be myself and have been an amazing support group and willing to make sacrifices for me in my selfish pursuit of the arts. Their generosity and work ethic is admirable and I often try to examine their individual success in order to see if I can apply anything that they do to my line of work.

My friends included four different guys who grew up all over the country.... Long Island, Miami, Texas, and believe it or not... G-Vegas. Today, they are all successful in their own way. Two attorneys, a real estate guru, and a broker. They have four kids among the group and have careers that most of the population would be envious about. Aside from being friends with me, what was the one thing that they all shared in common? Balance.

They all lived balanced lives and each person attributes their individual success to a little luck, a lot of hard work, but at the end of the day... it was a balanced life that enabled them to avoid burnout. Living a varied life was crucial so that their sole existence was not just work, work, work.

Balance is one of the most essential aspects of Taoist philosophy. The Tao has basic respect for the natural balance in all things. For example, you don't try to usurp the balance of nature. You simply have to adjust to its flow. Respecting balance is one of the keys to success in whatever you do. Being able to handle the daily stresses of life, work, family, and poker requires you to possess the ability to maintain your sense of balance when things are not going your way.

Your boss just chewed you out and you are on major asshole tilt. Do you let that affect the rest of your life and allow it to spill over into your office work, relationships, or even at the poker tables? The simple answer is... of course not. But it's not an easy task to let something like that roll off you and not seep into your thoughts while at a meeting with a client, or while having dinner with your family, or while you are close to the money bubble in a tournament.

Back to the Bruce Lee quote... "Be soft, yet not yielding. Be firm, yet not hard." He's preaching balance and flexibility. Both are traits that my friends have and utilized in order to arrive at a successful point in their lives.

One guy is a lawyer by day and a musician by night. He taught me how to play guitar and he's played in bands since college and during law school. He attributed his guitar to what helped get him through stressful moments during law school and during the first few years in the workplace. No matter how awful his work load got, he always had that Friday night gig to look forward to, or as soon as he'd get home, he'd have his guitar in hand before he even took off his tie. Instead of hitting the bottle hard like most lawyers I know, he let out his daily aggression out through music.

Another guy is a real estate guru who once told me that I needed to stop writing for other people and focus on building up the Tao of Poker. That was three years ago. And, he was right. He used to be one of many real estate brokers in a big office and decided to go out on his own. He hit a homerun. His advice to me was to stop thinking about getting a few hundred bucks here and there and start thinking about the bigger picture. Six figures. Seven figures. He believed in my talent and said that I need to have faith in myself. Since I was still an unknown, I had nothing to lose. I made a lot of bad decisions along the way in my freelance career (like writing for outlets who have not paid me such as High Roller Magazine), but I also made some interesting gambles which paid off immensely. That guy's idea of balance was the work hard and play hard philosophy. He'd work for everyday for three weeks straight then get shitfaced in the Bahamas for four days before he returned to work for another 21 day run before he flew off to Europe. He was a machine and I'm not surprised he's sitting in a fat mansion in Coconut Grove.

My other buddy is also an attorney and he carefully balanced out work with friends and family. It was important for him to stay in touch with friends and be active in everyone's life. An avid golfer, he was always on the links which helped soothe the soul after a long day at court. He also focused on a serious relationship which eventually evolved into marriage and fatherhood. Having a family was important for him because it helped keep his passion of the law going strong. He told me that it was not hard letting a bad day of work get to him when he'd come home to his house and see his wife and kids.

The last guy is a broker and another a musician. He played guitar and drums in various bands over the last ten years. His clients think it's awesome that he's a musician and he definitely uses that as a selling point. They don't see him as a scumbag broker who wants to churn and burn their accounts. He's also a serious outdoorsy type of guy who loves hiking and skiing. He balances music and skiing with his tough work schedule. He couldn't think of life without either. That makes him happy and confident which his friends (like me) feed off of and it's also what makes him attractive to prospective clients.

What all four guys had in common was the willingness and ability to maintain a healthy balance in their lives. They understood what they wanted in life (which was a bonus) and pushed themselves as the surpassed their personal goals and milestones. They understood that you have to work but also knew that they would never allow their jobs to define their existence. The balance is what made each aspect of their lives special. The balance also helped breed confidence which is a necessary trait to being a successful person.

Over the last year, I tried my best to implement the important cornerstones that helped my friends get to where they wanted to go. I figured out that in order to keep myself sane and to avoid burnout, I desperately needed time away from the poker scene and from the tables. Less poker and more life. I worked hard, and partied hard. I made sure that my daily life encompassed many things, not just poker. I took on less freelance work and added more personal traveling to my schedule. I got back in touch with my musical roots and made a conscious effort to see as many concerts as I could. I limited my time online (sorry that I haven't been answering emails; something had to give!) and I spent more time outdoors. I also got into a relationship with an awesome chick despite the fact I basically live out of my backpack and are never in the same place for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Somehow, we've made it work for almost a year. I have a more balanced life now, and even though there's been a ton of bad shit going down (getting sick and the UIGEA), I've been somewhat calm despite the dire circumstances.

There are some people who are successful by doing nothing but playing poker, or trading stocks, or billing out 90/100 hour work weeks. But they will tell you that they are missing something. That something is balance. And unless you are able to give balance full respect, you eventually will be disrespecting yourself.

I've traveled the world, been to many cities all over the globe and met many different people from all walks of life. The one thing I learned from conversations with others is that life is incredibly short. Some of the happier people I've met have a special balance in life, while some of the more dour souls are the ones who are caught in a rut.

Instead of saying, "I wish I had more time to do......" Stop what you are doing and do it.

My friends were not afraid to pursue other interests outside of work and instead of coming to a crashing point where they wondered what life would have been like if they played in a band or had a wife and kids... they went out and did just that. Someday, you'll be gone. You might die a quick death but what if get sick and it takes a while before you finally kick off? Do you wanna be laying in a hospital bed in a puddle of your own shit and piss with tubes sticking out of you wondering what life could have been like? Or do you wanna be in that same spot and welcoming your impending death because you lived your life your way and you didn't have any regrets?

Balance means different things for different people. If that means quitting your job to play poker full time, then do it. If it means taking a shot at the WSOP main event, then go for it. if it means walking away from poker and gambling and pursuing a different hobby, then stop reading my blog.

There is more to life than poker. But, if you want to be successful at poker and what it to be an integral part of your life, you need to balance that out with something else. It's up to you to determine what that is. And trust me, when you're running bad at the tables and want to die because a you got sucked out on for the umpteenth time by the same donkette, you will feel a lot better when you step away from the tables and focus on something else like taking your kid to soccer practice or trying to pick up high school chicks off of MySpace or planning out that trip you always wanted to take to Kenya.

A balanced life will be able to fend off all of that anger, frustration, and depression that often accompanies a rough day at the tables.

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

Dysthymia

By Pauly

Dysthymia: chronic depressed mood for most of the day, more days than not, for at least two years. Often considered to be a "characterological" depression - the depression is the very core of how the person operates and thinks. These individuals experience chronic feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. The symptoms are thus similar to Major Depression, just not as severe. There is, however, no "loss of interest in pleasurable activities" nor an "inability to experience pleasure" which sometimes accompanies Major Depression.

I'm sure that the Poker Shrink would have more to say about the topic of dysthymia, but if there's one word that could aptly describe my poker play at some point in my life, it would be... dysthymic. The first few months of 2006 were the height of my dysthymic period when I lost a chunk of my bankroll online.

We've all been down about our poker game. Usually we're stuck in a rut and unable to make good things happen. Sometime we're caught in the middle of a horrendous losing streak. Or perhaps you're hitting the wall day after day and bubbling out of tournaments after several hours of solid play only to get sucked out on by some 14 year old kid from Finland.

Pros tell you that losing streaks are a part of the game. Some even admit to going broke more than once. Some pros go broke a few times a year. What they don't tell you is that losing streaks are what set apart the pros from the amateurs. Some newbies give up after they go broke and never return to the game. Other beginning players fail to adjust their games during losing streaks as they slide deeper and deeper into oblivion. Pros often will look at their game in terms of the bigger picture. Have they been making solid decisions? If not, then they need to plug those leaks. If so, they carry on to play another day knowing that over the long run they can and will beat the game.

However, after you drop your tenth buy-in at a 10/20 limit table inside of a week, you start to question everything in your poker arsenal.

Am I playing too many hands? Wait, I'm playing too tight. I need to limp more with big hands. I need to stop being a pussy and raise more with junk hands. I need to re-raise more in position because that's what Doyle would do. I should jam more with draws. Suited gappers are underrated. I'll never play A-Q again. I need to play more aggressive on the turn and stop worrying about getting sucked out on. Maybe I need to play more passive post-flop because I keep overplaying my hands when I miss the flop. I need to take better notes on my opponents and stop downloading Shaved Swedish Teen porn. I need to pay more attention to the stats because numbers never lie. I need to play more tables simultaneously because that will mean I'll play tighter. I need to switch to NL so I can get a big score because I'm sick of those inbred fucktards who can't fold any ace or any two suited cards in limit. PLO is the future of poker so I need to stop playing Hold'em. I am fat. I am repulsive. I cannot bear my own reflection. I need to hang out with more pros so I can learn more about poker. Ah, fuck those assholes. They're just degenerate lucktards and most of them are backed anyway. I need to stop playing short-handed because I'm getting killed in rake. I need to read old poker books and brush up on Super System. I need to read less about poker and more about philosophy and military strategy. I need to read less forums and I need to find some new poker blogs to read. I need to turn off my chat. I should hide myself from searches because all my railbirds are bad luck. Maybe I should only play on weekends? No, I should only play on weeknights. Never during the day, because that's when the pros play. But the sharks wait until the weekends to fleece the fish. Maybe I should only play at Midnights on Tuesdays. Maybe if I put less bad beats on people, I won't get so many in return? I lose too much on Poker Stars so I'm only going to lay on Full Tilt. Fuck, do I miss Party Poker. I never had losing streaks on Party Poker. Maybe I need to develop an addiction to speed? And not trucker's speed, the real shit. The stuff Air Force fighter pilots get. I need to quit poker and get out while I still have some dignity left. This isn't fun anymore. I should write more about competitive eating. No, I'm going to finally sit down and write that Las Vegas book, even if it kills me. No, on second thought that screenplay idea needs to be hammered out. Who wouldn't want to see Reservoir Dogs meets Bring It On? Maybe I should join the Peace Corps and teach people on the Solomon Islands how to built huts and purify their water? Wait, what city am I in again? Don't I have a plane to catch?

Of course that internal conversation runs through my head on every hand that I play. After a few hours, I'm mentally exhausted. Throw in a losing streak and I'm completely spent after a session.

I'm from the school of thought that if you are in a rut, you plug away and play through it. Whether it's writing or poker or life, I keep on going because eventually the tide has to turn. After the major loses in early 2006, I managed to stop the bleeding and became a break even player before I started winning again. I had a couple of decent months and a few bad months, but I avoided any bad losing streaks aside from the stretch in December when I got my ass handed to me in Las Vegas during the blogger trip after I got seriously cold-decked playing Pai Gow. To this day, I often wonder how any sane person could lose $1K playing $5 Pai Gow. Yet, that's what happened. Sometimes, I'm addicted to losing.

That's when I decided that there are times when you should avoid poker during a losing streak. How do you stop losing money during a bad run of cards? Don't play. That will guarantee that you "break even." Lou Krieger suggest watching movies during a losing streak. There are plenty of other things you could be doing to improve your life. Go spend time with your family or friends. Read a book. A non-poker book. Clean your house. Go exercise. And how about this... go out and get yourself laid. If you have to pay women to fuck you, go spend some of your bankroll and get a rub and a tug. If you have any mojo, go get shitfaced at the local bar and go home with a complete stranger. If you are a female, just walk outside and show some cleavage. Within five minutes someone will hit on you. Sex is a great distraction. Trust me. A chilling orgasm will make you forget about the river donkeys in a heartbeat.

That time you spend away from the tables will do wonders for your daily existence along with giving yourself a necessary break away from poker. Those feelings of worthlessness (due to your losing streak) will eventually subside if you spend a substantial amount of time away from poker. You will experience that there is indeed more to life outside of poker, so when you do return to the tables, your losing streak is less relevant and appears less severe in your mind.

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker. All rights reserved.

Sophism

New York City
Spring of 2003

"I blew a dog once," she said.

Had that been a scene in a movie, the background music would have stopped and everyone in the bar would have turned around and starred at her in astonishment for several awkward seconds.

She took a sip of her drink, an overpriced Apple Martini, and I immediately thought, "Do all animal molesters drink Apple-tinis?"

"It's not what you think," she said trying defend her statement. "Why are you freaked out? You're the one who asked me the question. You're supposed to be the bohemian writer living on the edge, hanging out with criminals and low lifes. On your travels you've never once heard about someone blowing a dog?"

"A donkey, yes. Don't forget I've been to South of the Border to Matamoros. I saw a guy fuck a chicken once too. Uneventful. But I've never sat a few feet from an actual canine cock smuggler."

"Oh my God! You are totally freaked out. Must be that McCatholic thing, right?"

"I'm not freaked out. Surprised is a word that comes to mind. And I never asked you how many dog's dicks you sucked in your life. I believe the question was, 'What's your most bizarre sexual encounter?' I was hoping to hear about hot lesbian affairs or made a semi-erotic story about how you gang-banged three chain-smoking snail-eating French dudes in the bathroom of a bar in Montmartre. I didn't think you'd actually fess up to bestiality."

"Fuck you, McFucker!" she screamed.

"That dog was no beast. He was a beautiful animal and I loved every second of it."

"I don't believe you," I badgered her.

"It's true. I was nine years old and, and..."

"And what?" as I moved in closer.

"I only did it that one time. I was curious. Don't freak out on me now. Haven't you gotten aroused by doing something you shouldn't?"

"Of course, but chugging doggie cock wasn't one of them."

She sighed and had a long sip of her drink before she checked her cellphone. She had gotten a text message during our banter which she read then never bothered to answer back.

"How did you know I was lying?" she said.

"I didn't. It's what we call in poker a 'semi-bluff.' I sensed weakness because there was some doubt in your story. Someone truly ashamed of a sexual encounter with a dog would have not revealed that secret in a public place. And if you had no qualms about people knowing, you would have told your friends... and I would have found out months ago. Besides most tells and lies are non-verbal. You make the same face when you lie to your friends and say, 'I love those shoes.' They can't tell when you're bullshitting, but I can."

"Well, your semi-bluff is semi-wrong."

"Care to explain?"

"I never blew a dog. That's true," she said before she paused a beat. She sat up in her chair and glared at me. Without blinking she blurted out, "I never blew a dog but I jerked one off once."

"That's one lucky puppy," I added.

That time I knew she wasn't lying.

* * * * *
The poker world is filled with world class sophists. Here's the definition of sophism according to Wikipedia:

Sophism generally refers to a particularly confusing, illogical and/or insincere argument used by someone to make a point, or, perhaps, not to make a point. Sophistry refers to the practice of using such arguments, and is used as derogative for rhetoric that is designed to appeal to the listener on grounds other than the strict logical cogency of the statements being made.

Sounds like the basic premise of a very skilled poker player and every politican in Washington. The best players in the world will often give off conflicting tells during the same hand to confuse their opponents. They rattle off false verbal information and use their betting patterns to deceive their opponents.

Your opponent is going to put you on a hand based on your behavior at the table. In real life, they'll size up your physical state. Online they'll scrutinize your betting patterns and check their notes on you.

Poker is tough enough without having to pay extra attention to your mannerisms from how you pick up your chips to how you bet when you are bluffing, have a monster, or on a draw. Even Gus Hansen has problems like that. No matter how much composure he tried to muster up, the Great Dane couldn't can't keep his hands still when he nailed quads at the featured table at the EPT Barcelona last year. I noticed that his hands shook like a Parkinson's patient on a bumpy bus ride. His opponents saw it too and both quickly mucked.

He had quad Queens and showed it. But what if Gus pulled off a superb bluff? What if he had Jack-Shit and nearly spilled his chip stack on purpose and feigned a shaking hand as he bet out at the pot? Now, that would have been something.

Bluffing is an integral part of poker, especially NL Hold'em. The best bluffers in the world are so good that you didn't even notice you got bluffed until you saw it happen on TV. There was not a doubt in your mind you were beat so you folded. How many times did that happen?

That's why there's the adage... Never bluff a calling station. They don't have the discipline to fold a crappy hand let alone a mediocre one.

That's why the biggest bluff in a cash game that I ever pulled off... was against a local rock at Green Valley Station last year. I had K-Jo and he had K-Q. I re-raised him preflop. I raised him on the flop when a King fell, and when he checked to me on the turn, I moved all-in. I had been playing tight and he put me on A-K. He agonized over his decision for a few minutes and even showed his cards to the players sitting nearby. Usually if someone does that they're gonna muck. I sat still trying to act meek, like I had a monster better than A-K.

"A set. I have a set," I thought several times just to put that vibe out there.

In reality, I had top pair with a not-so-strong kicker and had no redraws. I was way behind and had only three outs to save me. The only way I was going to win that pot, as I heard Mike Sexton's voice narrating the hand in my head, "Was to bluff at it."

That guy was convinced I had him beat and he folded the best hand. He mucked K-Q face up. The dealer pushed the hefty pot my way as I flipped over K-J. My opponent slapped his hand on the table and muttered, "Nice hand."

I know he didn't mean that as he stood up and paced back and forth at his end of the table. One of the other locals sitting next to me said, "Best play I've seen all week. Great bluff, kid."

I made the mistake at showing my hand but it ended up tilting the guy with K-Q so exposing my bluff had some merit. However, I jeopardized any future moves I'd try to make if any of those guys remembered playing with me the next time I showed up at Green Valley... and a laydown like that guy made tends to eat at your insides for a while, so I know that guy remembered that hand.

A great bluffer is part magician, part actor, part used car salesman, part preacher, part quack, part serial killer, and part philosopher. Like the original sophists, there's a small inkling of truth to any false argument. Next time you're ready to bluff off half your stack in a tournament, take a moment to ask, "Is my opponent going to believe me here?"

Photo credit: Flickr

Nietzsche Died of Syphilis

"Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?" - Nietzsche

My favorite aspect about working on Wall Street was that I legally gambled with other people's money. I got experience the rush without the financial liability.

There are moments when I'm in a casino and I'll hear someone utter that infamous and dangerous phrase, "You're playing with House money!"

That's where the gambler knows that he or she is up but presses the issue because they're not gambling with their money... it's the casinos money or rather it's the money that used to belong to a fellow tourist or addicted local. Yes when you win, you win losers' money. Regardless of how hot you're playing, throwing, or nailing bets... there's resinated bad karma attached to every single chip that you possess. Like germs invading your weakened immune system, microscopic flakes of negative karma influence your gambling senses. It doesn't matter if you cash out your chips at the cage. The paper Benjamins that line your pocket also used to belong to... losers.

That blatant disregard for the concept of money is what often allows poker players to make better decisions at the tables, but it also allows the degenerate darkside of human nature take control of your weaknesses and addictions and they keep gambling when they should quit while they are ahead. One moment you were up a grand at the blackjack tables daydreaming about how you were going to spend that money before a cute dealer from Saigon cold decks your ass into oblivion and you walk away from the pit with a warm Corona and a cheap feeling like you've been fucked in an extremely uncomfortable place in a dark corner of a Turkish bath house.

But that's why the majority of people gamble, because they are addicted to losing. Don't believe me? Just walk around a local's casino on the outskirts of Las Vegas, and you'll see the soulless zombies emptying their bank accounts and spending their social security checks for the chance of one more slot pull.

For one more hand of blackjack.

For one more toss of the dice.

I wonder how many people sitting in the rows of slot machines actually believe in God? They certainly whisper his name in desperation with every pull of the lever or while they're on the brink of elimination in a poker tournament.

"Please God. One time!"

And like most of your prayers, they go unanswered by God. If he does exist he has more important things to do than help you spike your two outer on the river.

* * * * *
I'm 44-6 in picking college football games over the last five weeks. I'm picking 88% without the spreads. That's not too shabby. Too bad I couldn't pick an NFL team to save my life. I had a perfect week in the NFL three weekends ago, but now I have no idea what's going on over the last two weeks. Perhaps it's variance or parity or the simple fact that I suck. I should go back to gambling on women's field hockey.

The best part about Party Poker closing down is that there are more players at the middle low-limit tables on Full Tilt. There used to be no more than a couple of 5/10 tables or 10/20 tables going and you'd never see anyone at playing 8/16 limit. This is no longer the case. I've been grinding off a reload bonus at the 5/10 tables with occasional forays into 8/16 short-handed and 10/20.

Every time I walk into a bank or the post office or stand in an airport security line there are two things that will eventually happen to me:

1. I'll either get stuck standing in front or behind the most annoying person on the planet.
2. I'll get stuck in the slowest line as it inches forth every few minutes like a morose Russian bread line circa 1981.

That's life's little evil way of evening things up on Planet Pauly. Karmic balance. Kind of like being card dead for an hour and finally finding Q-Q and raising in late position only to get three callers as both an Ace and a King hit the flop. Or when I finally flop a set with a baby pair, the turn fills a flush and I foolishly call all the way to the river because I can't let go of a set.

Despite the fact that those things seem to always happen to me... I still continue to stand in the slow line at the grocery store and I still play my big pairs and sets hard. Is it because I'm addicted to gambling and losing? Or is it that I don't have anything else better to do at the time?

I should be speaking out against the worst Congress in the history of American politics, saving the Costa Rican spider monkeys, and rescuing Malawain children from the puerile grips of over-the-hill menopausal 1980s pop stars. But I'm not, because I'm selfish and I really don't give a shit as the dominant existentialist voice takes control of the karaoke microphone inside my head and he screams, "Time to fire up Poker Stars. Life is utterly meaningless. Let's gambooooool."

* * * * *
Here are 5 Random Things I Did in LA Over the Weekend:
1. While on a early morning jog, I pissed in an alley off of Olympic Blvd.
2. A former Baywatch actress stood in line behind Change100 and myself at Zankou Chicken.
3. I won $5 playing a $3 scratch lottery ticket that Showcase bought me.
4. I cracked A-A with SMTL after I flopped trip 3s.
5. I discovered that I'm three inches taller than the greatest living drummer in this solar system, Stanton Moore from New Orleans, as we stood face-to-face at the House of Blues in West Hollywood and I asked him to play my favorite Galactic song.

Bad Beating a Danish Prince

"I do not know why yet I live to say this thing's to do.
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means to do't." - Hamlet

We live in a harsh and unforgiving world. Every single day, assholes cut you off on the freeway, waitresses fuck up your lunch order, friends flake out and forget your birthday, and your hometeam loses another close game. Then there are days when there's no traffic on your way to work, and your waitress is Jessica Alba-hot and will possibly go home with you and spread her legs if you tell one more funny joke, and your friends surprise you with tickets to your favorite band, and your team comes from behind to win and cover the pointspread.

Some days the sun is shining, the birds are chirping Beatles songs, and the beautiful world makes sense. Of course you usually forget about the good days and focus on the dismal days when feral dogs walk up to you and piss on your feet and your kidde-porn downloading boss tells you that you're getting passed over for a promotion because high school pecking order has infected the corporate world and you're not as cool as you once were.

I lost $500 the other night and I'm down $1K for the week. I didn't even freak out. I lost some hands because I played like the village drunk out of an Irish novel and I lost hands because I was outplayed like a chump and I lost hands because the fickleness of luck was not on my side that session. Two-thirds of those beats were my responsibility and I accepted my fate as I logged off. Those mistakes magnify why I'm not a professional poker player.

There was a time a few years ago before Fossilman ruled the Earth where I played poker to supplement my income. Sitting at the tables with foul smelling degenerates seemed much more appealing than slinging beers to drunken frat boys or making fruity drinks like Bellinis for crappy tipping Upper East Side princesses as I grinded it out in the underground clubs in Manhattan, at the casino in Foxwoods, and online at Party Poker.

I lived off my bankroll those days and steadily won. When I hit my first real losing streak, I freaked out because playing poker was my sole source of income. And we weren't talking elephant sized numbers here... a couple hundred dollars here and there. If I won $75 in a few hours playing 1/2 NL, that was a good day. Just when things got bad, I was offered freelance work to write about poker. My freelance career rocketed off like a fat kid riding a moped. I finally arrived at a point where my daily winnings were added to my bankroll. The effects were immediate as the roll grew exponentially.

Over the past few weeks, I withdrew money from my bankroll in order to cover expenses for the next few months while I rework one of my manuscripts. I think I might have fallen victim to the cashout curse. It's difficult enough playing mistake-free poker, but when you are acting like a dumbass at the tables simultaneously during a blizzard of bad beats, you're going walk away from the tables ashamed and with swollen testicles.

* * * * *
Opening up a post with a quote can me misleading and pretentious. And quoting Hamlet, the biggest swinging dicks of all of Shakespearean characters, should be enough to get me beaten to a bloody pulp by a bunch of hammer wielding thugs. But there's something important abut my fascination with Hamlet. I've spent many late nights sitting around by myself in the dark jacked up on painkillers pondering the actions of the indecisive 30 year old Danish prince and what lessons could be learned from his mistakes.

Hamlet is the most compelling character in all of literature. This is a guy wrought with emotional conflict and guilt due to his inaction. He knows his Uncle Claudius killed his father and yet he's slow to avenge his murder.

As the story goes, the conflicted Hamlet accidentally killed Polonius, the father of his girlfriend Ophelia, who in turn commits suicide by drowning herself which triggers the series of events climaxing with one of the most brutal endings in the history of storytelling.

Without conflict, there's no drama. And of course Shakespeare was trying to tell a story, express himself creatively, and entertain the masses all in the same instance. The story of Hamlet had existed for many years before Shakespeare penned it four hundred years ago. He was the first to adapt the legend of Hamlet and he turn it into one of his most famous pieces of work. The themes that Shakespeare touched on four centuries ago in his play still hold today in an extremely dissonant world.

Inaction and slow decision making. That best describes Hamlet. He was doomed from the start and if you carry around those two traits in your personal emotional baggage, then you're doomed as well.

The Tao of Poker is a sponge that soaks up all things poker in my life. When I squeeze it, the droplets of water materialize as bad beat stories and inane observations of Las Vegas locals. For the last few weeks, the sponge has been dry. Sure I've played poker both live and online. I've watched poker on TV. I even wrote two poker columns. But sometimes ringing out the sponge is nothing more that screaming into the void.

There are days when my fate cries out, "Stop playing poker!" That's when my Kings get cracked by Ace rag. And the flopped nut flush loses to a runner-runner boat. I can hear the poker gods laughing at me as they prop bet each other into figuring how long I'll stay on tilt. One orbit? One week? One year?

Then there are days when poker is the easiest and most beautified game in the world for me. When I flop sets with baby pairs and I river my nut flush and my dominated Ace comes from behind to win. Sadly, those instances don't happen everyday.

I never doubt my ability to play poker. What I often question is... "How much of working in the poker industry is affecting my poker game negatively?"

At the tables, I don't have the same enthusiasm for the game that I used to have a few years ago, especially if I'm on location in a casino covering a poker tournament. After a long day of work, the last thing I want to do is sit at the tables. After covering the EPT, WPT, and WSOP, I've glimpsed at the underbelly of tournament poker which is being pillaged by corporate vampires wearing cheap suits and sleazy television execs run amuck.

When I spend time away from the beast and take breaks, I return refreshed and actively experience the halcyon days instead of chasing them, when the clattering sounds of chips made me salivate like Pavlov's frothing dog. I used to love to discuss strategy with other players, but these days every poker related conversation I've had has been morphed into one long bad beat story. Bad beats are like the common cold. There's no way to prevent them and you're gonna catch one eventually.

In every tournament I've won or made the final table, I issued a wicked bad beat onto someone at some point along the way to victory. It's just part of the game. In baseball, players swing at bad pitches and hit homeruns, and pitchers toss a fat pitch that gets popped up for an out. That's the way it goes. It's like having a horny drunk girl stumble over to you in a bar just before last call. Talk about catching a lucky card on the river.

Then there are days when the entire notion of poker is absurd and the life is summed up best from Tim Robbins' character in the film Bull Durham when he said, "Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes... it rains. Think about that."

* * * * *
You should be reading... what the Poker Prof had to say about the latest developments in Washington in his post called Initial Impressions of the Internet Gambling Prohibition. Also, check out The Fight Is Over written by CJ.

The Warrior Within: Bruce Lee, Taoism, and Poker

"Simplicity is the key to brilliance." - Bruce Lee

I was raised Catholic and grew up in a Jewish and Irish neighborhood in the Bronx. I went to an all-boys Jesuit prep school in Manhattan and then graduated from college in the South. I was surrounded by Baptists but joined a fraternity that was about 1/2 Jewish. During my first stint on Wall Street, I was a pure capitalist. When I moved to Seattle I discovered Eastern religions and read books on Zen Buddhism from Alan Watts and devoured any literature on the subject.

By my late 20s, I developed a hybrid religion after interacting with people from multiple religions that included Druids, Mormons, Scientologists, Pagans, Rastafarians, agnostics, and Raelians. I came to the conclusion that my own relationship with God (or a higher being... if there is one) is no one else's business exception my own. While I wrestled with the absurdity of a devout faith in an imaginary person, I decided that there were interesting aspects of Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism and that I shouldn't allow myself to be pigeonholed into one specific set of beliefs. My religion became a party mix of several major religions.

I began studying Scandinavian philosophy and found solace with existentialism. Then on 9.11, I heard about one of my former co-workers who jumped 104 stories to his death after he called his mother to said good-bye. That makes you question everything in your life and maybe the notion of a Godless and random universe makes more sense.

I watched The Big Lebowski too many times and soon discovered that I was wallowing in nihilism and believed in absolutely nothing. Living for too long in Las Vegas can do that to you. Life seems absurd when you see the depravity of the dark side of Sin City where people are trying to win their way out of poverty.

In January, my buddy Friedman showed me a book about Bruce Lee. I never knew Lee was a sage and a philosopher. Although he was a movie star and martial arts instructor, he was a also a devout student of Eastern religions. Since he lived in the West and understood the problems and stresses of modern society, he tried to adapt what he learned to the present and applied that to his mastery in martial arts as well as being a father, husband, and teacher.

I've read the book two or three times and it helped me to focus on what's important in my life. There were no specific instructions on what to do, instead it was a discussion of becoming self-aware and mastering the warrior within yourself to become successful. Lee kept describing martial arts as a form of self-discipline and less about fighting. It's about knowing your limitations and pushing yourself at the same time working hard at something to achieve a level of mastery. I've tried my best to apply what I learned from Bruce Lee and Taoists like Lao Tzu and resurrected the writing and poker aspects of my life. I hit rock bottom for both and I found a way out... and that was for me to go in, deep inside me to provide an honest evaluation of myself.

Attaining knowledge in poker really means grasping and attaining self-knowledge. Part of being a professional poker player is accepting the consequences of their actions as well as taking responsibility for themselves.

Writing is a way to honestly expressing yourself. So is playing poker. You can't bullshit yourself when it's crunch time, near the money bubble when you're in a position to make a move, but don't and fold like a pussy because you are afraid of failing and not making the money. Your weaknesses are exposed when you are confronted with decisions. Perhaps you can cover up your liabilities to your opponents (especially if you play online). But you can't bullshit yourself. You know you don't have the testicular fortitude to take those tough risks, or you don't have the disciple or restraint to reel your aggression in, or you don't have the patience to wait for a more favorable time to get your money in the pot.

Poker is a way to figure out your limitations and how you react in certain situations or during pressure points as DoubleAs has often discussed. But being honest with yourself is something that is very hard to do. No matter if it's poker or in your normal everyday life, the more you lie to yourself, the more it's going to hurt you and your loved ones in the future. If you are blinded with fame and glory at the poker tables and you're not 100% honest with yourself that you need several more years of training before you take the shot, then you're going to fall hard. And you might be indirectly taking people in your life down with you.

The first step is being honest with yourself. Then and only then can you begin the journey to figure out who you really are. Despite all your faults, it doesn't make you a horrible person. Nobody is perfect (well except Phil Hellmuth). And being able to identify your weaknesses allows you to point out your strengths. And that's what you need to focus most of your energy on... what you do best. Then you can take the time to improve those aspects of your life that are liabilities. The two pronged approach is a way to flourish and improve at the same time.

I've recently added this philosophy to how I write and play poker. I focus on what I do best... tell stories and set the scene and that's been the driving force behind my coverage of the WPT Championship. And for the first time I had fun. That was what I thought this job was going to be like. But I lost focus and allowed external forces to shape and mold how I cover a tournament and I got caught up thinking and obsessing over trivial matters when I lost the love for what's fun about poker and getting be paid to write.

I had to reassess how and why I played poker. I figured out my strengths (Limit Cash Games) and weaknesses (NL tournaments). So I took my remaining bankroll and I focused on playing Limit and moving up in levels as fast as I can to maximize my ability to win as much money as possible. At the same time, I cut back on NL tournaments. I read and studied NL strategy. I talked to pros that I respect and trust and they gave me tips on how to improve. I discovered that I had more holes in my tournament game than I realized. Knowledge is something that never ends after you finish reading Super System. You have to constantly go back and re-read it and keep pushing yourself to learn more and more about the game.

I've been trying to plug those leaks and I think I've been doing much better over the last few months. I made a final table at the LA Poker Classic media event and I took second in a WPBT event. I was in 13th place on the WPBT-POY leaderboard, which is something I'm excited about. It's one thing to figure out your problems, it's another to actually apply solutions to them and make it work.

"I feel this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined... I feel this great force, this untapped power, this dynamic something within me. This feeling defies description. There is no experience with which this feeling can be compared." - Bruce Lee

There's something that Japanese Zen masters refer to as satori. Chinese Taoists call it tun-wu. Basically that entails begin able to tap into the vast energy cycles that encircles life. Learning to tap into these energy cycles leads to a complete and total harmony of the mind and body that culminates in a great spiritual awakening. I've hit those moments during long writing sessions when I'm tapping into my creative energy pool. I know that musicians and painters struggle to get to that place all the time. The ones that do have their music and art flow right out. Professional athletes call it "the zone." Wall Street traders call it being "locked in."

When Tom Browning pitched a perfect game for the Reds in September of 1988, he tapped into the vast energy cycle within him that boosted his ability to a level of total perfection. As non-enlightened humans, we're prone to mistakes and notions of self-doubt. Complete perfection is impossible. However, there are moments when one can achieve total perfection. In poker we call that the "rush." Flopping sets with pairs. Hitting your ace with A-K in a race situation. Catching that two outer for a resuck.

Some professional poker players are able to play for hours and even days if they properly focus and tap into those internal pools of energy. I've seen fleeting moments during the 2005 WSOP. Johnny Chan was on fire during the final table of the Pot-Limit Hold'em event when he went on to win his 10th bracelet beating The Unabomber heads-up. Being able to delve deep and tap into your energy cycle is not going to give you good cards. However, you will be able to harness the "warrior within."

Bruce Lee spoke about how the martial arts warrior is a symbol that represents that great inner energy force. If harnessed properly, the warrior wins numerous battles and crushes the competition. But if that warrior force is mishandled, ignored, and neglected... then we end up achieving far less than what we are capable of doing. That not only sums up my faltering poker game, it also is a blue print for why I fucked up certain aspects of my life.

I feel as though my creative writing force is like a raging river, sometimes as powerful as a massive waterfall and all I have to do is jump in and go where the water takes me. Other times it's just a small creek, barely flowing by. Now with poker, it's the opposite. During my recent downswing, I have not been able to find that inner energy source. It feels like I'm wandering around the desert for months unable to find water. Sometimes I stumble upon it and I'm riding the wave and my entire poker game makes sense. I'm folding when I should and I'm hitting my big draws and I'm making amazing decisions. But then it fades out and I'm lost again. I know that my poker game can achieve harmony and perfection. Those moments do exist. I just have to work harder to focus and when I find it, hold on it...

The "warrior within" analogy fits better to poker than writing. Poker is a fight. It's an alley brawl. A major tournament is like one of those Battle Royales in wrestling matches where there's 30 fighters in the ring at once. Sure you need to catch cards and luck plays a tremendous role, but a lot of success in poker is mental toughness and being able to maintain focus, patience, and discipline over long periods of time. In our instant world of online poker and playing 6 or 10 tables at once, it's a chore to sit at a full table in a crowded casino with a swarm of media running around while you are folding thousands of crappy hands during in a seven week tournament like the WPT Championships.

That's why I'm amazed that a guy like Doyle Brunson at 72 or 73 can still gut it out with kids that are 50 years younger than him. He's older than their grandparents for fucks sake, yet Texas Dolly is a poker God for a reason. He has adapted over the last fifty years and constantly changed his game and attitude. He never believed that there's one right way to play poker. And no matter what the game or the circumstance, he's always figured out a way to win. Brunson is operating on a different level than all of us. That's why he's the best all time. No matter if it's cash games or tournaments, he'll rip your heart out. He's channeled the warrior within and has mastered that spiritual aspect of poker. Sure we like to talk about how amazing poker players like Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, or The Grinder are today. But will they be crushing their opponent's souls in 2056?

My poker game needs improvement and like a garden, it needs to be maintained everyday. Sometimes improving your poker game has nothing to do with reading books, learning how to read others, and playing well in tournaments. The first step to becoming a poker master is improving yourself and making sure your life is in harmony. A lot of players show up to the tables and think that they are prepared to play poker, but the rest of their life is in shambles. Unless they are harnessing the power of the warrior within, they'll going to fall short of true mastery.

I began writing (off the blogs) about my reactions to the book that Friedman gave me, The Warrior Within. The philosphy of Bruce Lee has influenced me over the past few weeks and I decided to share some thoughts with you. Most of this philosophical stuff is basic fundamentals of Zen Buddhism and Taoism. So, I'm not making this up from scratch. It's existed for centuries. I'm just trying to explain (in terms of poker and writing) what I took away from Bruce Lee's interpetation of Chinese Taosim and Zen Buddhism.

To sum up, you need to achieve self-knowledge and seek out the truth about yourself. After you can determine your strengths and weaknesses, you need to focus on what you do best while taking time to improve your shortcomings. You need to know what your limitations are and constantly try to push past those barriers. At that point, you can begin channeling the warrior within and tap into those large energy forces inside us. That will help push you towards achieveing your goals in life and in poker.

This is the first in a series of posts that will include a running dialogue over the next few weeks about The Warrior Within. Stay tuned for part II.

... to be continued.

Desolation Angels

I've been busy the last few days and I have not been able to write at the great lengths which I'm used to. Now that I have some time, I'm gonna riff on some thoughts that have been festering.

When I walked into the emergency room at the hospital on Sunday, I saw my grandmother hooked up to all these machines. She was stuck in the ER because her room in the ICU wasn't ready yet due to some red tape. She was in a coma and the first thing that came to mind was "this is no way to die."

I've been a different frame of mind ever since. Whenever I'm confronted with death, all I want to do is live life. Right now, I have an attitude that... I'm not gonna take shit from anybody.

I was about to head out on the road for a month and do some living, working, and celebrating. However, for the last few days I was on the verge of not only canceling my trip to LA this weekend, but also canceling parts of my Las Vegas trip altogether. The situation with my grandmother in the first 24 hours was very grim and I had a heavy knot in my stomach. My gut told me that she wasn't going to make it and that I wouldn't be going anywhere for a while.

I haven't slept much this week. I went from 3-4 hours a night to barely an hour. I've been slipping into serious moments of self-reflection, confronting those lowlights in my life when I let my family down in more than one instance. I heard that I broke her heart when I walked out on Wall Street to selfishly seek out fame, glory, and the bohemian lifestyle as a writer. I rejected all the hard work and values that her generation tried to instill into their children/family. I know that it was the best thing for me, but she was about to go to her deathbed knowing that I failed to live up to her expectations. That dark cloud has been hanging around me the last few days. Here's the thing... aside from my brother, my family has no knowledge that I'm a blogger. They've never read any of my sites. I have no intentions of telling them either. I don't think I could fully explain to them what's happened this past year or what I exactly do for a living. They just wouldn't understand.

But what do I say? I was alone for a few minutes with my grandmother on Monday. I leaned over and spoke into her ear. I told her who I really was.

"I'm just a junkie. I drink too much. I gamble too much. And I spend way too much time in strip clubs. I treat women poorly with my brash insensitivity. I'm a selfish asshole who only thinks about himself. Everyday I say that I'm gonna improve my shortcomings and we know how that's never going to happen. But people pay me to write and send me all over the world. I make money doing something I love. I'm passionate about writing and that makes me happy. I've done more traveling than I ever imagined I would. I've swam with sharks in Jamaica. I chased the Northern Lights in Iceland. I've ridden bullet trains in Japan. I've climbed mountains in Colorado. I even got to shake hands with Jerry Garcia."

I told her sharks. I meat to say baby sand sharks.

In a completely selfish way I figured out what was the last possible day she could die without me having to cancel Vegas during the blogger weekend.

One week.

That's what I gave her. I secretly hoped that she'd die sooner than later. I'm such an asshole for wanting that. I could bullshit you and say that it would be easier for her and the rest of my family if she died sooner, but he truth was that I didn't want to miss seeing a lot of my friends. Hurry up and die so I can do shots with Al and go to strip clubs with Grubby. Yeah, I told you I'm an incorrigible fucktard.

Here's the good sappy part that you were waiting for.

The good news first bubbled up from something I heard Derek say, "Dude, I saw her open her eye."

And she did. She opened up both eyes. On Tuesday when I saw her last she recognized that I was there. She was sacred shitless and she was probably like, "Why the fuck is the tube shoved down my throat?" But I could see a soothing tone in her eyes when she saw me and Derek standing there.

Grandma's out of a coma and I'm going to Las Vegas!

There was a time in my life where I was paid insane amount of money on Wall Street to make crucial decisions everyday under the some of the highest amounts of stress possible. That's something you can't teach. Either you have it or you don't. Some days I'd have to make ten difficult decisions all day. Other days it was a hundred. Sometimes I had less than a minute to make six vital decisions with several millions of dollars on the line. I can sit back now and marvel at the insanity of what I used to do for a living. Thinking about it night makes me nervous. Every decision I made affected the reputation of my firm. If I made a mistake, I was pissing away someone's retirement fund or some kid's college fund. I was one trade away from going to prison and another trade away from going completely broke. Talk about a rush. I had no clue how I did what I did aside from the fact that I was thinking, just reacting.

I was grappling with a tough decision for the last few days. Stay in NYC or hit the road. It was driving me crazy that I had no control over the situation. I wanted to make a decision and was about to cancel my plans to go to LA this weekend. Then I got a small miracle. Grandma's not 100% but she was good enough for me to hit the road. As soon as she opened her eyes, the decision was made for me.

Now I am fortunate enough to spend the last month of the year mostly on the road. It's fitting too. 2005 was filled with plenty of travel for me this year. Most of it was business related and some of it was for pure pleasure. But I definitely was on the road more of this year than in the past five.

In 1999 and 2000 I did my most traveling both domestic and abroad. What I'm about to tell you is pretty much the material that I'm going to draw upon to write a book... someday. Some of the tales have become Truckin' stories. I was dating a hippie chick (we'll call her "Angela") from Texas and we crisscrossed America several times seeing Phish almost fifty times on different tours. One particular stretch of time involved a period of 100 days in 1999 where I was all over the place seeing Phish concerts. Sometimes we'd camp out. Other times we crashed with friends of ours. Our last resort was staying in a hotel, which I'd throw on my credit card. In the first thirty days, I flew from NYC to Dallas and drove to Kansas, Tennessee, Atlanta, Charlotte, and back to Dallas. Then I flew to NYC and drove to Philly, Boston, Northern New Jersey, upstate NY, Toronto Canada, Buffalo, NYC, Deer Creek Indiana, and back to NYC. I'm pretty sure that Daddy went to those same Phish shows in Deer Creek. Of course, I didn't know him then.

After a short rest in the city, I flew back to Texas and began another epic journey that would last 40 days. Angela and I drove from Texas all the way to Seattle, through New Mexico and Colorado to attend a music festival. After were spent a few days in Seattle, we crossed the border into Vancouver to see Phish. After a wild late night in Vancouver, we came back to America and saw concerts in central Washington (The Gorge) and a night in Portland before I headed to Boise, Idaho. Here's where it gets freaky. Human Head's wife, the lovely Mrs. Head, lived in Boise at the same time I was there. Of course, we didn't know each other and I wouldn't get to know the future Mr. Head until 5+ years later. Anyway, I ate in the restaurant she worked in. Pretty freaky, right? That's just an odd reminder that I might have crossed paths with many of you before. It's just that we didn't know it.

After Boise, we had to head to San Francisco but stopped off in Reno, NV for the night. Here's the gambling content. Angela's parents were religious hippies. They were also Baptists from Texas and frowned upon gambling. That did not deter their little angel from getting a crash course in blackjack from yours truly on the way from Boise to Reno. She end up almost $200 at the blackjack tables and I dropped a few bucks playing Stud. We should have been getting some rest but we stayed up all night gambling. The drive to San Francisco the next morning was rough. Angela yaked at the Califonria-Reno border. We saw two more concerts at Shoreline (one featuing Phil Lesh) and then drove down the Pacific Coast highway. We caught one more concert in San Diego and that night have been one of the 15 best Phish shows I've ever seen. We skipped a show in Los Angeles and headed to Mexico instead. It was my birthday and we wanted to go camping on the beach in Enseneda, drink tequila, and watch the sun rise. We drove back over the border and got back on tour in Arizona, followed by Las Cruces, New Mexico. My friend Molly was at that concert but we didn't know each other yet.

Once again, in some weird way, I've spent time in the same room/area of some people who I never knew or spoke to that would become my friends at a later date.

We got back to Texas and saw shows in Houston and Austin before we headed to New Orleans for a few days. I wanted to hit the riverboats in Biloxi, but we went to Pelham, Alabama to see a show instead. I know. Next up was Memphis and then we drove back to Texas where we saw a few Widespread Panic concerts. I flew home to NYC and saw the four final shows of their tour on Long Island and in Albany. At the end of it all, I ran up my credit card but had a few of the most amazing roadtrips in my life.

30+ cities in 100 days. Unreal.

The travel this year was not as intense but in many ways I look back on the places I've been and think... unreal. But the year is not over yet. The next stop on my journey is Las Vegas. On Friday, I depart Sin City and head to the City of Angels.

Here's where I tie everything down in the last few paragraphs and tell you that the last few weeks have been one helluva a mind fuck for me. I'm happy to be alive. One of the reasons I travel so much is because there's too much stuff out there in the world that I want to see and experience. Watching my grandmother struggle with severe health problems in the last chapter of her life reminded me that I still have a lot more I want to see... to visit... to do... to write... man, especially to write. I have at least five or six books and two screenplays in me (beside my Las vegas book which may never get done at this rate) and I have to get them out now before it's too late... before I'm hooked up to some machine and shitting myself in a diaper and regretting that I never got off my ass to write the Japan book, or paint again, or the write the sequel to Jack Tripper Stole My Dog.

I made poker such a huge priority in my life in 2005 and I'm blessed to have every second of it. But next year, I have to make some serious changes in my life. I realized that personal travel and writing (non-poker and non-freelance) is something that I want to pursue in addition to poker. I don't know if I can find a healthy balance for all three. One thing I learned about my time on Wall Street was that I had the ability to make big decisions fairly quickly and the majority of them were good. I'm going to be making a very big one pretty soon.

Like The Kurgan said, "It's better to burn out than to fade away."

Empiricism, Kierkegaard, Catholic High School Girls, and Poker

"That's what I like about high school girls. I get older and they stay the same age." - Wooderson, Dazed and Confused

Instead of rushing up a post in less than fifteen minutes in between mucking crappy hands on Party Poker, I decided to take a day or so and compose a post. I never do that, but this blog has been lacking in some original philosophical content aside from the occasional existentialist conversation with strippers.

I was inspired by a ride on the subway (more elaboration later) combined with the way I felt after reading HDouble's most recent gem called The Path to Poker Mastery to write this specific post. Both moments got me thinking about life and poker and more specifically my writing especially on all of my blogs. The origins of these maudlin thoughts started last Thursday. I just ate lunch at a diner with an ex-girlfriend on a tenebrous day in the city. As it began to rain I briskly walked down Fifth Avenue past the main library and the secretaries on their lunch break and then past a few suits shouting into their cellphones near Lord & Taylor making my way to the foot of the Empire State Building where I collided with a group of tourists from Missouri. During that time it took me to walk ten city blocks, the light showers developed into a heavy downpour. I was lost so far deep in the hallways of my mind, that I didn't realize it was pouring outside.

Why did I zone out? And was the rain a metaphor for a drastic change in mood?

I was thinking about how little time I put into my blogs these days. What you see here and on my other blogs represent a small portion of what I write everyday. My half-baked and unorganized thoughts about poker have always gone here. But I haven't had too many original thoughts lately and swamped with work projects. Sure I've been covering poker tournaments... WSOP, WPT, EPT, and the UPC... and that's an experience I'm grateful to have everyday. As I've slowly developed into a tournament reporter, my posts have become more geared towards providing information and current events. Sure it's my take on the events that's creative and reflective of my writing style. But that type of work is not satisfying several artistic needs that I seek out when I write. I need to have that aspect of my life flourish otherwise I get depressed, moody, self-destructive, and resentful. Then I become a real asshole and pain in the ass. That's why the little beginning nuggets about the Redneck Riviera during the 2005 WSOP saved me from reaching the brink of utter insanity.

Last Thursday I roamed around the city looking for Brazilian hookers and cheap cocaine (or was it cheap hookers and Brazilian cocaine?) for the impending bachelor party I was supposed to attend. That's when I muttered to myself, "Every day we're searching for something."

When I got home, I hit up Google to see if that was a Bob Dylan lyric that I lifted or perhaps it was something I once read in a Shakespeare play. It didn't quite match. I had an original thought, or at least at that moment it was good enough for me. Finally inspired, I began writing this post. At first the first draft rattled itself off in my head for the remainder of Thursday. I sat down for a few hours on Friday to write it, but kept getting distracted by phone calls. Finding a call girl in NYC to blow thirty guys in a row in a hotel suite a few blocks from Ground Zero is a lot harder than you think. You have to double check references these days. And right now as I write this, it's early Monday morning and my intentions on spending several days penning a spectacular post have fizzled out. That's what happens when I embark on a two-day ya-yo bender with old friends. That demonstrates part of why I was slumping at the poker tables during September. Lack of focus and discipline and weakness in character has been a liability my entire life.


Empiricism

John Locke was a British philosopher and part of the modern or traditional empiricism movement. The basic premise behind empiricism is that all knowledge comes from observation and experience. Applying that to poker is pretty simple. You cannot become a winning poker player in the long term unless you have excellent observation skills and experience.

You can read every book every written on poker. You can memorize every word from Sklansky and you know every percentages and odds on every possible hand. Great. That all means jack shit at the poker tables. Sure you might have studied kung-fu. But until you successfully fight off six possible gang-rapers in a small prison shower, you'll never know if what you learned was valuable or whether or not you wasted your time.

You have to log a lot of hours playing poker. Lots of it. The internet gives you an ability to play an accelerated amount of hands. However, unless you are going to play 100% online that's not good enough. You need to play extensively at a live poker table. You might not like playing in a casino because the traffic is too bad or the rake is awful or the people next to you smell or the action is too slow and boring and because the newer and inexperienced dealers make too mistakes. But unless you park your ass in a chair in a casino and suck down twelve hours worth of casino-fabricated oxygen everyday for ten years, you'll never learn how to win over the long run and understand the human element to poker.

I think about how my writing applies here. I just didn't become an overnight sensation by starting up a poker blog and then getting snatched up to cover the WSOP. I've been writing for over a decade, struggling to make sense of myself and my art. And all my experiences and observations helped get to me to where I'm at today. Ten years has been a longer commitment than most jobs and relationships some of my friends have had (including myself). I almost attempted to snag a Masters in writing (I was accepted but never went) but I knew that piece of paper meant nothing and I'd sink deeper into debt trying to get the validation of a bunch of wine-drenched, Dockers-wearing, academic hacks. Real life experience is far more valuable than anything you can learn in a sterile classroom. You have to walk down dark and menacing alleys once in a while if you want to glimpse at the true side of humanity. You're never gonna see it sitting on your ass.

I began to understand that I needed to play more poker than I had been. Compare my abilities as a writer today than when I first walked out of my job on Wall Street almost a decade ago. I can see the vast difference in my creative ability. There's not much a jump in the technical sense, but as a person and artist, I have a decade of experience behind every word that I write today. My words have more depth than ever before. In ten more years I'm hoping that I will finally shift from being an average writer to a good one. If I apply that way of thinking to poker, then in ten years I might finally be a consistent winning player. Just when you think you know something, you realize you don't know shit. Every few years or so, I look back and think, "For fuck's sake, I was such a dumbass."


Kierkegaard

Soren Kierkegaard is Danish and although Gus Hansen is also from Denmark, Barry Greenstein falls more into a Kierkegaard-esque type of poker player. Kierkegaard was one of the first existentialist philosophers. He stressed the importance of the individual and the individual choice. Kierkegaard once said, "It is important for people to have a meaningful existence."

Applying that to poker, it's important for you to have a meaningful existence in your poker life. Know why you are playing. I've decided that it's no longer about money for me, but putting in the man hours to become a better player in the long run. I'm still a student of the game. I've been playing in different types of games and situations all over the country the past two years and I discovered that you need to learn how to adapt and play against different styles while moprhing your own. Always keep shifting your style of play and never allow anyone to record a pattern on your game. That's the level where I'm at right now.

I dropped about $500-600 out of my bankroll in September. Meaningless. In 2015 it won't matter if I won or lost $500 in a single month. What does matter that every hand I played from now to then went towards a larger and more significant goal of becoming a better player. As a collective, you are judged in the poker world by how much money you win or how many WSOP bracelets you own. When in reality, you are your own judge. That's the one who matters the most. How you determine competence of yourself as an indivudal should be based on the quality of your decisions and not by the size of your bankroll.

If you are content on playing socially and do not care about the monetary outcome, then so be it. Hey, there are hispters out there who are learning how to play because it's the cool thing to do. Sure that's not pure, but at least they understand their motivation. Plenty of poker players that I know pretty well are struggling not with how to play the game, but rather the simple answer to "why" they are playing poker.

Why are you playing poker? Is it for the money or the challenge? Are you bored and need a hobby? Do you need the social acceptance? Is it to rid yourself of several of your hangups? Are you a compulsive gambler and action junkie? Are you curious into the human psyche? Are you sexually or socially inadequate and need to overcome those haunting self-esteem issues with a winning session at the poker tables?

Back to Keirkegaard. He stressed that having "meaning" comes from whether or not your life has a permanent significance. Most problems arise when people believe that life has importance only temporarily. He continued to say that lives which are dedicated to pleasure will eventually lead a person into a stage of dissatisfaction and emptiness. The only way to feel significant is to have an ethical and responsible existence. And then you will achieve a sense of permanence and be comfortably living a meaningful life.

Barry Greenstien comes to mind again. He played poker in California for several years and developed into one of the best players in the world. Poker was temporarily important to him, but in order for him to find true meaning in why he plays, he shifted his focus to having a more responsible role in dealing with his poker winnings. He's been donating all of his tournament winnings to charity including Children Incorporated. With that knowledge, every time Barry sits down at a poker table he plays with an ease and confidence that what he's doing matters and more importantly... has significance in the long run. Barry will never freak out and question why he's playing poker.

You need to figure out why you play poker. And if you intend to play it for a living or over the course of the rest of your life, you have to decide what exactly the role it is going to be playing. Otherwise you are going to spiral into a deep depressive funk after another brutal river suck-out to some dipshit while asking yourself, "Why the fuck am I playing this game?"


Catholic High School Girls

I'm McCatholic as Ugarte likes to remind me. I attended Catholic and private schools in New York City up and through high school. Some my first brushes with sexuality happened during those formative years. I was a walking hard-on during puberty. And being surrounded by girls in short skirts and see-through white blouses really added to the horniness factor. That's where I developed my Catholic school girl fetish. It's been with me my entire life. Part of it is all that Catholic guilt and bottled up sexual aggression that the nuns and priests intimidated us into repressing.

I sat on the uptown subway and two Catholic high school girls got on the train. One of them was strikingly beautiful. If she wasn't wearing a uniform and had on regular clothes, I'd mistake her for just another hot woman on the subway. Of course I wouldn't have those controversial feelings that bombarded my mind. Those girls were at least half my age. In the South or in a foreign country, I could probably get away with acting upon those lustful thoughts. But here in the big city, they have rules and laws (Thank God) against those sorts of things.

I felt like one of those slimy old men in a Charles Bukowski short story. Like that sick and twisted degenerate gambler who offered bad drugs and cheap wine for a grope and a fingering session after a losing day at the track. I could not turn my eyes away from the one girl in particular. I'm a horrible person and was brainwashed by my own callow and puerile thoughts.

The urges. The rush.

I eventually collected myself. "Those were just thoughts and not actions," I reminded myself. OK, sure my thoughts were impure. But it's not a malfeasance to have naughty thoughts. It becomes an issue... morally, legally, religiously, and ethically if I act upon those erotic feelings. But I didn't and I exhibited restraint and didn't walk up to them and attempt my best Bobby Bracelet imitation.

How does avoiding hitting on Catholic high school girls on the subway apply to poker?

There are plenty of instances where I found myself infatuated with my hand or a specific situation, when in all reality, it was not proper for me to make any decisions aside from folding. Bleeding away your stack due to not being able to control yourself at the poker tables is a sure way for you to lose your bankroll in the long run and go broke and humiliate yourself. There will be times when you think what you see in front of you is an ideal situation, when in all reality, you have no business being there. Like jumping into a fishy $15-30 game when you only have a bankroll for $5-10. Sure that game can and should be beat, but you can't sit down in that without any sizeable ammunition.

Avoid the urge and take a cold shower instead.


Conclusion

The empiricist poker player knows that success will be bred from observation and experience. The existentialist poker players will tell you that you need to have a meaningful existence at the poker tables otherwise you will fail. The poker players with Catholic high school girl fetishes know that you can only look and don't touch unless they are 18.

All the money I've won to date does not reflect my talent as a poker player. It reflects how much luck I've had in my life. A tremendous amount in fact. When I made the transition from strictly live games to return to online play, I faltered and my bankroll suffered. I lost my discipline and was allowing myself to be distracted when I played online. I was reading too many poker blogs or answering email or surfing the far reaches of the web for pregnant women porn when I should have been focusing on the task at hand. I rarely lost focus at the tables in Las Vegas. I was always locked in and had a great read on players at the table. Once I started playing online, my strengths were overcome by my weaknesses.

What did I learn from this post?

1. Rededicate myself as a student of the game.
2. Continue to play as much as I can to develop into a good player in the long run.
3. Daily wins and losses don't mean as much as making good and quality decisions.
4. Continue to identify and isolate my weaknesses.
5. Maintain focus at the tables.

I had been winning since I moved to Las Vegas in June and winning often masks your liabilities. Hopefully I can learn from my mistakes over the past few months and evolve into a winning player over the next few years. Otherwise, I'm just wasting my time and I should start up a new blog called The Plaid Masturbation Monster.