April Sojourn

One of the first paid writing gigs came my way almost ten years ago when I lived on the fringe of society in Seattle. A ragtag music zine in Austin, Texas offered me $100 to write reviews of 5 CDs from random indie rock bands that you never heard of. That broke down to $20 per album review. The catch was that I had to buy the CDs myself so I only ended up making about $5 per review. But back then, I lived paycheck to paycheck so getting $25 for something I wrote was as epic as winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. I wrote because that's what I loved to do and getting paid to write about music was a bonus. I did that four or five times before the magazine folded when the owner went to jail for tax evasion. Although his last check bounced, I'm lucky that the other checks actually cleared. And if I ever run across that fucktard again, I'm gonna demand my $100 plus interest. It's never been about the money. It's all about principle.

It was almost 10pm last Thursday night as I walked past Union Square in downtown San Francisco. I spotted a Borders bookstore and went inside looking for a map. I planned on driving down Pacific Coast Highway back to Los Angeles and I wanted to verify the route. I've done it several times before, but I didn't have any atlases or maps with me this time. Plus, I like plotting out my trips on paper before I take them. As I searched each floor of the multifloor bookstore, I discovered the magazine section. I wandered by and found the poker section which was comprised of three magazines; All In, Bluff, and Poker Pro.

I grabbed Bluff. A few months ago, Amy Calistri told the editor that I'd be perfect for a specific assignment on poker blogs. I was supposed to have an article appear in the May issue but to my disappointment it had not been released yet. The editor of Bluff told me that the poker blogs article was bumped from the April issue to the May issue because Michael Craig wrote a piece about the heads-up matches between Andy Beal and the Corporation. That was added at the last minute. The editor wrote me to apologize and explain why I'd have to wait another month to see my piece. I told him that I understood completely. If I'm gonna get bumped by another writer, I was honored that it was author Michael Craig. He's a real writer, not like majority of the hacks that populate the poker publishing industry. I'm a fan of Craig's work and let's be honest, reading about Andy Beal and the Corporation is gonna sell more magazines that my piece about poker blogs. Keep your eyes out for the May issue. I mentioned a slew of poker blogs by name and I hope that the copy editor didn't cut down my piece for space.

I thumbed through the latest issue of Poker Pro magazine, the one with David Williams on the cover. Lou Krieger recommended me to the editors/owners last year. Lou's a big fan of my writing and admires my work ethic. I'm seriously thankful that I came across stand-up people like Amy and Lou in this brutal industry. He helped secure me a monthly tournament column. If you pick up a copy of any Poker Pro, you'll find some of my tournament coverage in there. The current issue has a piece on the Borgata Winter Open and features several of my photographs.

I went 1 for 2 at the Borders searching for my articles in major poker magazines. I eventually found the map of PCH that I was looking for and planned out my drive back to Hollyweird. I never went into Borders to look for any poker magazines. I was on vacation from all things poker. But when I spotted the magazine rack, I instantly recalled the Bluff article that I wrote and I wanted to see it in print. On a random sidenote, I haven't been paid for that article yet. Magazines wait until the issue hits the stands before they pay the writers so usually it's a six month gap from the day I get the assignment to the day I actually get the check.

As I walked out of Borders and back onto Powell Street, a one-legged panhandler sat in a wheelchair on the corner adjacent from Union Square. He held up a piece of paper. On one side it read, "Hi!" and on the other it said "Smile!"

Life can be a coinflip sometimes. I managed to get extremely lucky in life. One bad decision or a streak of misfortune and I could have been the homeless guy in the wheelchair. That eternal philosophical question popped up... "Why am I me instead of that guy?"

As I stood waiting for the light to change, the brisk evening San Francisco air made me shiver as a wave of humility fell over me. My life has been so hectic over the past year and a half that I've had very little time to enjoy the success I've had as a writer. In a blink, all of this can be all gone. I guess you can say that I stopped to smell the roses. Sometimes I focus too much on the past or the future that I forget to focus on the present.

I've been enjoying the "now" and been taking the last two weeks to fully soak up my accomplishments and trying to figure out the next step on my journey. One of the things I had to figure out is why am I writing and what I hope to accomplish in the future, as well as list four or five projects that I'd like to pursue. Part of my time in Hollyweird was trying to find a literary agent to help find me work and more importantly negotiate what I'm worth. For the past year I've been underpaid for everything I've written. Part of that was because I was a rookie and I didn't have a choice since I was unpublished and unknown. I also made several mistakes and got screwed over by people I thought I could trust and allowed myself and my writing to get exploited. Luckily I met people like the Poker Prof, Flipchip, and Lou. They all helped steer me in the right direction.

In my second year in his industry, I'm a little more wiser and I've taken Wil's advice and started declining work. I had over-extended myself and committed to too many things. Writing and working in the poker industry burnt me out. I tried my best to construct a lifestyle with a better balance of poker and non-poker things this year. It didn't work out and I had to step back and try again.

I've achieved several personal goals as a writer over the past few years. They were small goals like starting my own blogzine Truckin', completing a screenplay for Project Greenlight, finishing my first novel Jack Tripper Stole My Dog, completing NaNoWriMo (more than once), and getting published in a magazine. My next two goals are to sell a screenplay in Hollyweird and have one of my novels published.

Having a popular poker blog was never on my "To Do List." What's happened here has been a happy accident. Remember, I started this blog out of a mutiny from my friends who got sick of reading my poker exploits on the Tao of Pauly. To this day, I kick myself int he balls because I made a huge mistake. If I never started Tao of Poker, then my main blog would be the popular site and I'd only have to worry about keeping up one Tao a day instead of two.

But that was not the path I took. I split the Taos and the Tao of Poker has gotten me on the front page of Fox Sports and the cover story of Poker Player Newspaper. Twice. Inside of four weeks this year, I shook hands with Miss America and George Costanza from Seinfeld (played by actor Jason Alexander)... and both were in a poker room. I've also had hour long conversations with the CEO of a major casino and with the manager of one of the largest online poker rooms. Both were interested in hiring me for huge projects that would have paid me the equivalent of a NYC teacher's yearly salary for about two or three months of work. And you know what? I turned them both down.

Last month I turned down a free cruise to the Bahamas to cover a poker tournament. A few weeks ago, I almost turned down an invite to the Playboy Mansion. Wait, I did turn it down at first and changed my mind after I came to my senses.

Regardless, there's a pattern developing here. I wanted to discover the source of all this negativity that developed with me and poker. It turned into a bad marriage and didn't happen overnight. Over the past year I lost a passion for poker and that affected my writing, my blogs, my relationships, and most importantly... my bankroll. I guess I could blame poker as a whole, but that's not entirely accurate. I shoulder a large percentage of the blame if not most of it. I allowed all of this to happen and I'm glad I stopped to figure out what was going on before it got really ugly.

I love poker but it's not a "love" that lasts a 24 hour a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year kind of thing. I had to figure out what aspects of poker that I love the most and start from there.

I always had a desire to seek out a well-balanced and well-rounded life. And that's why I hit the wall with poker. My life over the past year has been consumed with poker. I can't think of a time where one thing has taken over all aspects of my life. I wrote in a post on the Tao of Pauly that poker was suffocating me as a person and as a writer. Unless I make time for other aspects of life, I'm never going to survive. I'm passionate about so many other things in life such as food, travel, women, live music, sports, and writing. I wish I had more time to experience my other passions.

I've cut back on the tournaments that I cover, skipping three WPT events; Reno, Foxwoods, and Bay 101. I've cut back several of my freelance gigs. I finally have breathing room for the first time in over a year. Yeah, too much of one thing is never good. I'm hoping that reducing the role of poker in my life by 27% (I totally made up that number) will allow me to rediscover the passion of poker, and most importantly the passion for writing again.

I've already burnt out as a tournament reporter and any of my close friends know about the "incidents" during the 2005 WSOP when I suffered a mental breakdown. On three separate instances I was ready to quit or was threatened to be fired. Working at the Rio for six straight weeks last summer really fucked me up. I guess you can say I burnt out before the main event even started.

This year, I'll be better prepared for the WSOP. I'm gonna be taking more breaks and will be resting more during the first four weeks instead of keeping up the frenetic pace that I endured last year. I had two instances were I slept less than 10 hours in a single week. Shit, I know people who sleep 10 hours a day and I got 10 hours of slumber during the entire main event last year.

Do you ever hear a song for the first time that you fall in love with right away? You buy the CD and you listen to it a million times. At some point, you stop listening to it. Heck, you might hear it out in a bar or even worse, it's been turned into elevator music or appears on a car commercial. You get to a boiling point and even say, "If I fuckin hear that song one more time I'm gonna explode!!"

That's how I felt about poker for the last couple of months. The major contributing factor is the depravity of the poker industry. That gets glossed over my the Travel Channel, ESPN, and all the poker publications. I really want to be honest about what I have seen in the poker industry. I can't and it's frustrating. It's hard to censor myself and keep quiet, yet I'm doing just that and it made me miserable. I've always been one to speak my mind, but in doing so, I would end up hurting friends, several pros, and would kill whatever writing career I have.

Gambling is a desperate act. Sure, I get off on it. We all do. But the reasons why we gamble are deeply rooted in self-esteem issues and obsessive compulsive behavior. I'm a known addict and action junkie. Poker is perfect for my degenerate personality because it has some intellectual aspects as much as "The Rush." Whose heart doesn't race when they are waiting for that river card to be dealt to seal our fate or save our ass? For some you lost in your life, the rush of poker is a real feeling. It makes you feel alive in the moment and that's why you do it.

Humans have always sought to get high in one form or another. For some people it's Christ. For others its cocaine. For anyone reading this post... it's poker.

I'm stuck $10K since Halloween and feel like a total loser. My losses spanned several months and included poker, sports betting, and the stock market. I got my ass handed to me during the March Madness tournament. I also have been taking a bath in a few stocks, in particular Brazil Telecom. I've been making plenty of poor decisions over the last few months and I think that the pressure of being in poker has affected me. I needed to step back an analyze why everything went wrong.

I didn't prep for this year's March Madness like I've done in the past watching hundreds of hours of games leading up to the tournament and crunching the numbers like defensive FG% and second-half FT%. I didn't have the time to fully analyze my stock picks and that hurt my retirement fund. I made money when I worked on Wall Street not because I could pick winners. I made money because I was a scumbag and churned your accounts.

Greg Raymer told me that "successful tournament players are able to make good decisions."

I've always reminded myself those words before I play in any poker tournament. I wish I did that before I bought that dogshit stock and made about ten or eleven horrible picks in the March Madness games.

I guess you can say that I got benched. The coach in me pulled me from the game and told me to sit down and think about my mistakes. I've spent many hours thinking and reflecting about the poor decisions and all the "inaction" that took place over the last year. Inaction is worse than a bad decision since it's not making a decision at all.

I feel a lot better knowing that I've been taking time out to reassess a lot of things in my life, especially with how poker relates to me. The "tao" represents "the way." I got lost and I'm finding my way back to the Tao.

It's hard for me to walk away from poker because I love playing it too much. Just the other night, I won a big pot playing $5/$10 on Party Poker. Nothing too special except that I had A-K and rivered two pair but the river card made a flush. I expected to lose the pot and made a crying call on the river only to see the pot shipped my way.

I had not been that excited about a hand in months and I screamed, "Thanks for calling with top pair dipshit!"

I guess it had been a while since I won something. I felt "the rush" playing poker for the first time in a very long time.

Final Table and Hammering Out Cancer


Click to enlarge
I'm back in Las Vegas and my JetBlue flight from Long Beach, CA was early so I was able to play in the Hammer Out Cancer WPBT-POY charity tournament on Full Tilt where $15 per entry was being donated to the American Cancer Society. I ended up coming in 2nd place out of 61.

I didn't play perfect poker, instead I got lucky and the right things happened for me. I got cards when I was shortstacked. My good hands held up against weaker ones. I won a timely coinflip against the chipleader. My pocket Aces and Kings held up everytime. I folded J-J twice to huge re-raises preflop; once to SoxLover's Hiltons and the other time to SirWaffle's K-K. And I had one big suckout when I was dominated.

My starting table included IPlayLikePhil, SoxLover, Change100, LA Loan Shark, WooWoo3, Drizz, Gracie, and Rod. In the first hour, I flopped a set with A-A against BG. By the end of the first break I was 10th in chips with 37 players remaining.

By the second break, I was in 8th place out of 14. I doubled up after I sucked out on SoxLover. My K-Q bested his A-Q when I hit a three-outer. Derek made a huge run over at his table. At one point he was in 36th place with 36 players left and had a paltry 105 chips in his shortest of stacks. He went on a tear and ended up 6th in chips by the second break.

I made the final table and I'm proud to say that I also made the final table with my brother. That's never happened before in any MTT that we've played in. The Rooster predicted that it was going to happen.

***** Final Table Live Blogging Updates *****

11:31pm... Derek bounced out in 9th place when his Hammer lost in a 3 way pot. He outflopped A-K and K-Qs but his hand could not hold up.

11:40pm... I won a race with A-K against BG's 7-7. I raised preflop, he reraised and I moved all in. I turned a King and doubled up. I'm currently the chipleader with 29K and 6 players remaining.

11:50pm... Down to 4 players. I'm 2nd in chips.

11:52pm... With A-A holding up, I busted bsabala1's A-5. He took 3rd place.

11:53pm... I found myself heads up with FrankL and behind 62K to 26K in chips. Frankl had a 2.5 to 1 margin on me. I won the first hand but lost the second hand and got sent to the rail. Yeah, our battle lasted only two hands. I busted in second place (out of 61 players) when I moved all in on a flush draw. Frankl had top pair and won it all. Congrats!!

1:55am... According to the WPBT-POY rankings, I jumped up to 8th place. I was languishing in like 55th place or something awful like that. Derek is currently 12th on the leaderboard. StB is still the points leader... by a lot. I had gotten A-A and K-K brutally cracked in previous WPBT-POY events so it felt good to make the final table, make the money, and finish in second place which improved my POY ranking. The Top 5 bloggers on the leaderboard include: StB, lucko21, Gracie, Bad Blood, and DoubleDave.

Thanks again to Easycure for setting this event up and to Byron for keeping the POY points. And thanks to everyone who participated. I think that Easycure raised at least $1000. It was really cool getting to play at the same table as my friend Shirley a.k.a. Poker Babe, who if you didn't know, was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago.

Hammer Out Cancer

I signed up for EasyCure's charity tournament and will be playing this Sunday. How about you?

Hammer Out Cancer... a WPBT-POY Circuit Event
Organized by EasyCure

What: NL charity tourney (Tournament ID 3381723 under the Private section)
When: Sunday, April 16th
Time: 9pm EST or 6pm PCT
Where: Full Tilt Poker
Cost: $10 + $16 ($15 goes to American Cancer Society)
Password: dahammer

Excuse Me for a Moment...

Did you ever have that overwhelming feeling where you need to take a step outside and catch a breath of fresh air? Perhaps you went to your favorite bar on a Friday night or you are at a friend's party. You are one of the first to arrive and you get to witness the entire party/bar/scene take form as the first guests show up and the place slowly fills up. You get engrossed in lively conversation with different friends, some of which you haven't seen or talked to in a while. In fact everyone is coming over to talk to you and get you a drink. Then at one magical moment, you look around and realize that some of your favorite people in the world are in the same room as you. Not only are you having an amazing time, but you're sharing it with some of the most special people in your life. That collective original experience is one that warm memories are made of. It's something you'll look back on years from now and smile.

Then there's that one defining moment which happens at every party and every night in a bar. I guess Malcolm Gladwell would describe that moment as the "tipping point" where everything changes. There's always one part of the night where all the fun, energy, and excitement peaks, and the events from the remainder of the night slowly creep away, not quite matching up to the apex of the party. You then find yourself in a crowded room, but only recognize a few faces.

That's where I'm at right now.

The party is raging and I'm overwhelmed. Maybe I had too much to drink, or mabye it got so crowded that I could barely move or breathe. Regardless, I desperately needed to leave the party for a few minutes to get my space together. I want to go back inside and enjoy the rest of the night. And I will. However, for right now I need to walk around the block before I finish up the night strongly with my friends.

I'm embarking on the "beginning of the end." Not to worry, we can still have a good time together. There's still a few more hours left before the cops bust up the party or before the bartender flickers the lights and announces, "Last call!"

So please excuse me for a little while longer. I'll be back soon...

Oh, and this blurb called "Pauly pauses for a breath" made me chuckle. It's from the UK Times. Thanks for the warm sentiments from across the pond, Howard.

The Last Waltz

"The never-ending flight of future days..." - John Milton, Paradise Lost

It was early September 1999 just a few minutes past Midnight and I couldn't feel the chilly Idaho air as I stood somewhere on the campus of Boise State University in the parking lot of their basketball arena. I had been up for three days straight partying just like it was the year in the Prince song. I was following Phish, one of my favorite bands, during one of their most insane tours through the Pacific Northwest. Inside of six days I had seen five concerts in Vancouver Canada, Portland, OR, George, WA, including one epic concert in Boise, ID. My traveling companion was a fetching twenty-two year old hippie chick from Texas named Angela. Over the next month we'd see concerts in San Francisco, San Diego, Tucson, Las Cruces, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Bumblefuck Alabama, and in Memphis. We had been seeing each other on and off for about a year. She had silky brown hair, an addictive drawl, and her hugs could melt a glacier. The spitfire of a gal also locked her car keys inside the trunk of her 1995 baby blue Dodge Neon. I made a mistake and let something slip out of my mouth that I'd soon regret.

"For fuck's sake, how can you do that!" I screamed. "Now I got to talk to a cop while I'm tripping, you stupid bitch!"

I learned something important on that chilly Idaho night that I'll take to my grave; I should never call a woman a "bitch." I also learned the hard way, never ever under any circumstances call a woman from Texas a "bitch." I still have the scar on my neck where she tried to slit my throat with her bare hands. She was barely 100 pounds and stood 5 feet tall on her tiptoes. And despite being physically outmatched, she lunged at me like a blood thirsty cheetah ripping into a limp soft-eyed gazelle in the Serengeti, ready to remove my jugular vein from my neck and hang my testicles from the nearest light post with it.

Less than a year later, we'd part ways. Hippie love never lasts anyway. She turned into a fanatical Jesus freak after 9.11, got married, and had a kid while I'm still wandering the planet trying to make sense of the wasteland of my life. She called me up yesterday and inquired about my throat.

"This has nothing to do with the time I tried to strangle you in Boise, riiiiiii-ght?"

These are real conversations I have with ex-girlfriends. I wished I taped the highlights. I should probably write a book about them. Oh wait, I did. Two Novembers ago in Rhode Island. It was called Gumbo. She was Chapter 5. She also inspired the main character in another novel of mine called Sweet Nothing otherwise known as The Baby and Winky Novel. Here's an excerpt:

There were a couple of seconds after she stabbed me and before the blood started squirting out where Baby and I calmly stared at each other. Our glances lovingly locked onto one another and we had a tranquil moment. Our symbiotic original connection only lasted for a second maybe two, but it was one of those eternal seconds that seem to last forever and you never want to end. It's those eclectic moments you come across while thinking about life's odd idiosyncrasies, while stuck in a sullen slouch at the end of a bar, drinking away the roughness of the day's grind. Or perhaps that treasured moment comes to mind while staring out the window of an airplane, your eyes bouncing back and forth between the clouds and the endless horizon and your shared memories burn a hole in your pants pocket, like a firecracker with a slow fuse that you lit years ago and simply forgot it was there until one day, POP! It goes off. And as our still bodies breathed together and our moment ended, all serenity vanished and I saw panic, fear, desperation, anger, and redemption jump on top of each other in a scrum and hide behind the pupils in her sky blue eyes. Simultaneously, heavy drops of tears rained from her swollen eyes as intense globs of menacing red blood bubbled out of the two inch cut on my bicep, forming an oval pool on our Salvation Army bought $18 couch... More

Anyway... before we ended our short conversation last night, Angela also told me that God was angry that I was gambling too much and that's why I caught tonsillitis. I shrugged it off. The last time I saw God, he was at the Casino Magic cold decking me at a blackjack table in Biloxi, Mississippi.

There's a point to this post. After 1,176 posts here at the Tao of Poker, it's time for a break.

After being ill and unable to speak the last few days, I realized that I want to write and travel more than being "Dr. Pauly" or that sick twisted caricature of myself that I've become. I must say good-bye for now and rediscover my true self. I might be back in two hours, two days, two weeks, or two months. I cannot say when. If the never-ending flight of future days returns, it won't happen without some rest and reflection.

Thank you all for being part of one of the greatest experiences of my life. In the immortal words of Crash Davis... "And when you speak of me, speak well."

Female Intern Wanted for 2006 WSOP

Would you like to be Dr. Pauly's intern during the 2006 World Series of Poker at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas, NV?

If so, please send me your resume, photo, and a 500 word essay on why you want to be my intern. And make sure you send a photo.

This internship is ideal for a Las Vegas resident and a UNLV student. Yes, I'm going to be swamped at this years 2006 WSOP which is going to be the most exciting event ever in the history of poker. And you get to be my assistant in the trenches of the most prestigious poker tournament in the world. You will get an all access press badge and learn the tricks of the trade from my team which includes WSOP veterans the Poker Prof and Flipchip. Here's the complete 2006 WSOP schedule. You must be available during that seven week period. No exceptions.

I'm looking for a serious and dedicated female intern who is willing to log long hours in exchange for life lessons and free advice on writing.

Job Requirements:

• Minimum 21 years of age
• Starting June 26 thru Aug 10
  
• 40 hours a week (except during the Main Event when you have to work it all!)
• Sundays off (except during the Main Event)
• Some photography (no experience necessary)
• Proofreading my posts
• Chip counts
• Designated driver to bi-weekly field trips to strip clubs with Grubby and Me
• Write a weekly update on Las Vegas and Poker Blog
• You must provide your own transportation and housing
• And if you are good enough... you get to do live blogging duties on Tao of Poker

Pay:

• $0... this is an unpaid internship
• Free lunches
• Bonus based on performance

Other Fringe Benefits:

• I do not drug test
• Free photography lessons from Flipchip
• Drinking for free with Me & Otis during dinner break at the Hooker Bar
• Free lapdances during bi-weekly field trips to strip clubs
• You get to meet Wil Wheaton
  
• You get to play in the WSOP Media/Celebrity tournament
• Dial-a-shots with AlCantHang
  
• Appear on the Lord Admiral Card Club podcast
• Get to gossip with the Poker Wire girls
• Invites to all the cool pre-Main Event parties
• Free Snailtrax t-shirt
  
• You get hit on by Dan from Pokerati and several thousand horny poker players

Like I said, this is an unpaid internship but you get mainstream exposure on the Tao of Poker. Depending on how well we do during the WSOP, you'll get a percentage of the ad revenue generated. This is ideal position for any UNLV journalism students who get to be an assistant to a well known poker writer. You also get to experience the WSOP from media row.

Don't forget to send me your resume, a 500 word essay on why you want to be my intern, and most importantly... a picture. Any questions? Shoot me an email. I will be conducting interviews during the WPT Championships at the Bellagio.

Editor's Note: This is not an April Fools joke. That's why I waited until April 2nd to post this.

For Drizz...

I played 2,517 $200+15 SNGs on Poker Stars last night and had no less than 55 going at one time. I'm pretty sure I'll reach Quadruple Supernova Status by April 15th. I took first place in 301 of them, 2nd in 413, and 3rd in just 14. I bubbled out in 1,069 of them.

I prefer going all in on every hand. Shoving my stack all-in is the best play for any given situation, since I'm making several hundred of decisions virtually instantly and never have time to think things over since Baby Nerd has been up all night with a cold. The fish's mantra "when in doubt, push" isn't far from reality.

I think the quest for Quadruple Supernova has finally taken its toll. I mean, I want the seat in the WSOP main event, the Ferrari and 14 Thai hookers, but the losses are affecting me more than they should and Mrs. Nerd's patience is running thin. The wins aren't nearly enough to keep my sanity. I haven't had a single big win since March 4 and my SNG breakeven stretch has extended beyond 10,000 games.

Yeah, I know 8-3 beats AA one time in twenty, but I'm still waiting for my 5% (or my 95% for that matter). I see the flop come 543 and I just know what's about to happen. All I want right now is a hand that plays itself and doesn't require a quick prayer to my god of choice to avoid some 1 in 20 river beating.

Oh my. It's 5:35am and I've been up for four days straight splitting time drinking Redbull, commuting to my awful job, and playing SNGs non-stop from 11pm to sunrise. Maybe I should quit my job and become a fulltime SNG player?

Editor's Note: If you are completely retarded and have no clue who I'm talking about, this is my homage to the Poker Nerd! Happy April Fools to the Nerd... one of my favorite all time poker bloggers.