I’m getting ready to take a trip to Florida for a conference required by my “real job.” But before I go, I wanted to ask something.

What are your biggest challenges in poker?

What is it that you think is keeping you from making the money you want to make at the tables?  Your comments will help guide my future articles and videos.

Here are two tests to help you if you’re not sure where your weaknesses are:

Test Your Poker

Donkey Test

I look forward to hearing from you.

It’s late.  I’m tired.  And yet, I’m driven to make good on my goal to write one post every day in January. 

I’ve been thinking about what to write all day and I settled on an article about the reason I play poker and I realized something.  I don’t fully understand why I play poker.  At least, I didn’t when I woke up this morning.

This morning I would have said I play poker for the challenge.  The money I make playing poker is a long way from a livable income.  There are other things I could do with my time if I just wanted to make money.  In poker, money is just a way of keeping score and moving me up to more challenging levels.

But as the day progressed I started wondering why I didn’t play other challenging games.  I don’t play chess.  I don’t do crosswords or cryptograms and I don’t even know how to play backgammon.  Why poker?

I think the thing that attracts me to poker is the variability of outcome.  You can make the right strategic move in poker and still lose.  That doesn’t happen in chess for example.  Pawns don’t pull out a gun and shoot down the Queen from across the chessboard yet any two cards in poker have a chance at beating pocket Aces and sometimes they don’t even have to make the best hand to do it.

There’s so much to master in poker.  You have to master your emotions.  You have to master basic probability.  You have to master your opponent.  If you’re successful in one aspect and a failure in another, you won’t be a winning poker player and that’s why I play. 

I play for the intricacies of the game. I play to get inside an opponent’s head and know what move he’s going to make before he acts.  Board textures, betting patterns, table images, pot odds, reverse pot odds, implied odds; there’s so much information available.  The fun is in learning to use it all.

Maybe I’ve been up too long and I’m romanticizing poker a little too much, but it’s a beautiful game when you consider all its facets.

This morning I would have said I play poker for the challenge, but now I’d say I play poker so I’ll always have a goal.  No matter what I accomplish in life, I can always improve my poker game.

It’s been a rough couple of days for me.  Yesterday I lost with Kings three times – and that doesn’t even include the times I lost when someone had an Ace in their hand.  I also lost on the first hand of a tournament when my Aces were cracked by my opponents Kings.  In another tournament, I was in the money and 5^th in chips when I lost 20% of my stack when my AK was taken down by A3.  Soon after, I lost the rest of my chips when QQ went down to TT.

I was pissed!  My tilt monkey was hollering and flinging feces all over the house.  I tried to calm him.  I said, “It’s okay tilt monkey.  We’re still showing a nice profit.”

My tilt monkey said nothing, but threw a steaming handful of monkey shit in my face.  Things were getting worse.

I should have took this time to exercise like my doctor says I should, but after taking such horrendous beats I couldn’t bring myself to run nowhere like a hamster on a wheel.  NO!

No.

No, this kind of anger can only be quenched by an atrociously violent act.  I had been wronged and I demanded retribution in blood!  But how?  Who?  Or What?

Then I remembered.  The Ant Empire has slowly been amassing troupes around my house’s perimeter.  Since I started this blog about three weeks ago, poker is all I’ve been thinking about and my lawn has gone neglected.  The armies of the Ant Empire saw their opportunity and took up positions in the overgrown grass.  They don’t think I noticed – but I did.

I knew of at least eight encampments, but that was last week and there could be more by now – many more.

This was the perfect time to strike.  Fueled by rage, I took stock of the weapons at my disposal.  Poison?  No.  Too quick.

Magnifying glass? No.  Too tedious.

Lighter and WD-40?  Now we’re talkin’!

I’m not an unreasonable man.  Armed with my weapons, I stepped out of the garage and shouted, “I DEMAND TO SPEAK WITH YOUR QUEEN TO NEGOTIATE THE TERMS OF YOUR SURRENDER.”

Nothing.  Not a word.  Clearly these creatures could not be reasoned with.  The ants must die.  All of them.

Die Bitches Die!

I walked over to the first ant encampment and began my attack.

Quickly, I kicked the top of the mound before they could mount a defense and unleashed my hellish fireball of death.  The ants curled into little balls as the immense heat surrounded them.  Millions upon millions poured out, but they were no match for my fireball of justice.  As their superheated guts popped out of their exoskeletons I shouted, “WHERE’S YOUR QUEEN GOD NOW!”  At this, my neighbor looked up at me in horror.  He must be in league with The Empire.  I made a mental note to investigate later and continued my rampage.

Pile after pile the story was the same.  Attack.  Counter-attack. Fire and death.  Try as they might, the Ant army couldn’t stop me and in the end; though I was outnumbered by five million to one; I emerged victorious.

Slowly, I trudged back inside, put away my weapons, and wiped the sweat and charred ant remains from my brow.  Next I took a shower to wash away the dirt and ant effluence from my person and now I sit wondering if I should play more poker.

What would I do if I got another bad beat?  Could I handle it?

I’m not sure.  But there is always my neighbor.  Yes – my neighbor.  We’re due for a talk now.  He doesn’t think I know, but I do.  I do.

I smile a little smile and fire up more Sit ‘N Goes.  Play on Cocky Fish.  Play on.

No, this isn’t one of those inspirational articles where I talk about how poker has its ups and downs just like life and we learn to deal with it and forge ahead, yay us.  There’s nothing metaphorical about my statement that poker is life training.  I use the skills I learn in poker on a daily basis.  Poker has made me more successful professionally, it’s made me a better judge of character and it’s made me more money.  Here are just some of the ways poker has enriched my life (outside of being totally badass in its own right).

Poker Tunes Your Bullshit Detector

You know what I’m talking about.  It’s that little tingle you get in your chest- that feeling that something’s wrong.  It’s that moment when you don’t think your opponent is bluffing, you know they’re bluffing.  I still remember the first time I got that feeling in poker.

An aggressive player had called my pre-flop raise and we went heads-up to the flop.  I had the AK of diamonds and the flop came down all little hearts.  I made a strong continuation bet and got raised.

Then something inside me clicked.

I was 100% certain that my opponent would have smooth called with the flush.  I re-raised and he called.  Undeterred, I shoved on the turn when a heart failed to come.  My opponent folded.

The more I play poker, the better my bullshit detector gets and it doesn’t turn off at the poker table.  It helps me decide who to trust and who to push away.  In my “real job” it helps me decide who to hire and who to pass up.  Without my poker-inspired bullshit detector, I’d be a sucker.

Poker Teaches You Timed Aggression

When you play poker, you start to get a feeling for when to be aggressive and when to rein it in.  This skill is immensely helpful in negotiations.  When I was discussing the terms of my promotion with my boss, he initially quoted me a number I thought was too low and it set off my poker senses.  I knew that he was going to pay me exactly what I wanted if I went at in the right way.  I was right.  If I wasn’t a poker player, I’d probably be making significantly less at my job.

Poker Teaches You Financial Responsibility

Play above your bankroll and you’ll go broke.  Live above your means and you’ll go broke.  Poker teaches you fiscal discipline that you can take with you in the real world.

In addition, poker builds your risk tolerance so you’re better able to make smart investing decisions.  It helps you to think of investments in terms of risk vs. reward instead of blindly following the advice of someone throwing chairs on TV and screaming “Buy!” at the camera.  Sure your portfolio will have its ups and downs.  So does your poker bankroll.  But in the end I bet your investments will outperform someone who invests their scared money in bonds and money market accounts.

*                      *                      *

They don’t teach this stuff in school.  They should, but they don’t.  We have to go elsewhere to get this kind of an education and for me there’s no better teacher than poker.  It’s true that poker has its ups and downs, just like life does, but the similarities aren’t what matter.  It’s the lessons that matter.

Poker and Exercise

I’ve been battling with diabetes for about two years now.  I was diagnosed at 26 years old with type II diabetes which was kind of shocking since I’m not overweight.  Over time I’ve tried to cut sugar out of my diet, but apparently that isn’t enough.  My doctor tells me that I need to exercise and cut back on my drinking; two things that I’m not inclined to do.

Alas, the threat of an early death makes one do funny things.  I thought long and hard about my loathing of exercise and tried to figure out a way to work in an hour of cardio every day.  Then it hit me.  I play at least an hour of poker every day, so why not combine the two?  Poker would distract me from the unbelievable tedium of moving my legs rapidly without going anywhere and the exercise would distract me from the boredom of playing tight Sit ‘N Goes while giving me a way to work out my rage at some of the bad beats I take.  It’s a win-win-win!

So here’s my set-up.

I admit it’s a little ghetto-fabulous, but it got the job done.  I ended up exercising for an hour and ten minutes while playing four Sit ‘N Goes and watching Comedy Central (I know, hard to believe someone who plays poker and watches Comedy Central needs to exercise, but work with me here.).  At the end of the hour and ten minute stretch, I’d busted out of two SNGs, placed second in one, and first in one.  Not bad.

Of course it wasn’t all fun.  I spent much of my time leaning over the elliptical, huffing and puffing to reach the computer; but then again, I usually spent my exercise time leaning over the elliptical while huffing and puffing anyway.  I also made a few errors.  I’d call when I meant to raise or I wouldn’t raise the amount that I meant to.  It’s hard to get everything right when your fingers are bouncing up and down while you’re trying to type or scroll the bet bar.  I imagine it’s a lot like trying to play online poker while having sex (like you never thought about it.  Don’t judge.).

Looks like this will be my MO for awhile.  Hopefully my blood sugar will go down and my bankroll will go up.  Poker and exercise – who knew?