best poker quiting story ever.

I have made some highlights
*******

Hopefully you all won’t begrudge me a long-winded 5,000th post. Normally I wouldn’t make such a big deal of what is really just an arbitrary and insignificant pseudo-landmark , but I’m at a crucial juncture in my life so the timing seems right to tell my poker story. And yeah, this turned out to be 6 pages single-spaced so I don’t expect anybody to read all of it, but who knows? Maybe you’ll find this worthwhile.

I recently started seeing a therapist in New York City. I’m sure a lot of people in the poker community think this means I’m crazy or depressed, but really I just needed somebody to talk to about what I’m doing with my life who might be able to offer a fresh perspective. So I googled “’New York City’ therapist” and went to the most distinguished and acclaimed therapist I could find. I’m paying this guy $500/hour and hoping that he’ll tell me what to do with my life, and he basically says to me, “You know, you seem like you’re about as smart as I am. And I’m at the top of my field, and it’s great. I get flown all over the world, I’m acknowledged as substantially affecting my field, and I’m at the top of my profession. I have a feeling you would love to one day be in some field where you get that kind of recognition and respect, and I think you could do it.” I say to him, “So you’re saying that you’re so awesome, and you think I might be able to someday be as good as you are at something, and that that’s so awesome that I should dedicate my life to trying to be as successful as you?” He says, “Yeah, that’s about right.” My therapist may be a cocky jerk, but he convinced me to consider moving on to something new in my life.

I thought to myself, “I’ve got more money than any kid should at my age, I have the financial flexibility to pay for law school, buy a car, invest for my future, and still live very well. What else do I really need to get out of poker? I’m quitting!” Then I made 250k in the next 10 days, so I’m definitely set. ?
The truth is I want to do something important with my life, and I don’t think poker’s that important or meaningful. Given that I eventually need to quit, now’s as good a time as any. And that’s why I’m quitting poker. I’ve already started calling in some favors with some friends of mine at various hedge funds and am looking to start the interview process sometime after W.S.O.P. this year. I’ll be taking the LSAT in June as a back-up plan in case I go into finance and don’t like it (although everybody tells me I’d love being a trader and I’m very confident that that’s what I’ll be doing). Lord knows I’ve nearly quit poker at least a dozen times now, but that was always while I was downswinging. Now I’ve got more money than ever before and I’m still looking to quit. I’m also calling in favors that I can’t call in again (Ican’t come back in 2 years and be like “Hey, remember I told you I’m serious about working for you but backed out? Well this time I mean it!”), so I’m 95% positive this isn’t one of my passing “poker sucks, I have to quit” fancies.

To say I’ve had a tumultuous poker career would be putting it very mildly. For my first 2½ years of college I was constantly broke. I started playing poker seriously at Yale and I was playing against very good players and I was AWFUL. I didn’t think critically about the game at all, I chased gut-shots thinking I’ll just outplay the guy later (then I’d hit and stack his set and convince myself I’m so crafty and creative, laughing at how I just stacked this guy and he’s got the gall to talk trash to me). I was a total LAG-tard and I went on a heater, but by the end of my first semester I was $1300 in debt. From playing a $50 buy-in game. Every night towards the end of my first semester I would come home shell-shocked at how much money I just lost, with no idea how I was going to pay off my markers. Eventually I called up my parents and asked them to send me my Bar-Mitzvah money. They sent me the $4,000 of Bar-Mitzvah money that I had invested. It was not a proud moment in my life. By the time the check came, I had won $1500 in my home game and I was entirely in the black. The rest of the year I slowly whittled away all my money. I went to Europe for Spring Break. I spent my winnings on frivolous crap whenever I won, and then when I had losing sessions I had no buffer from my profits, so I bled money and was broke by the end of the year.

That summer I had no money so I asked Alex Jacob, my friend from school, to send me $400 on Paradise Poker. I was still under the impression I was good at poker and would run it up, so I took the $400 to 2/4 NL and promptly lost it. I kept asking Al for more money until I was $1500 in debt to him and only had $65 in my account (and to my name). One night, completely distraught at the prospect of having to get a job for the rest of the summer to pay back Al, I entered a $50+5 multi-table tournament. On the money bubble, I had 3 big blinds and was under the gun with AKo. I wanted to fold into the money, but I thought to myself “you’re $1600 in debt. What the hell is $100 going to get you?” and pushed all-in. UTG+1 called with QQ, I won, and made a run to the final table. Playing the most scared money, weak-tight game possible (and getting aces at all the right times) I ended up getting 5th place and profiting $1550. I immediately shipped $1500 back to Al and bustoed the leftover $100 playing 2/4 NL. Needless to say, bankroll management was not my forte at the time. My screen name back then was DaVariator (lol), so if you have any hysterical ancient HHs against me, feel free to post them.
Anyway, sophomore year I realized I was absolutely awful at poker and started reading as much as I could to get better. I read Theory of Poker (pot odds! Wow!), lurked twoplustwo (look how much money these guys are making, they’re playing 3/6 NL!), and talked about hands with some of the better players at my college game. Some of my friends were very solid poker players who could play for a living (at the time anyway) but just never bothered to play online because they were busy doing Yale stuff. Some, like Al and twoplustwoer pete_fabrizio, were making a ton of money and just watching them play took my game to new levels (pete_fabrizio, by the way, I still credit to this day with teaching me how to play poker. He was LAG before LAG was cool and just listening to him talk about hands while contemplating calling me with king-high made me realize how much strategy there was in poker).

I played a lot of poker sophomore year. Despite taking 5 classes both semesters (and very tough, work-intensive ones at that), I played the Yale game at least 3 times a week. Most of these day the games lasted until 5 a.m. and then we’d all go out to grab some breakfast, sleep through at least half of our classes, and then repeat the cycle the next day. How I managed to do well in school that year is completely beyond me. By the end of the year I had made $3,000 and had no summer internship. So I decided to borrow my parents’ car, live in New Haven, and commute to Foxwoods every day to play the $1/2 NL game (max $100 buy-in) and see how much money I could make.

My first day at Foxwoods, I lost $600. I didn’t feel like playing much poker so I went to play roulette and made $1200. When I called my older brother to brag about how much I’d won, he berated me and told me that if I’m going to be serious about playing poker I’d have to avoid the pit. I thought he was being a nit, but in hindsight maybe he was onto something. A few days later I won $2600 in that $100 buy-in game in 18 hours of live play. Yep, 26 buy-ins in 18 hours with awful, slow Foxwoods dealers. HEATER! Obviously I decided to take my 5k roll to play the $5/5 uncapped game the next day. I got reraised by some old plumber, called with JJ, and check/raised all in on a ten-high board (the bet was $300, I put the guy in for 2k). He called with KK and I spiked a jack. Having so much money on the line in a hand and realizing how close I was to losing it shocked me and I nitted it up the rest of the summer. I mean, I was nittier than JCMoussa back then, and he was nittier than he is now, so think about that. My first post on twoplustwo was asking whether I should bet KK on a 2494K board 9k deep because I didn’t want to get check/raised and the guy would know I have KK if I bet the river. Seriously, look it up, it’s hysterical.

The rest of the summer, I was the ultimate grinder. I would play 20 to 40 hour sessions at Foxwoods, deliriously drive back to New Haven, pass out for 12 hours, drive back to Foxwoods, and repeat that cycle again. I often had people come up to me and ask me if I lived in the casino because I was always at the tables. By the end of the summer, I had made $14k. I thought I was so rich, I told my brother I was going to buy a Rolex and a car. He told me that spending my net worth on a car and watch would not be particularly responsible, but I wasn’t thinking like a pro: I was just some college kid who backed his ass into some money. Towards the very end of that summer, I played in a 3-handed game and got owned and out-played every which way by Clint (aggie on twoplustwo). I got so tilted at chunking off 3k to him that I went and played roulette. I put $50 on red. It came up black. I put $100 on red. It came up black. I put $200 on red. It came up black. $400 on red, it came up black. $800 on red, it came up black. $1600 on red, it came up black. $3200 on red, it came up black. Another $3200 on red, it came up black. My last $1500 on red, it came up black. In 9 roulette rolls, I managed to lose my whole summer’s worth of work. As I was sitting at the table shell-shocked, a pit boss comes up to me and we have the following dialogue:
Him: “Man, that was brutal.”
Me: “Yeah, no ****.”
Him: “9 in a row, that’s disgusting.”
Me: “Yeah, no ****.”
Him: “I’m telling you man, you should have bet black.”
Me: “Wait, wat?”
Him: “I’ve been working here for 30 years, I tell you, sometimes people ride a rush and make a ton, and sometimes they don’t ride it and they always regret it. Should have gone with black.”
Me: “Sir, I’ve been up for 30 hours. I’m starving. I’m broke. The last thing I need is to be lectured to by some moron who believes in continuous probability.”

I stormed off with what little dignity I had left. I was starving (it was 8 a.m. and I hadn’t eaten since dinner time) so I went to buy a cookie at the poker room café, but the cookie was 75 cents and I only had a quarter to my name. I couldn’t bring myself to ask anybody to spot me a dollar so I could have a cookie, so I just went hungry and drove back home. That was the low point of my life, and every time I think about how much I’ve made in poker I can’t believe that at one point I couldn’t even afford a cookie. I’ve lived a more privileged life than most (great parents, great education, etc.), but for a while I was in really rough shape and that helped give me perspective on how lucky I am to be where I am in life.

Anyway, because my rep in Foxwoods was so great by the end of that summer, I got staked the last week of my vacation and managed to finish up the summer with a 2k roll. I don’t even want to think about how bad my hourly wage was (2k for a summer of grinding. Uggggh).

I just realized how long this post is, so I’ll give cliff’s notes for the next 8 months of my life. Having had a taste of big money and big winnings, I was never happy grinding out my home game and building up my roll. I thought I was destined for big things and quickly, so I constantly would run up a grand or two at my college game and take it to Foxwoods and lose it all. Ways in which I went broke that year:
1) Set versus set at Foxwoods
2) 2nd nut straight versus nut straight at Foxwoods
3) Betting my roll on Patriots money line versus the Dolphins when the Patriots were at the peak of their dynasty and the Dolphins were garbage (-670? They’re a lock. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2004/…ins041220.html)
4) Betting my roll on UConn -1.5 against Duke in the Final Four (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=244000062). “Chris Duhon banked in a 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut the final margin to one.” Great.
5) Blackjack in Foxwoods
6) Bluffing off my last $1100 to Persian Steve at the Station. I raised his limp with AK (and the tightest image ever), 3 people called, and I bet 3 streets 245TJ. He called me down with 23o. I then boarded an international flight to Malaysia to go to the World Debate Championships, so I had 24 hours to think about how broke I was while in the air.

I guess at that point in time I had a gambling problem. I’m not entirely positive, because it’s hard to tell the difference between a legit gambling addiction and just acting in a way that acknowledges the comfort and security I had. As stressed as I ever was about my finances, I still knew my parents were paying my rent, I was going to graduate with good grades from Yale, and I would never actually experience severe hardship. I think that kind of confidence that everything would turn out fine created a moral hazard that allowed me to be insanely reckless. I know that these days I barely have any gamble to me at all. I walk past blackjack tables without a second thought. I struggle to put in hours at the poker tables. Until just recently, I had a rule that I would only play a HU game if I had 200 buy-ins for the game in question. As big of a degenerate as I used to be, that’s about how conservative with my finances I am these days. I think that once I entered the real world and the only metric of how successful I am professionally is how much money I have, I realized I had to cut down on my gambling.
Fast-forward to halfway through my junior year. I got staked by a friend at $2/4 on UB and ran up about 8k of my own money. I took that money to the sit and gos and that’s the roll I’m still working with to this day. That summer I got an internship at my brother’s office doing research on terrorist groups (he was a homeland security consultant). It was bizarre making more money than anybody else at the office. My boss would walk by me every day on the way to the train while I was hailing a cab home, always joking “I can’t believe we’re paying you.” It was a big office joke that I was the intern making more than anybody else. Obviously, working full-time was hard to do when I was constantly itching to play poker and keep making money, but I’m glad I stuck through it and finished my internship.

Anyway, that summer I finally had enough money to my name that I didn’t feel pressure to play too under-rolled, and I was figuring out how to win online (which meant the money came quicker than live so I could be more patient). While playing part-time, I ran my bankroll up to 30k. I went to the Borgata for 4th of July weekend and was playing some 5/10 when a total fish sat down at 10/25 (5k max buyin).I got a seat on his right (far from ideal obviously) as the game was starting and he played EVERY hand for 7 hours straight (except for one mysterious fold a few hours in that shocked everybody at the table).

I bought in for 3k (I was being conservative after many a struggle with going busto so only put up 10% of my bankroll) and doubled up when UTG raised to 100, I reraised with JJ UTG+1, and he coldcalled. UTG folded and the flop came down 46J. I bet he called. The turn came a 2 I bet he shoved on me with J2.

At some point I realized that he just never folded (he claimed to be a hundred-millionaire from the dot.com boom, and he certainly played like one) so when it got folded to me in the SB I open raised to 800 with AA. At a 10/25 game. He called. The flop came down some rags and T|I bet 1k he called. i don’t even remember the turn but I bet 2k again (I was going to fold if he raised: I was so scared of how big the pot was and he was so passive). He called instantly. I bet half-pot on the river and he immediately folded on a drawless board so i don’t know what he could have had. I made hands and ran well that session.

When he picked up I decided to cut my trip to A.C short because there was no point in playing anymore: I’d won so much that I wouldn’t be happy with more and would kick myself if I lost. I was staying with my brother in D.C. that summer and when I got home exhausted and 2 days earlier than I’d planned he feared the worst: he said, “don’t tell me you lost your roll again.” I just muttered “no, I won 23k and took a limo home” and pointed to the stretch limo I’d taken back which was pulling a 70-point turn in the T-shaped intersection at the end of the street. My brother just laughed and shook his head. As I was getting ready to pass out on the couch, I reached into my pocket to get my cell phone and charge it and found a stray 1k chip. “I guess I won 24k.” My brother just responded “God, I hate you.”

From then on out, I had my ups and downs in my bankroll (as everybody does), but I’ve always been financially comfortable. So that’s the story of how I built my bankroll, through all of my trials and tribulations.
Now, back to my quitting poker. I am absolutely aware of how fortunate I’ve been to be good at poker. Sure I obsessed about the game for years, put in a ton of work, and more than paid my dues to be where I’m at right now. But if I didn’t have talent, I wouldn’t succeed and for that I consider myself truly lucky. People tend to take a lot of pride in themselves for what they’re good at and don’t realize that they didn’t earn their natural aptitudes: they just won the genetic lottery. It takes a lot of work to maximize the benefits of our talent (and don’t think you deserve credit for putting in that work either, because there’s probably no free will, but this post is already long enough), but at the end of the day we’re all gifted and didn’t do anything to deserve that gift. I see young, brash poker players (you know who you are) who think that they’re special because they’re good at poker. I see the way they act and I realize how lucky I am to have some perspective in my life. I’m not humble about my poker talent, but I’m humble about how meaningful it is that I’m good at poker and whether or not my skill reflects any sort of importance or moral worth. I think that a lot of poker players probably didn’t have that much ambition, have made a lot of money at poker in a young age, and get inflated egos from thinking that having six figures at an early age is somehow what life is all about. But it’s not.

In 10 years, when your friends have all spread out across the country in pursuit of their various professional ambitions and aren’t hanging out with you all the time because they have wives or long-term girlfriends, you’ll realize how solitary the poker lifestyle can be. A lot of you are still in college and haven’t had to deal with being a pro poker player in the real world, but it can be rough as hell. When you lose 10 buy-ins in a night you don’t drink some scotch and vent with your roommates: they’re all asleep getting ready for work. When you wake up, you don’t go to the dining hall and see your friends: they’re at work. I’m probably one of the best people I know at spending time by myself because I’m generally pretty content, I keep physically active, I read a lot, and I coach to kill time. And I still get sick of having so much free time on my hands. A lot of people saw Raptor’s latest blog post and thought “what’s this guy complaining about? He’s SO RICH! HE DOESN’T HAVE TO WORK!” But having money just means you have the comfort to do whatever you want, it doesn’t tell you what you want to do with yourself or automatically make you content with your lot in life. Money solves a lot of life’s pressing problems, but it doesn’t give you direction. Poker can make somebody a lot of money, and it can also leave them worse off despite their financial gains.

I think that if I look back at my life and all I’ve done with myself is make millions playing poker, I’d consider myself a failure. I’m not judging anybody who does this because it’s all a matter of preference and people’s various ambitions, but I always wanted to do something big with my life. Given that poker isn’t a long-term option for me, I think it’s time to get out. I’m probably only going to become more inertial as I spend more time playing poker and my window of opportunity for going to law school or getting a job is probably closing (even if the resume gap doesn’t hurt you, try being the 30-year-old first-year hedge fund trader and see how it works out for you).

I’m obviously aware of how lucky I am to have been able to do whatever I want since I graduated. Summers in Vegas, trips to Europe and South America, traveling to see friends and family whenever I want, and all the other perks that come with being a poker player are fantastic. And it’s going to be hard to put an end to this lifestyle at first, but I’m sure it’s what I need to do. I think there are plenty of jobs out there that I will enjoy, that will stimulate me intellectually, and that will enable me to do great things for other people (whether through philanthropy or actively helping others). Will it be hard waking up every morning and going to work 5 days a week? Maybe.

Finally, I want to say that I’m grateful for all the people I got to meet through poker. More important than the money I’ve made and the freedom I’ve had are the lasting friendships I’ve formed with some of the best and brightest people I’ve ever met. I’ve had the good fortune of spending a lot of time with many of the best poker players in the world, and their poker skill is generally only a very small part of what makes them such impressive people. I wish I could adequately express how fortunate I feel to have spent so much time with such driven, brilliant, kind, and generous people. I won’t name names for all the obvious reasons, but I’m sure that for every person I would name there are dozens of other similarly good-natured and interesting poker players that I’ve never been fortunate enough to meet. The fact that the poker boom enabled so many young people to make such an easy fortune and that only a small portion of these guys are conceited brats is really quite exceptional.

So, in conclusion, I just want to express my gratitude to twoplustwo for doing so much to make me a good poker player and for building such a unique and great community. I’ll be playing poker through WSOP and then I’ll start getting a job. I’ll always play poker, but my days as a professional poker player are coming to an end and I’m so appreciative of all the great times I’ve had. The fact that this post is this long and I had to leave out many of my best stories (maybe I’ll save them for a well post in the future) is absurd, but that’s how it goes when you’re lucky enough to be a pro poker player.