The dream job pt.1

It was a grey late spring morning when the man came to take my company car away. As he drove the shiny black vehicle into the distance I knew it wasn’t all I would be losing. I was trading in a lifestyle and an identity and it was all my choice. In the last month I’d turned down a promotion, left my job and given notice on my flat. For the next two years my only source of income would be poker…

Until that day I was a clean-cut middle class boy with a lucrative job and a limited history of odd behaviour, so what on earth was I doing? The first confession I have to make, and there are many, is that I’ve always thought poker was glamorous; I still do. It started off as an idea for me – almost a fantasy. I first visited Vegas over 10 years ago, long before poker had really taken off. I’d wanted to go since I’d first heard of the place as a kid and when I finally went it didn’t disappoint – it blew me away. It was Disneyland for adults and poker was the secretive, impenetrable world within it. Back then all the cliches were true. It was a game played in the back of a few casinos by grizzled men in big cowboy hats who had stares that could turn your insides to jam. For much of that first trip I just stood and watched them. I didn’t really understand the rules but I understood one thing deep in my bones… I wanted to play.

Soon after returning I made a friend who knew how to play. He organised a home game, I won some money – mainly by horribly outdrawing him – and I was hooked. The next few years saw me increasingly obsessed by the game. I bought every book available and mail ordered the World Series of Poker coverage on ESPN from the US. Playing opportunities were limited – this was before internet poker remember – but I played in home games and casinos and slowly got better.

Job satisfaction

My decision to give up a job in the City seemed to others like a big decision. To me it wasn’t even really a choice. Despite the fact that my early life – school and university – had steered me to that point it was a world I never felt comfortable in. I resented dribbling my life away in an office and a job that gave me no pleasure. I needed to feel alive and – to paraphrase the film Rounders – the only time I felt really alive was at a poker table. At 27 I needed to wake up every day with a purpose, to feel like I was putting myself out there – I needed to be in Vegas playing cards.

The thing you have to understand about playing poker for a living is that it’s hard. Most jobs – certainly the ones I used to do – really aren’t that difficult. They can be stressful at times but there are long periods where you go through the motions. Playing poker isn’t like that.

A poker player operates on a very small margin of error. If a professional had a 10 percent edge in a game he’d do internal cartwheels (they don’t let you do real ones in the casino) and play all night. The problem is it doesn’t take very much for that edge to disappear. If you play tired or angry or unfocused, suddenly you’re a losing player.

It’s the only job you can do where you can work your butt off for hours – playing perfectly – and still finish having paid out for the privilege. There are only a few people who can deal with the emotional pressure that brings. Try convincing yourself you’re a good player after your fifth losing session in a row when you have no other source of income… Like I said, it’s hard.

In my time as a working player I made most of my money in limit games in Vegas and some cash games in the UK. My bread and butter was the $10/20 limit game at the Mirage and the $15/30 game at the Bellagio. Looking back I know now they were some of the toughest limit games to be found anywhere and I’m proud I was able to beat them. Things were different then – if I was doing it again I’d be playing no-limit cash games. They’re everywhere and the edge is so big for a strong player over a beered-up yank who thinks the WPT is cool.

Living the dream

I was living an unreal life spending days by the pool and nights in the casino. It became hard to keep perspective or connection with the real world. I was regularly putting the equivalent of a TV or holiday on the turn of a card. I saw games where players were sitting down with $100,000 in cash in front of them. They were betting more than people earn in a year on a coin toss. One day I woke up with $50 in cash and went to bed with almost $4,000 in hundreds stuffed into my wallet. In that kind of atmosphere it was hard to worry about grocery bills and credit card debt.

I know now I was dancing on the edge of doom (which I believe is located near Slough). My bankroll was fine but it was never big enough to play as high as I wanted, to give myself the lifestyle I wanted. A bad run could have obliterated me.

Losing runs are scary – like a horrible nightmare where nothing works and you can’t remember the last draw you made or pot you won. I can still remember my red stinging eyes and the ferocity of the midday sun as I walked back to my apartment from the Mirage one day. I’d forced myself to walk as punishment for tilting off a thousand dollars or so. It had started with a few bad beats and then descended into internal madness as I’d called and called trying to force the game, but all I was doing was forcing my chips into other people’s hands.

It is a kind of lunacy having your livelihood and future career determined by the turn of a card. I was helped through the insanity by several people who gave me advice along the way. For a while, a guy called David – a working player for over 30 years from New York – took me under his wing. I learnt more over one dinner from him than I did from 10 textbooks. It’s a piece of advice I’d give anyone looking to play this game seriously. Find someone that’s really good at it and ask them nicely – or force them violently – to tell you how they playing winning poker. Alternatively, read the next part of this series.

Lessons in life

Playing poker has taught me more about life than anything else I’ve experienced. Doing it for a living taught me selfdiscipline and self-belief. I also saw every day what stops most people achieving what they could in life. At the poker table players will blame everything when things go wrong except themselves. They’ll ask for a change of luck, a change of dealer, a change of seat, a change of deck and a change of wife. Everything rather than changing the way they play or their reaction to a bad beat. In all the time I’ve played I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard a player say ‘I messed up’. The same is true in life.

In the end I stopped playing poker for a living for three main reasons. First, my bankroll was never big enough to allow me to earn the salary I wanted – I’m greedy like that! Second, just trying to take other people’s money each day is seriously bad karma. And finally there were other ambitions I wanted to pursue. But I’ll never stop playing and I’ll never want the company car and necktie back.