First legal trip to a 21+ card club

Tonight I turned 21, so I headed over to the local card club which is about 5 minutes away from my house. My girlfriend and I were discussing if there would be anyone there, since it was midnight on Sunday. I tried to call to see if they had any 1-2 games going on, but I only got an automated voice on the line. So I drove there to check it out, excited to flash my shiny new ID card.

It was fucking packed. And it wasn't in the best neighborhood. There is a security guard infested parking lot though, which is nice. Although, to be honest, the security guards were rather informally dressed and were kinda sketchy in their own right. I walked in to the club. No ID. I go and buy chips (100 bucks worth), thanks to gifts from my brother and girlie. No ID. I sit at the table and start playing. No ID.

Two spots to my left is a rock n' roll looking dude with a beard, lots of chips, and a big mouth. After watching a couple hands that he was playing, it was clear he was literally raising any hand no matter what. He went all in preflop with some internet looking kid for 200 bucks with 53unsuited. He flopped the straight, and the whole table heard about it for quite some time. He started belittling people, trash talking into peoples ears, and mocking people.

My strategy was very simple. Wait for great hands and then play big pots with him. First hand I got AK, and re-raised him to about 40 bucks preflop. He called. Flop was something like 10-5-2. I thought for a second and then checked, hoping to induce a bluff and call him off. He jammed all in as planned, and I thought for a second. I was about to call when he said "pick a card", meaning that he was going to let me see one of his cards. I flipped one and saw it was a two. Well, he has me beat at this point but I still have two overs. I thought for a little bit, and then decided it was too likely that he had A2 and I was drawing pretty slim, and folded. My stacked was pretty crippled and it was clear from that moment that if I was going to play a hand with someone I was going to have to mean it. I played tight, waiting for good hands. I was very patient and folded almost every hand, watching "Mike", who plays in a jam rock band called locomotive something, splash the pot with little to no holdings again and again.

I picked up pocket queens and limped in. Mike had been raising 99 percent of hands, no matter what position he was in, so I figured it was a OK play. Shockingly, he also limped. Flop was 2-2-9- and we both checked. Turn is a 6. He bet, I called, hoping he had air and would spew off more on the river. He bet all in on the river and I called, it was a pretty easy call. Turns out he had a deuce and I was left with no chips.

I weighed my options. I know I'm a better player than Mike, and he was playing a very exploitable style, so I decided to rebuy for another 100. I patiently folded all my hands, weighting to catch Mike with a big one. I got pocket six's and limped it, then called Mike's obligatory raise. The flop had another six on it, so I checked to Mike to let him bluff away. He bet, I reraised, he called with some garbage and I was up to 200 bucks.

I returned to my patient style of fold fold fold until I picked up pocket queens again and limped again. Mike raised this time, as planned, and I reraised all in. This should have been a relatively obvious strong hand, but Mike snap called because he had. . .KJoffsuit. Lolz. The board ran out and I ended up with a queen high flush. There were several people in the pot before the flop and they had left plenty of dead money in there, so my stack had now risen to 450 bucks.

Sweet deal.

Mike bluffed off the rest of his stack and started to lose his temper. Throwing cards, increasing his frequency of name calling and mocking of other players. I felt kinda bad for him.
He busted out, then came back with another 100 bucks. He busted out again and was obviously tilted as hell. It was kinda gross to watch. He was very clearly addicted to gambling and it made the whole thing just seem predatory and lame.

Mike left, and I played a hand with this old Asian lady, who was a pretty good player from what I could tell. The hand involved me trying to bluff her and not succeeding. I check raised her on an ace high board, and she was very close to folding but after thinking, called and checked it down the rest of the way. I didn't have the guts to fire a second barrel, which would have probably worked. She ended up having KK. I put her on a weak ace, like a-7 or something, which is basically the same thing. I was trying to rep a bigger ace, and I would have most likely taken the pot down but just couldn't pull the trigger on a turn bet. I lost about 70 bucks that hand.

The game broke, and I was moved to a new table. This is where I lost my stack. A young Asian dude who plays heads up online straddled to four dollars. That means he put out extra money before his cards were dealt. I had been folding every hand for a couple hours, and thought I had a very tight image. I was on the button and raised it up to 15 bucks. I had A9 of spades. He thought, and then repopped it to 49 bucks. I thought he was just trying to defend his straddle, and figured that since I looked like an internet player, my range on the button was pretty loose. I called, with a plan to bluff him later in the hand. The flop came out realllly dry, like 9-5-2 all different suits. He donk bet the max (100), and I reraised all in. He had about 150 left in his stack and he insta-called. The turn and river ran out really dry and he flipped over AJ. Since the board was low, his Ace high beat my ace high. Blah. My stack was crippled. I only had 30ish bucks left.

He later told me he felt he had no fold equity. I suppose that is true, but I thought my tight image and aggressive reraise would have lead him to believe I had a strong hand. At least stronger than AJoff suit. So yeah. Kinda a weird play by him I felt, but the right one. To me, I would think the bottom of my range in that spot is like AQs. I had raised a hand before that one, and he had been in the other game where I had only shown monsters. I guess I overestimated the effect my image would play, and also didn't properly weigh the chance of him making a math based call down with two overs.
Soon after that I got it all in with my short stack. This time I had AJoff and the Asian guy had K9. 9 rolled off on the river and it was time for me to pack up and head home.

I had a good time. I think I learned a lot. Not really about cards, but I learned a lot. Poker has a really disgusting detrimental effect on a lot of people, and i'ts easier to see face to face. Behind the computer screen, it's hard to tell if someone is addicted to gambling. Face to face, that shit is obvious. It makes me wonder if poker is actually morally wrong. I know that's a hard question, but it's one that I found myself asking after visiting my local card club.

I always used to joke around about losers on the internet. I would take $1,000 dollars off of them in a night, behind the safety of a computer screen, and high five my little brother. I would laugh, calling them donks and other bad names [to myself, I never typed it into the chat box]. But now I start to think about what those people are like, and what losing that money means to them, and I get kinda bummed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have very much money to lose. In fact, tonight was a real bummer in the way that it means I'll be taking less money with me on my Vegas trip, but that's not my point. My point is that for some of the people at the club tonight, they can't help but lose their money. They also have no future, and they see cards as their one way ticket into the BALLA life. It's a very glaring example of addiction and poverty.

It's also really weird to see someone's stack rise so high, and their emotions with it, only to see it go crumbling down. Their faces become so fucking vacant its creepy. It's like their life is based on how many chips they have in front of them. A lot of chips, happy camper. No chips, and they're close to tears. I wonder if that's because they have nothing else? Or are they just in mature. I know that when I used to feel more like that, with my emotions going on the roller coaster rides of a poker swing, it was definitely an issue of maturity (I was 17-19), but come on, these guys are like 40. Don't they have a wife to go home and kiss? kids? a career? ambitions?

Is poker all they have? And if so, why aren't they better at it!? Geez. I think back to the times I was just fucking broken up about a poker outcome, and my reason for being upset was always that I was upset that I didn't meet some goal I set for myself. Or I was sad because I felt the loss would get in the way of some ambitions I had in the poker world. Or that people close to me would judge me. Or I felt I let myself down, and I could have done better. I'm very over the whole tilting emotion roller coaster thing. My emotions remain level and balanced throughout poker sessions. I always treat other people with respect and kindness, even when I'm losing.

I wish I didn't lose 200 bucks tonight. I wish I would have made a couple different decisions, but geez, it's just a game.

Sorry for the somewhat long post, but tonight really opened my eyes to some things. I never really understood why people gave me so much shit for playing poker, but now I kinda get it. They don't want me to end up like those people. I've never been worried about that. I'm still not worried about it, but I think I have a better understanding of it. I think I equated the level of addiction related to poker as to something like reality TV or watching baseball, or something like that. Tonight made me realize that it can turn you into a straight up meth head.

The look on this guys face when he came back from the ATM really was a picture worth a thousand words. He couldn't help it. He played every hand like his life depended on the outcome. Every sense of strategy, theory, and patience gone. Long gone. The table, myself included, waited for him to dump his money to us -- which he did. It reminded me of the lions and hyenas on a Netflix documentary I recently watched. He was the dead carcass, and we were the pack of animals just surrounding him hoping to get our fair share. It was kinda gross, but also kinda "just nature". He was the weak one, so we took him out. After he was gone, we turned on each other. Hungry, not for meat, but for chips.

I felt out of place. I was there to test my skills. To engage in a battle of wits. To overcome my opponents. Not to just kick someone when they're down. But then I thought about it more, and perhaps that's not why I was there. Maybe I was there for the same reason as everyone else around me, but I had convinced myself otherwise. I started to analysis my poker playing peers, not for their tells, betting patterns, or style, but for their overall being. I compared myself to them. I thought about what Mike was feeling when he re-bought and what was going through his head, and then I thought about how I felt and what I was thinking when I re-bought. I found that about 6/10 of the people around me were most likely dumber, less complete, and more helpless than I am. And I don't mean uneducated type of dumb, I mean common sense type of dumb. Like, I honestly believe I might be a much smarter, and overall better person than them.

I wondered if it was my upbringing that just led me to believe I was better than these people. Is it just me being a snotty nosed brat from the suburbs? Am I actually smart at all? Or am I just educated because my parents have money. Those questions are kind of hard to answer, but my gut leads me to believe the 40+ year old missing teeth and dressed like a pirate doesn't have anything inside that head of his that is better than what I have inside. I've met people before who didn't complete high school who I really believe are not only extremely bright, but also very good inside. So I really find it hard to believe that upbringing and schooling was the only thing that was making these people the way they are. . .Perhaps I'm looking too deeply into a crowd of people who are at a card club on a Monday morning. Maybe they all started off like me -- hopeful and ambitious. But something happened to them somewhere in their lives and now they are broken. Tossed to the side. No one loves them, or cares about them, and they're left with nothing but "a chip and a chair." Is that going to happen to me? Is life going to break my spirit and leave me in the dust?

I want to be a journalist. I don't feel like anything or anyone is going to stop me from doing that. But maybe they all felt that way about something at one point too. Maybe I'm ignorant to life's curve balls. I think I'm starting to understand why some old people are so shitty -- they've been shit on. At the same time though, I know some old people who have had horrible things happen to them but continue to be resilient and strong willed, remaining good and happy(ish).

While playing I started to think about the things I have in life that others don't. Not including material things. They started piling up really quick, and it made my $450 stack seem smaller. That's a good thing, because its important in poker to not feel too attached to money and not to be results oriented.

At the end of the day I had a good time. I should have fire 2 or 3 barrels against that old Asian lady, and I should have folded preflop to the Asian dudes 3 bet straddle raise. I am happy that I had the confidence to bluff. Sometimes that's hard in a live game when there is so much more money than I'm used too and everyone can look at you. Oh yeah, I begged a security guard to ID me. He wasn't amused.

I'm Not Going To Be Staked

Change of plans. The people staking me got cold feet last second because they already have 3 guys doing HUSNG's at that level. What a joke. I've spent the last couple days practing and adjusting my HUD. It fucking sucks. My plan is ruined.

I will be 21 soon. I can play live. Stupid USA. I'm going to focus on my zine and other things for now.

I'm Going To Be Staked

In two days, when finals are over, the newest adventure in my poker career will begin. I am in contact with a group of backers who are considering staking me to play HUSNG's [heads up sit n' gos], my strongest game. The leaders of the group play high stakes HUSNG's, and the main guy wrote several books about the game. So, I'll be in good hands.

The deal is a rather simple, but important one. The backers will give me a bankroll. I play HUSNG's, and once a week we split profits. That's the easy side of things.

On the other hand. I lose. In this case I go into whats called "makeup", which is basically a sugar coated name for debt. I would then continue to play with their money, but all profits go to them until I recoup my losses for them. If I continue to lose and lose . . . and lose, then they would cut me from the backing and I don't owe them anything. However, if they think I can make it back, and keep me under their staking, I have to continue to play and give them the profits. Kinda like a slave.

I'm confident I will do really well, crush the stakes they start me at, move up in stakes quickly with their help. I think this is going to work out very well. Why? Because, in the past, the game I have been a consistent winner in is HUSNG's. Remember when I made my first 500 bucks playing 2 dollar HUSNG's.

I believe I've matured as a poker player quite a bit. I've created something from nothing. I've won large sums of money. I've lost large sums of money. I've crushed, and been crushed. These are the things that I believe will make this new arrangement the perfect jumping off point for me.

Where am I jumping off to? Let me explain.

Right now, I'm a broke college student. But in a couple days, I'll be given money to use as a bankroll for online poker. Through out the next 26 days, I will use that money to create a small bankroll to take to the live casino on Jan. 9th when I turn 21. At that time, I will turn my small live bankroll into a regular sized live bankroll for 1-2nl, about 5k. Then, thats when the real magic happens.

Online poker gets legalized. I've got 5k in my pocket and deposit it into the flashy new US friendly site being heavily advertised on Sunday Night Football. With the much softer field, and more experience, I do better than I did in the past.

Or. . . I lose it all and some weird dude from the internet hunts me down and breaks my kneecaps.

We'll see.

Busted My Baby Roll

The 20 bucks is gone. Not too worried about it. I'm glad I decided to play a bit, it was worth it. The practice will go a long way when I sit down for 200+ bucks in a live game. Can't wait!


ZP recordings are back and they sound great. Pumped. Hardcore record of 2012.

First Major Downswing

I lost almost my entire bankroll playing 10nl and MTT's today. I hit a streak of really poor luck, and wasn't able to overcome it. Besides losing to a lot of draws and other 70/30 type of situations, I had a couple particularly bad beats. I lost all in preflop my AKs vs 54off. I also lost top set to middle set when he rivered quads, and I also ran my AK in AA two times. Bummer. Oh well. I fell like I played pretty well, and my risk of ruin was always high playing with such a small bankroll. I still have about 20 bucks left in my account, which is what I put in originally. Sometime I will try to build it back up again. Its great great practice. I feel very comfortable with poker right now, and look forward to playing live.

First mixes of the new ZP record should be in tomorrow!

Good News and Bad News

What do you want first? The good news or the bad news? Well, this is a blog format, SO IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU WANT!

. . .I played that tournament, and another 11 dollar one. I lost both. I played well, and went deep in both, but didn't cash. That's the bad news. The good news is that I played 10nl full ring the whole time I played them, and for a little while afterwords. I skyped with my little gangsta bro for a while, just like old times. I played well, and I'm really finding my old game again. I'm aggressive, but controlled. I bluff in the right spots and I'm snapping off some of my opponents big bluffs. Of course I still make plenty of mistakes, but poker is all about maximizing returns and minimizing risks, and I have done well in that regard so far, other than my lack of bankroll management requirements.

I am still sick so I've been drinking a lot of water -- as instructed by my personal in home nurse. I had to end my session just now because I feel like my urge to piss was effecting my ability to think clearly. I ended up with a bankroll of $107.80. I'm very happy with that, so I'm going to go watch the worst drama on TV, The Walking Dead.

Dusting Off My Full Ring Game

I have been very sick lately, so I've been playing a little bit of poker to pass the time. I've been focusing on my full ring game, since that it what I'll be playing live. Full ring requires more patience than heads up or 6 max games, so it hasn't been an easy adjustment. After losing a decent amount of my bankroll during the first 1-2 hours as I got back into the swing of things, I was about to make some profit. I ended my sessions with a bankroll of $69.09. Although this format of poker is not the most interesting, I am going to continue to play it. I want to feel comfortable with the gameflow dynamics of a full ring game when I start to play live.

I'm going to play an 11 dollar buy in tournament today. It's been a very long time since I've played a MTT that was over 10 bucks. I used to be pretty good at them, but they are always kinda a crapshoot. I will probably 3 table some full ring games while playing the tournament.

My band, Zero Progress, recorded our 2nd 7inch yesterday. I am hella sick, so it was really hard for me, but I think it turned out really good. Can't wait to hear the final mix.