Have you ever seen the graph of a sine wave? How about a graphical depiction of some aspect of chaos theory?
Anyway, think about the roller coaster from hell and you’ve got a decent look at the 2-D version of my poker bankroll. I began the summer of 2004 with a few hundred dollars, unemployed, and facing some serious loans in order to pay off my chunk of the tuition for the following school year*. What’s a young boy to do? Well, in my case I decided to get a nominal job at the mall and devote most of my time to playing high stakes poker on the internet. I dusted off the poker books, invested in some new ones, and hit the pixilated tables with a vengeance. I was playing some $2/$4, $3/$6 etc. when it occurred to me – “Hey, I can make more money by playing higher stakes!” I can remember boasting one night via AIM that I had spent the evening playing $5/$10 and even some $8/$16, much to the surprise of my shocked comrade. Did I win you ask? And how.
If you’ve ever played poker and won significant money, you know the high you get. I want to dispel any semblance of denial I may have displayed over my poker career right now: I am an addict. You’d be surprised what kind of mood enhancers are locked within your own body, all you need is a way to release them. For some people it is sex or exercise, for me it is poker. However, just like every other great drug out there, that great high is usually associated with a dark downside. I had a couple of months before I discovered that, so back to the tale of summer ’04.
I was winning a lot of money, so I kept the stakes on the fast track escalator. The $10/$20 game was great and all, but $20/$40 just has a certain ring to it. Stuck for $1,500? No problem, just pop into a short handed $40/$80 game for a few hands. I had worked myself into a financial frenzy, and I was winning and winning and winning. On some nights after a big win I would finally sign off, slowly and deliberately make my way to the back door and let out a sharp yelp of conquering hubris – think Paul Newman after beating Tom Cruise in the Atlantic City 9-Ball tournament in Color of Money. Of course I was not keeping records throughout any of this, but at one point I had well over $12,000 in cash available to me. I went home for Labor Day weekend at the pinnacle of my success and I was throwing cash around like I was on a mission, which I was. The mission was to show everyone that I had mastered my domain and that I was in total control of my shit. I spent almost $300 in my first 6 hours when I got back, treating my people to a day on the town in New York and a night of sushi at a new joint that was none too cheap, especially for a party of four (ok, that was my family). This may not be the last time I quote scripture in a poker article, but it will certainly be the first:
Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18
He who ignores discipline despises himself,
but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.
Anyway, think about the roller coaster from hell and you’ve got a decent look at the 2-D version of my poker bankroll. I began the summer of 2004 with a few hundred dollars, unemployed, and facing some serious loans in order to pay off my chunk of the tuition for the following school year*. What’s a young boy to do? Well, in my case I decided to get a nominal job at the mall and devote most of my time to playing high stakes poker on the internet. I dusted off the poker books, invested in some new ones, and hit the pixilated tables with a vengeance. I was playing some $2/$4, $3/$6 etc. when it occurred to me – “Hey, I can make more money by playing higher stakes!” I can remember boasting one night via AIM that I had spent the evening playing $5/$10 and even some $8/$16, much to the surprise of my shocked comrade. Did I win you ask? And how.
If you’ve ever played poker and won significant money, you know the high you get. I want to dispel any semblance of denial I may have displayed over my poker career right now: I am an addict. You’d be surprised what kind of mood enhancers are locked within your own body, all you need is a way to release them. For some people it is sex or exercise, for me it is poker. However, just like every other great drug out there, that great high is usually associated with a dark downside. I had a couple of months before I discovered that, so back to the tale of summer ’04.
I was winning a lot of money, so I kept the stakes on the fast track escalator. The $10/$20 game was great and all, but $20/$40 just has a certain ring to it. Stuck for $1,500? No problem, just pop into a short handed $40/$80 game for a few hands. I had worked myself into a financial frenzy, and I was winning and winning and winning. On some nights after a big win I would finally sign off, slowly and deliberately make my way to the back door and let out a sharp yelp of conquering hubris – think Paul Newman after beating Tom Cruise in the Atlantic City 9-Ball tournament in Color of Money. Of course I was not keeping records throughout any of this, but at one point I had well over $12,000 in cash available to me. I went home for Labor Day weekend at the pinnacle of my success and I was throwing cash around like I was on a mission, which I was. The mission was to show everyone that I had mastered my domain and that I was in total control of my shit. I spent almost $300 in my first 6 hours when I got back, treating my people to a day on the town in New York and a night of sushi at a new joint that was none too cheap, especially for a party of four (ok, that was my family). This may not be the last time I quote scripture in a poker article, but it will certainly be the first:
Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18
He who ignores discipline despises himself,
but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.
Proverbs 15:32
I told myself and my friends and family that I was going to take a break from the frenetic pace at which I was playing when I went back to Grand Rapids. Funny thing about greed is that enough is never enough. The only problem is that in the world of gambling, even poker with its calculated risk, never having enough usually results in all out broke-assedness (wow, spell check jumped all over that one). Fortunately, I did manage to get some of my winnings into rock solid investments like stereos and televisions and expensive beer, so kept myself from losing it everything, but it still sucks. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I am busted as busted gets. Today I had to return High Life cans so that I could buy toilet paper, and that’s no lie. If that’s not irony, I don’t know what is. Also, I was able to pay my parents 86.4% of the money I owed them for tuition, but all the rest went to fast living and fast losing. At one point my goals were 4 figures per week, now my goal is to not have to wipe my ass with the Chimes (Calvin’s student paper). Go figure.
*Here’s an interesting paradox in my life: I lost a $5,500 scholarship because I was playing too much poker, and now I have to play a lot of poker just to pay for the scholarship. It’s like going to college so you can get a good job so you can pay for college. Just a thought.
I told myself and my friends and family that I was going to take a break from the frenetic pace at which I was playing when I went back to Grand Rapids. Funny thing about greed is that enough is never enough. The only problem is that in the world of gambling, even poker with its calculated risk, never having enough usually results in all out broke-assedness (wow, spell check jumped all over that one). Fortunately, I did manage to get some of my winnings into rock solid investments like stereos and televisions and expensive beer, so kept myself from losing it everything, but it still sucks. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I am busted as busted gets. Today I had to return High Life cans so that I could buy toilet paper, and that’s no lie. If that’s not irony, I don’t know what is. Also, I was able to pay my parents 86.4% of the money I owed them for tuition, but all the rest went to fast living and fast losing. At one point my goals were 4 figures per week, now my goal is to not have to wipe my ass with the Chimes (Calvin’s student paper). Go figure.
*Here’s an interesting paradox in my life: I lost a $5,500 scholarship because I was playing too much poker, and now I have to play a lot of poker just to pay for the scholarship. It’s like going to college so you can get a good job so you can pay for college. Just a thought.
