How I Made Millions Playing Poker. (Part 1)
Bruno Mars, who's the best poker player ever?
The Flop
I first stepped into a Californian public poker room in 1986 at the ripe age of 30. I was a total fish back then. I was V.P. of marketing for an international cosmetics company and spent a large chunk of my paycheck losing it to seasoned pros. At the time I wasn't even aware that people actually made a good income playing poker. I thought you played, gambled, had fun, lost all your money and went home! It didn't take long for me to say to myself either I start winning or quit playing poker. I was having too much fun playing poker so I chose winning.
The Turn
The turning point was when I picked up a Poker Player Magazine (now Card Player Magazine) and saw an ad for "Poker University" operated by an eccentric character named Chip Johnson. In those days there were no databases for poker players so I just had to take his word that he was "a winning world class master gamesman". I plunked down $750 cash (he didn't take checks or credit cards) for 10 hours of 'personal training'. It was a major decision because I could of used that money for a couple of buy-ins or rent or food. Wisely, I spread the 10 hours over a two week period. The lessons turned out to be more about general gaming theory and not specifically about poker. I was disappointed at first and almost demanded a refund. I had envisioned after a few hours of training I could go to the tables and dominate and win all my money back.
Instead, he talked about Bayes' Theorem, Zero and Negative Sum Games, Probabilities and Statistical Analysis. He was teaching me math and all I wanted was to know when to check-raise somebody. To his credit he did enlighten me on starting hands, position, hand equity, calculating pot odds, implied pot-odds, counting outs, tells, hand reading, value betting, blocking bets, game selection, money management and aggression and more.
The Suck-out
The ten hours with Chip led me to a path of self learning. I bought all the books there were about poker. I started to live and breathe poker. There weren't many good poker books and you couldn't find them online in 1986. Nevertheless I was able to glean all the important and useful tidbits of information available at the time. I started to keep records of my poker sessions, I took notes on players and specific hands. I watched for tells, I calculated pot odds, I always knew my outs, I played fewer hands, I ramped up the aggression when I did play a hand, I started winning! It was May of 1989 that I played my first hand of poker in a public room. I lost consistently for the first three months, by the end of the year I had turned it around and earned more playing poker than my annual salary at my V.P. Marketing job.
World Series of Poker, Amazon Room
The River
I have continued to play an average of 50 hours a week every year since then and have never had a losing year. I quit my job because it was getting in the way of me getting into juicy games. Juicy games usually happened late nights and into the morning so I could not possibly go to work after an all night poker session.
A few years later in 1989 I entered the Ace to Five Lowball event at the World Series of Poker and made it to the final table. Since then I have earned over 1.9 million in tournament wins with 51 cashes and 9 first place titles. I am not a tournament player, I am considered a cash game player and have consistently won in cash games over the last 30 years.
The Series
Being an "Old Gun" poker player, I will attempt to share my 30 years of experience and battle proven knowledge. I will write about the famous and infamous characters I have encountered. I will write about winning strategies. I will write about the different popular poker games you should be playing. I will write about where to play. Playing poker can be fun but only if you win!
I had a simular experience, vis a vie, poker. I got hooked on poker at 13 and lost every secession for 7 years. I didn't care. I loved playing. I reached a point where I had to borrow to stay in the game. I owed my paycheck, and I paid off my debts at payday every week, only to start borrowing immediately. One day I was called into the office and informed my company was in crisis. I was given a two week unpaid vacation. I couldn't pay my rent, debts, and living expenses with my last check. My first thought was to quit playing. That was very painful. I loved playing so much that I just had to find a way to keep up my addiction. I was a libertarian so theft was out of the question. I was 20 and committed to reason and thinking. I paced up and down, trying to come up with a solution. I couldn't think of a way to make more money. I was stumped. This was 53 years ago but I remember the moment of my revelation clearly. I found myself standing in front of a large mirror, looking myself in the eye. I asked myself: What is the root of my problem? It came to me suddenly. I was losing. Playing was not my problem. Losing was. At that moment I decided not to lose anymore.
I went to 3 libraries (1962) and found one small book on poker. I read it over and over slowly thinking about the advice. Technically it didn't help much. But I was playing in home games only. I had only one really good player to overcome. And I was armed with determination and a new attitude.
The two weeks came and went. I had forgotten about my old job. I was on a mission. I played much more often, every time I could find a game. I got a call from my boss after a month. He was anxious to get me back to work. I told him I couldn't afford to work anymore, I was self employed and making over double at half the hours.
I attribute my success, in the early years, to my attitude. My revelation was that I could use my mind and combine my recreation and my work. For example, the one winning player in our game had won every game, for two years. I began to suspect he was cheating. One day he did something unusual. He got tipsy. That was a big mistake. He began to comment liberally on our play when he was out, which was a lot. He called out our hands before the showdown. He told us how we would play our hand. He was always correct. I knew the cards were not marked because I bought them new. I began to consider the source of his knowledge. He must be studying us. He must be able to tell what we have by our faces. And how we will play that particular hand by our personality/history. If he could do it, so could I, now that I knew it was possible. That was his big mistake, proving to me it was possible. It opened up my game, and my mind to new possibilities.
Playing the player first, before the cards, was my second revelation.
I began to read extensively in the '80s. I found two experts who were exceptional: Mike Caro and David Sklansky. I bought Mike's course with 20 poker exercises, which taught much of what I knew already from my self ed, but it helped to refresh memory, bring unconscious knowledge into the conscious, and reinforce confidence because another successful player thought like I did.
In the early days I played with Mike "the Mad Genius" Caro a lot. The game was 75 Raise Blind A-5 Lowball. He is such a goofy character. I always thought he was juicy for the game because he believed he needed to advertise his looseness in order to get value when he had real hands. Often times he spent so many chips advertising he could never cover his loses. haha.
Interesting to hear when you made the transition to become a winning player. I was fortunate enough to start early before going completely broke and degenerate. Thanks for sharing your story.
I heard that about his draw poker play. But he did play well in tournaments I was in. His exercises were not always explained as to what they were teaching, but maybe that was part of the lesson.
He had a great idea with the 4 color deck, just didn't give it a fair test (1.5 days).
I had used the same strategy as him when entering a game with strangers. I found people form an opinion immediately and if you reinforce it just a few times, they seldom change their mind later, so it worked for me.
Damn you took some time on that comment buddy :P
That ain't nothin'! You should see my comments!
This is the shortest comment I've ever written! And see how I just can't stop writing more? I'll stop!!!
Great post. Almost makes me want to buy in.
And you just earned over 3k posting about it.. :)
How long do you think people can live from live-poker in the future? Used to play a lot myself but allways had that feeling in my gut that all this could be over in just a few years time.. Kinda miss it though
i would love to play in the main event... ive been a professional poker player (mostly online) for multiple years now. but still have not made it out to vegas... maybe this year will be the year? ill buy into the 10,000$ buyin using STEEM
also i think ive played with you.. do you play at foxwoods at all?
Haha, the days when people used to be terrible at poker...
I look forward to your stories. I hope you keep in mind that it's very different nowadays and don't give people the impression that they can learn some basic strategy and go soak up a bunch of free money.
You are absolutely right about the face of poker today. If I can enlighten some from being a fish all his poker life, then I feel I have accomplished something. I still play in California and Nevada poker rooms. The games are ever changing and for that reason, I have focused more on PLO the last two years rather than playing NLH.
Is PLO more fishy?
I know I don't really understand it well, and get confused during actual play, so I stick to NLH.
There are excellent books on PLO. Jeff Hwang's PLO book series is a good place to start. When you first venture into PLO I recommend buying in for the minimum. When you have a premium starting hand don't be afraid to commit your stack and let the cards run out. PLO is a high variance game and the nuts get cracked much more than in NLH. So you need a good temperament and not go on tilt.
Nice!
Glad to have you here! My favorite pasttime, when not working, is playing poker! I'll be following your posts!
Hi Jeff,
@dollarvigilante, I have been reading and following you for years at various sites such as Silver Doctors, Brother JohnF, Turd Ferguson's (Craig Hemke) and other precious metals sites. I am a big PM advocate. Thanks for reading my article.
Wonderful post! Your post is like a good session at the 2/5 tables.
Following!
Where do you play now and what do you play these days?
I live in Los Angeles so I play mostly at the Commerce Casino. I mix it up between the 10-20 NLH and the 5-5-10 PLO games. There are seasoned pros grinding out a living at the Commerce everyday so game selection is very important.
Yes finally poker on here!!!