Farewell for Now

At the start of 2005 I quit my job to play poker. Now, towards the end of 2011 whilst the rest of the world seems to be heading in the other (unemployed) direction, I’m quitting poker to rejoin the ranks of the full time employed. Why? That’s a good question.

2009 was a strange year for me, poker went well and I was making more money than ever before, mostly due to a series of lifestyle changes I went through. Although I never planned to play poker forever, I had never seriously considered changing profession.

Early in the year whilst playing football in a seemingly innocuous turn, under no pressure, I broke a metatarsal bone in my left foot, putting me on crutches for three months. This coincided with my Dad taking ill with a liver problem. I visited him whilst on crutches and we laughed at how unlikely it was, I had never broken or twisted anything in years of playing football, and he hadn’t been sick since he was a teenager, now the two of us were invalids.

I was due to spend about a month traveling the world, several of my friends from around the world had conveniently decided to get married in the same month. I visited him the night before I left, I had just had my cast removed. When I left Ireland I couldn’t walk without the support of both crutches. He was ill, but it wasn’t serious. When I arrived home I could walk without any aid (albeit gingerly), the doctors had just told him that he had inoperable cancer and had about three months to live. He died later that week.

About two months after this whilst playing football an opposition player managed to scrape the cornea of my eye. I was almost blind in one eye, and could barely stand any light in the other. I couldn’t look at a computer for a few weeks, and it was about two months before I could get back to work seriously. (I actually won two live tournaments whilst playing with a patch over my eye, maybe I should have kept the patch!)

So by the end of 2009 I had gone about six months without playing much poker. As 2010 began, and I started putting in some serious volume again. At first I was very glad to be back working, its a nice feeling to feel your net worth gradually increase, rather than alarmingly drop! But after a while I noticed a change. What I had loved about poker was the thrill of the intellectual challenge. I love loads of different games, and poker appealed to me because it was one of the few games where you could turn skill into profit. But what was different now was a little bit of the challenge had gone. I no longer felt the familiar pin prick of adrenalin when I had successfully outwitted someone. I wanted to win of course, but it wasn’t as enjoyable as it had been. It had become more about money than the game.

Looking back now, it’s clear to me that one of the things that always drove me was a desire to prove to my Dad that poker was a viable career. It is, for a few, after all I managed it for six years despite a whole heap of failings (overconfidence, bad bankroll management, arrogance, I could go on…). One of the best memories I have from poker is being on holiday with him in Portugal, playing in front of my Dad, showing him what it meant to be a poker player and how it was possible to sustain a good standard of living through it. That night was the only time he ever made me pay for dinner!

So this year kind of drifted on, in between apartments I stayed with friends for a while, and being used to living on my own this wasn’t a situation conducive to playing poker. One thing led to another and before I realised it, it had been two months since I had played a hand of poker. I finally got a place of my own again, and realised I had a decision to make. Do I throw myself back into playing again? Or do I change direction? Like many decisions in my life, it feels like it made itself. So I found myself, after several years of affectionately, but not unreasonably, describing myself as a gentleman of leisure, back working a 9 to 5. (Or equivalent!) I think now that I made the right decision, I actually look forward to playing poker again, as a hobby.

One of the aims of this article was to sum up some of the things I learned over the years of playing for a living, so here they are:

1) Your lifestyle is probably the number one determinant in how well you do. If having a regular sleeping cycle means giving up on some of the best games, then do it.

2) Don’t ever complain about bad beats. The only reason you can make money from poker is that bad players occasionally give good players beats. (I’m obviously simplifying somewhat here). Try making money from chess for a while, or any game that is almost entirely skill, and see how much money you end up with.

3) Enjoy yourself. I went to a local casino recently and was shocked by the behaviour and attitude of most of the professional players, including some well known Irish ones. At the time I put it down to rudeness, now I think it’s their happiness, or lack of it, that was emanating from them. Don’t play poker because its easy, do it because you enjoy it.

So that’s it. I just want to say thanks to all of the wonderfully varied, and for the most part surprisingly pleasant, people I have met through poker over the years. Thanks to all of the poker advice I got from Two Plus Two and Boards (now mainly IrishPokerBoards), and a special thanks to the editors of Card Player. It’s been fun!