Where the Money Is

"The money is on your right!" Mike Caro shouted as he paced the stage at The Orleans Hotel and Casino. It was Friday, July 6, and while most of the nation was nursing a hangover from the Fourth of July, I was attending the World Poker Players Conference in Las Vegas. My reasons for being there were twofold. The first was to represent my literary agency and get to know many of the writers in the poker community. The second was to verify a few facts for my upcoming book: The Poker Principle: How to Convert a Winning Hand in Poker to a Winning Hand in Business.

Notice I didn't say that I went there to learn. But when Caro got off one of his diatribes about position at the table, I reminded myself that learning is a continual process. You don't have to enroll in a course or buy a book to learn; you simply have to keep your ears open and remind yourself that you don't already know everything. With Caro, Mike Sexton, Phil Hellmuth, Linda Johnson, and Roy Cooke amongst the speakers in attendance, all I had to do was open my ears and I was bound to walk out of that conference a better poker player.

I'm usually aware of where I sit at the table, but I'm usually thinking about my eyesight – and not so much about the other players at the table. That's a big mistake, according to Caro, who reminded me and the audience that you make most of your money at the poker table from the players who act before you. Not 48 hours later, I was at Hollywood Park Casino in Los Angeles, changing seats when the situation called for it, and booking a nice win.

A question that often arises in poker is, when are you ready to move up in limits? Lester, a young talent who's grinding out a small profit in the $10-$20 games, asked for my blessing to start playing $20-$40. He said, "I now understand why I wasn't ready for that game three months ago, but after finishing Super/System and playing every day for the past three months, I know I'm ready now. I've come such a long way."

"You have, Lester," I said, "but you still don't know how much you don't know." Three months from now, I expect Lester to tell me how little he knew three months ago. If he doesn't, that can only mean that he thinks he has nothing to learn. Nolan Dalla once wrote, "Poker and gambling, like life, are ongoing educational processes. We never reach the point where we no longer question ourselves or tinker with behavior to try to improve ourselves. Once we become content – we're finished."

My grandpa kept a poster in his office with a picture of a monkey and a caption that read, "Just when I learned all the answers, they changed all the questions." The only way to overcome the perpetual changes in both poker and business is to dedicate yourself to consistent learning. And that doesn't mean spending a bunch of money for specialized seminars or enrolling in a degree program. It means making a commitment to improving your knowledge base every day.

The best metaphor for learning is investing – where financial planners advise you to pay yourself first. When you earmark an amount to invest every month or have it taken directly out of your bank account, you'll find that you won't even miss the money. The peace of mind that comes from paying yourself first allows you to enjoy your disposable income that much more.

The same strategy works for learning. If you invest in yourself first by reading your trade magazines, running computer simulations, or attending conferences, you can feel that much better about enjoying your leisure. Doesn't it seem like the days when you wake up, go to the gym, and take care of business efficiently during the day end up being the ones in which you feel best in the evening? If you devote time out of each day to learning, you'll have the peace of mind that comes from being on top of industry trends and improving your knowledge base.

You may have heard the story of the two men who were chopping wood in the forest. The smaller man worked hard, but every hour or so, he would leave for a few minutes while the bigger man continued to pound away. At the end of the day, the smaller man had a much bigger pile in front of him. "I can't understand how you were able to cut so much more wood, especially since you took all those breaks," the bigger man said. "Where the heck were you going, anyway?"

"To sharpen the saw."

Greg Dinkin is the author of The Poker Principle: How to Convert a Winning Hand in Poker to a Winning Hand in Business, which will be published by Crown in April 2002. He is also the co-founder of Venture Literary (www.ventureliterary.com), where he works with writers to find publishers for their books and producers for their screenplays.