The Dream to Play All That it Seems?

"Dude, it won't be long before I am knocking you and Dad out of tournaments on the WPT. I'll be like, wham! Aces full!"



This little nugget of wisdom was uttered to me by my 17-year-old brother, Nathan, recently. It got me thinking of all the kids who, instead of having stars in their eyes and dreaming of knocking down the last shot of the NBA finals, are kicking around thoughts of pushing Phil Ivey and Tuan Le out of pots and taking down the championship bracelet at the World Series of Poker. We have to ask ourselves, how great of a dream is this for kids who haven't even tasted their first beer in college?



I can tell you that since I started playing poker – that is, regularly playing poker – I understand just how difficult a path this is to take. The bright lights of the World Poker Tour stage don't tell the story of the thousands of players who struggle, as opposed to those who reach the television heights we all have become so accustomed to watching.



I still remember Bear (Barry Greenstein) going to the club and playing 12 hours a day for years before he finally broke into the "big game" and was able to play a little more leisurely schedule. This is the poker automaton I am talking about, after all – a man whose mind is so wired for poker that he seems to have a permanent deck imprinted on his brain. He is so able to disassociate himself emotionally from what is going on at the table that I often have to remind him to smile and have a good time once in a while. It seems to be like that for most of the big-name professionals.



Think about it. If the pros have spent years getting to the point where poker is an "easy" lifestyle for them, what does that say about the rest of us? Poker, as we know all too well, can become a job just like any other. After a while, you just don't get the same rush from seeing two aces in the hole. You have to continually work on your game and focus on making ends meet at the end of the month. It can be a mentally taxing grind on you, sometimes sapping much, if not all, of the fun out of the game.



This also says nothing of the difference between those players who make their money in cash games versus those who do so in tournaments. Players who make their livings almost entirely on the tournament circuit face an even tougher set of circumstances. This is truly the most difficult life to take on. Tournaments are tough to win. They are always tough to win. You have to get lucky in an event to do well. Just playing solid poker is not enough to take down money in these competitions. The television coverage makes it all look so easy and exciting, but anyone who has gone through it knows better.



A player can go months between substantial tourney cashes. This can be extremely difficult mentally, as well as on the wallet. I think there is much less pressure on the cash-game player, who knows that there is another day tomorrow to come back and play. If he suffers a bad beat, it's just part of the game, and he pulls out another stack of bills from his pocket. Granted, the cash player probably faces a little tougher competition day in and day out, but what the tournament player gains in opponents' lack of skill is made up for by having to overcome the luck factor, which is absolutely huge. If you are dealt a brutal beat in a tournament, that could spell the end of your day, and the end of an opportunity to use your ability to make any money at all that day. There are no extra chips to be pulled out of your pocket, no second chance to catch the mouse that day. He grabs the cheese, laughs in your face, and saunters back to his hole. It's just no fun to be the hungry cat.



Poker just isn't the game of excitement and continual fast-paced action that we all see on television. You and I know it as an exacting science, where grinding out those few big bets on a daily basis means the difference between living comfortably and struggling mightily. This battle of precise measurements and fine computations is exactly what we have all fallen in love with, though, and exactly what keeps us coming back for more, time and time again.



My fear is that individuals who are ill-prepared for the rigors of the game are going to be just the ones who are drawn to it. The kids who are so desperately drawn to the spotlight and the TV time are going to be disappointed when they realize how rough it is out there. The difference between those kids and the ones who want to become baseball players, though, is that the poker kids may actually get a chance to sit down with their heroes at some point and play. They may even place high in a tournament, leading them to believe that they will be able to make it as professional poker players.



I mean, imagine this: If I had ever gotten onto the field at Wrigley at some point and somehow managed to line a single over the pitcher, I probably would still be carrying the torch and trying to fulfill my dream of playing shortstop for the Cubs. Most of you would, too, if you had gotten that chance. This is my point: In poker, you just may get that chance. But is this a good thing or not?



Don't get me wrong, poker is a great game. It's the best game. I have completely fallen in love with the competition, the calculations, and the cunning of it all. I can't really imagine myself doing anything else, at least not at this point in my life. The fact of the matter, though, is that there is a tiny fraction of people who are actually able to make enough money playing poker to live. It's tough! There is no denying that. My concern is that the difficult side of the game doesn't come through the TV screen into the living room, so that the kids can see it. Maybe if my brother saw all of the struggling players for each successful one, he would still be telling me about how he is going to hit the game winner for the Lakers in the seventh game of the NBA finals.

A drummer in his past life, Joe used to drum for Parker Street Cinema (parkerstreetcinema.com), and remains a big fan. You can reach him at [email protected], and can view all of his past columns at www.barrygreenstein.com under the "joepoker" link.