Rekindle Your Passion for Poker!

It is important to remind yourself that poker is just a game, and games are meant to be fun. But sometimes even I forget that all-important lesson.

During my everyday responsibilities as a book publisher and website owner, I am constantly evaluating poker from a purely technical perspective. Lately, I recognized that I have lost some of my passion for the game, and I went through an exercise that I recommend for all poker players, from time to time, to get away from the daily grind.

Remind yourself of why you love this great game of poker so much. What are your favorite poker memories? Why did you even start playing poker? Sometimes, looking back can reignite your passion about the game and get you inspired when the daily grind might be getting you down. So, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite poker memories, with the idea that maybe my personal stories will help ignite your own memories, to remind yourself of why this is such a great game.

One of my very first poker memories occurred in high school. One day, I was playing at my house with a small group of friends, but unfortunately had to go to work at the local movie theater. If I quit, the game was going to break up. So, my buddies went to the movies with me, and we played poker upstairs in the projectionist’s booth during the movie (it was a small theater, with only me and one concession girl working). To our surprise, my boss showed up at the theater unannounced. The concession girl warned us, and as my boss was walking up the stairs on one side of the theater, my friends were running down the stairs on the other side. When you are truly passionate about something, roadblocks become simple detours, and nothing gets in your way.

About 10 years later, in 1998, I played my first poker tournament while living in Costa Rica. I immediately was hooked, and started playing two or three times a week. The highlight was winning my first “big” tournament at Humberto Brenes’ Texas Hold’em Club. I say big because at the time, 30-40 players and a $2,000 payday was quite big for me. I remember going home that night and not being able to fall asleep for hours, due to all the adrenaline rushing through my veins.

Then, in 2000, the company I was working for transferred me to Argentina, which didn’t have any live poker at the time. I was crushed. I had the bug, and no place to play … until a friend told me about online poker. I made my first deposit, and the rest is history. I would come home from work and literally have my tie off and shirt unbuttoned as I entered the front door, to dash to my computer to start playing online.

This passion eventually led me to quit my job, and my wife and I moved to New Zealand in 2001, where I paid our bills by playing online poker. Poker was now my livelihood, as I became one of the “pioneers” as an online-poker professional. My biggest poker memory there was winning the 2002 New Zealand Poker Championships. The adrenaline rush that you get when you win a poker tournament is like no other. With my wife and a large crowd looking on, winning that tournament made me feel like I had arrived. I was a player! So, I got this crazy idea to try to write a poker book!

My wife really thought that I had lost my mind. In 2002 and 2003, I spent hour upon hour writing down everything I had learned about limit hold’em. Any author can tell you that upon receiving a copy of your first book, there is a tremendous sense of pride, and it was no different for me.

We moved back to the U.S. in 2003, and poker was booming. Chris Moneymaker became the World Series of Poker champ, and the World Poker Tour had launched. In 2004, I was fortunate to win a seat in the main event. I was going to play with the big boys! I remember my first battle with someone I had heard of, Andy Bloch. I attacked him on a semibluff, only to be called, and then hit my draw on the river. He stared me down for what seemed like hours before making the call and paying me off. Wow, I had beat a name pro in the biggest tournament on the planet!

A few days later, I was eliminated in 33rd place. I appeared on TV, and played with both Mike Matusow and Greg Raymer at the same table. I got to relive my A-A bad beat to Al Krux’s 10-10 over and over again, as ESPN broadcast my face of despair hundreds of times over the following months. Oh, the game of poker — so much fun, yet so brutal! I would have knocked Krux out in that hand, yet he survived and made the final table. How many times have I asked, what if? But that’s what being a poker player is all about.

As live poker grew, so did online poker. Winning my first major online tournament was such an amazing feeling. To think you could turn $200 into $132,000 was unfathomable just a few years earlier when the Moneymaker effect started the boom. Then, a year later, I won a tournament with 10,000 entrants! This game that I have loved since high school was now not only America’s game, but the world’s game and passion.

I truly love poker — the excitement, the adrenaline, the challenge, and even the bad beats. But the thing I love the most is the wonderful people I have met through the game. Running the forum on my website has been a true joy. Poker brings people together; it is truly a community in which friendships are bonded. It’s great to take a trip to Vegas and be invited into the home of a friend I met through my forum.

Poker is a great game, but at the same time, it can be a grind. Take a few moments to reflect on all of your favorite poker memories. Try to remember the feeling you had when winning your first big pot or first big tournament. Remember that wonderful rush when everything went your way. Rekindle that passion for the game you fell in love with. After all, at the end of the day, poker is just a game. ♠

Matthew is the owner of Dimat Enterprises, “Publishing Today’s Best Poker Books.” Recent releases include Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha, Volume II and Volume III, by Jeff Hwang, and Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, by Ed Miller, Matt Flynn, and Sunny Mehta. Upcoming is The Math of Hold’em, by Collin Moshman and Doug Zare. Dimat books and e-books are available at Amazon and pokerbooks.InternetTexasHoldem.com.