A Poker Life -- Devin Porter

When former online poker pro Devin Porter walked into an interview for a tech-support position at a web-based company he took a page out of popularized con artist, turned financial fraud consultant Frank Abignale Jr.’s playbook.

“I found out during the interview that they wanted someone with knowledge of xml, html, http, JavaScript, et cetera,” said Porter, who had his previous profession voided by Black Friday. “I have none of that, so I bull shitted my way through the whole thing knowing that I’d just have to learn their software quick and become valuable to the company before they figured out I was a hack job.”

When questioned on one of the web-development qualifications, Porter went into a tangent relating the skill to online poker and playing 15 tables at once. When the feces flinging was over, Porter turned Abignale Jr. was offered the job.

Despite the ability to finesse an interview, the 28-year-old Utahan was on the wrong side of job-searching variance for an extended period before finally accepting, after declining the previous offer, an entry-level position at a law firm specializing in disability benefits. Porter sent out more than 100 resumes, receiving only 10 interviews.

As soon as poker was mentioned, the conversation turned into Porter fielding questions on strategy, money, and celebrity players. “I had one last 90 minutes, and so I said, ‘Sorry, for taking up so much time.’ The interviewer replied, ’Oh no, that was the most interesting one I’ve ever done.’” While his meeting was likely a memorable one for the respective company, Porter’s six-year resume Grand Canyon, “no discernible job skills,” and just one year of college had him drawing slim.

Porter worked hard and eventually found a suitable match, choosing the position at the law firm in order to break away from the commission-driven stress of a sales job. “I’d basically done that sort of thing for six years with poker and the three years before when I was a bill collector,” he said. “So for nine years of my life my money directly correlated to my performance. I wanted something, at least for a while, where I could essentially just mail it in at work and get a paycheck.”

A Good Life in Utah

Porter was living a comfortable, simple life in Utah with his wife and two-year-old son before the political economy of gaming brought out the cold deck for the family man.

Referring to himself as the “anti-baller,” Porter was starting a family while “most young [poker players] were buying cars and clubbing.” He has always wanted to be “different than everyone else,” but yet humble and faithful to his origins. Poker not only provided a way to stay home and use his lucid brain to pay the bills, but also for non-conformity.

“I know this desire in me stemmed from watching my dad as a kid. He would just grind out 12-hour days outside in the cold at his blue-collar job. I remember having the epiphany one day of ‘anything to not end up like him.’ Don’t get me wrong, I respected him and that lifestyle so much, more than a typical poker life that’s for sure — waking up every day before dawn, breaking your back and sacrificing your body to make a crappy living so your kids can eat.”

Porter had no intentions of treading water financially, as he gradually built a “nest egg” that has served him and his family well while big business meets with Washington bureaucrats to divide the American Internet-gambling apple pie.

“I had some magnificent tirades to my friends and family when Black Friday first happened about how crappy our ‘free’ country is,” Porter said. “There’s frustration that something I love so much is not getting credit for being a real profession; frustration at how the government capped poker’s growth for the past five years. I complained a lot about how I could be different than everyone else if I don’t have poker. I’m at peace with it as much as I can be. I was upset, but I don’t like to hold on to that emotion. I have let it go.”

Some Loose Change and a Gatorade Bottle

Porter’s earliest 52-card memory was during his junior year of high school. He was living with his dad, who on the weekends would host small-stakes tournaments with friends. With an empty plastic Gatorade bottle, the young Porter would scrape together coins for the $2-$5 buy-in sit-and-go. Poker for Porter began fun and innocent, but those days wouldn’t last long.

Focusing on graduating high school, Porter put his card playing on hold, before eventually organizing games at an apartment he shared with some buddies. The group, riding the institutionalized Rounders-Moneymaker poker wave, started running $20 buy-in cash games. It was then that Porter started taking the game seriously, keeping record of his wins in a notebook. When the interest in the games began to fade, Porter checked his book-keeping and found $700 in profits.

With a burgeoning bankroll for an underage poker player, Porter and a friend would “sneak in” to play at nearby Wendover, NV. The duo of renegade card players would let their beards grow for weeks at a time and outfit themselves to look north of 21. “We were so nervous at the time,” Porter recalled.

The fix was in for his developing mind. Devouring books, Porter learned the game’s nuances rapidly. He soon stumbled upon an advertisement for online site Ultimate Bet (one of the operators indicted by the Department of Justice on April 15). Trying desperately to deposit, the credit-cardless Porter eventually used Western Union to wire funds into his account while anxiously grinding play money until it cleared.

His transition from depositor to winner was rocky, going through the growing pains of online play. Finding multitable tournaments and sit-and-gos, Porter migrated to the top echelon of players in the digital game. However, he was still looking for the big score. With some semblance of bankroll management, Porter scooped a $33 buy-in tournament for a “king’s ransom” of $3,000. He was now a grinder with a bankroll, and the professional was born.

Sponsorship and the Six Figure Scores

Continuing on the journey during online poker’s gold rush, Porter took a shot in a satellite for UB’s Aruba World Poker Tour package. In May of 2005 he was leaving the American West, on his way to a major live poker tournament on a tropical island.

Porter’s opportunity to avoid being “another waste of space working in corporate America” started off as a plan to min-cash the $5,000 buy-in main event. In a crowded airport with other poker players, Porter had another epiphany: Go against the grain and play “crazy.” With a flat payout structure, the style worked flawlessly. He made the final table, taking home $200,000 for a fourth-place finish. “Instantly my risk was paying off,” Porter said.

After the score Porter resumed his online grinding, before winning a satellite to a WPT event at the Mirage in Las Vegas. He implemented a similar strategy, making another final table and $333,000 for a now bloated bankroll. “I remember Mike Sexton telling me that I was the only person to ever final table their first two WPT events — a record I think still holds today.”

“From there I never really looked back and grinded all the big online stuff and the live tour,” Porter said. “I got sponsored by UB for about six months in a sick deal compared to ones these days. I remember being my own agent. I somehow got a meeting with one of the head guys at UB at a site party and just told him they needed me. I said that they had old guys like Phil Hellmuth, Dave “devilfish” Ulliot and Annie Duke, and they needed an up-and-comer. I’m pretty sure he was drunk, but I followed through for about a month and worked out a deal. They ended up giving me $75,000 for live buy-ins every six months, and in return I’d wear their gear.”

The former skateboarder who always had aspirations of sponsorship had used his initiative to live his dream, but by the end of 2006 the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) forced the termination of his UB deal. The company’s decision turned out be bitter-sweet for Porter. “I was so pissed about that for so long, but looking back it was a good thing because no one remembers I was with UB, and I’m not associated with the scum of a site it turned out to be.”

All About the Game

After 2006 Porter recorded two more impressive, yet brutal, top-four finishes in prestigious live poker tournaments. He was close to a bracelet in a 2007 World Series of Poker $2,500 no-limit hold’em event, knocking out Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow and Humberto Brenes along the way. “It was a fan boy’s dream,” Porter said.

The next summer saw him final table the $1,500 six-max event, taking third after “coin flipping for the bracelet” with A-J against pocket tens. Porter also had a six-figure cash in a 2009 online “flipament,” securing a fifth straight year of more than $100,000 in earnings. “That streak is something I’m proud of,” Porter said, “as longevity doesn’t seem to be a trait people have in the poker world.”

Despite the sustained success and the comfort of a backer, over the years Porter fell out of touch with the game that had squashed the fear of being “another brick in the wall.” He became tired of grinding out the small edge, putting in 14-hour sessions on Sundays.

“I remember in the beginning a friend of mine and I looked up Indian casinos that were nearby,” Porter said. “We were only 19 and prepared to drive 14 hours up to some place in Montana just to play some small-stakes poker. At the last second we decided to call them to see if they even had poker. They didn’t, and we would have driven all that way for nothing, but it didn’t matter. It was so cliché — it was all about the game.”

Black Friday did turn Porter’s life upside down, but with the inevitability of burnout, the indictments have given him the opportunity to reevaluate the game’s place in his young life.

“I lost a lot of that purity for the game once I became successful, and it hurt me,” Porter said. “My main goal with this online poker delay is to regain my passion for the game. I fell in love with it at one point and want that feeling again. I’m hoping this turns out to be a blessing in disguise.”

Porter said he sometimes laughs when he contemplates how it would take a year of work at his 40-hour-a-week gig to earn the amount spent for buy-ins at a single WSOP. However all the turmoil of the past spring months could turn out to be nothing more than a sweat for the aspiring football coach and writer. Porter has a connection that could lead to a wide-receiver coaching position in the near future.

The adaptability and creativity that helped a 28-year-old former poker player land a job offer for a position he had no qualifications for are remnants of a defunct card-playing career. The Department of Justice can take the game away from Porter, but not the enchantment of some green felt and a deck of cards. He will be back no matter what success he has in the intermission.

“I can’t imagine not ever playing poker again,” said Porter, who misses the adrenaline of wielding a big stack late in a tournament. “I envision my future something like how Kirk Morrison pops up now and then rekindles the passion for the game; play less so I enjoy it more. Looking back on when I quit my job in June of 2005 with around $8,000 in the bank and an $8,000 trip to Aruba set for later that year it’s laughable to think of how little that was, but I was freshly 21 and thought if I failed at poker I could always go back to my old job and rejoin the rat race. Poker was always an avenue out.”