The Poker Player’s Manifesto

In all things there must be balance. Poker is full of balance. Losers are the ones who pay the winners as well as the rake. Every dollar that comes out of the game came from somebody’s pocket. For every winner of a hand there is a loser. Poker is a game full of impartial balance. The cards don’t care who you are or what you have done in life. The dealer does not have the ability to help one player or another, the dealer is simply the messenger of variance, delivered by a pile of cards randomly arranged. Because poker is so perfectly balanced, the game is beautiful and fun for many people.

A life in balance is similarly fun and beautiful for many people. Somebody that takes care of themselves physically, emotionally, and financially is awesome to be around. Poker is an interesting beast that can cover the entire spectrum of contributing balance to life, from either being the key catalyst to achieving balance or the supreme destroyer of life balance.

I first started playing poker (as an adult) at the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino. I played $1-$5 spread-limit stud, made a bunch of full houses, won $64, and thought I was king of the world. Then I went back to college, girls, surfing, and a job. Life was in balance. I was happy.

I played poker as a hobby through college. I took it seriously, like anybody serious about a hobby does, and kept records, proud of my winning ways. Poker was never more than a hobby to me, so I had balance. Hobbies are a good way to provide balance to “normal” life, and poker was very much this to me throughout college. I was actively pursuing a career in the outdoor industry which eventually led me to Colorado and my first professional poker gig. I was hired as a prop in Cripple Creek, paid $10 per hour to hang around a poker room, start games, and keep them going until my shift ended. It was the most hours I had ever committed to poker, but it still felt like a hobby since it was simply a way to make my hobby make some extra money to go along with my full-time job.

That full-time job was gone by the end of 2003’s summer, conveniently when Chris Moneymaker made his magical run from $40 on PokerStars to World Series of Poker champion. Poker was very popular, and I was making enough money on my hobby that I eventually quit looking for a job, figuring I would wait for the right one to come along. I spent a lot of time outside, doing what I wanted to do, and life was balanced and happy.

Come 2005 I started growing up a bit, got in a serious relationship, and had to figure some things out regarding the direction of my life. My jobs had been seasonal and on the river, poker was paying me plenty as well. I was learning about swings and bankroll and how to manage everything, and the best trick I ever came up with for balance was born here. I turned my hobby into a job simply by assigning myself a schedule and paying myself hourly. I gave myself flexibility within reason, scheduling myself noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. If a game was amazing, I would allow myself an extra four hours, never working more than twelve. I would come in later the following day to balance out those hours. Every week I would pay my bank account from my bankroll based on hours worked and fair hourly wage, and this made myself and my significant other very happy.

This was the day of the endorsement deal for online poker and I realized that a six-figure passive income was a golden ticket to Easy Street. I moved to Vegas in 2006, pursued poker with every ounce of my being, had a breakout year in 2008, and by the end of it all with pockets stuffed full of cash. I was less happy than when I was a homeless raft guide just three years earlier. I had to get back to that initial model of poker I had in the beginning, somehow, because at this stage of my life poker was my everything, my job had consumed my entire being. Anybody who works too much and doesn’t have anything else going on in life is an out of balance person and generally unpleasant to be around.
That was me. My priorities were broken. For the longest time poker, my job, had empowered me to live life the way I wanted to. This should be the sole purpose for anybody’s career, to enable them to live life as they want to. I haven’t found any life purpose out there greater than the pursuit of happiness. When I am chasing those smiles I am happier than I am at all other times. I see it as a universal trait, yet I see so many people either ignorant to what makes them happy or afraid of pursuing it.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to balance a poker career and happiness in that moment. So I set out in pursuit of it, a personal pilgrimage if you will, to figure out what I needed to do to maintain a happy life. I eventually found it in Colorado, knowing my heart was happiest in the mountains. Before I was serious about poker, I simply used poker as a tool to drive my outdoor pursuits. Since I had been all about poker, I had let those things fall to the wayside. My first step was to get outside more around Vegas, and then I went to Colorado immediately after the World Series to go guide, reconnecting with my goals in the outdoor industry, and putting together some sort of endgame strategy for myself from poker that had not existed yet.

Poker is a dark game if it is the only game in your life. Poker, like any job, must be balanced by things that make you happy. A workaholic is happy when work is good, but miserable when work is bad. If poker is your hobby, then make sure it is making you happy and providing balance to your life. Without balance, all things will collapse. ♠

Bryan Devonshire has been a professional poker player for nearly a decade and has more than $2 million in tournament earnings. Follow him on Twitter @devopoker.