Heye Comes Clean

This week I’m turning my column over to a poker player from Germany. He’s not a superstar, just a guy…a guy with a tail of triumph and woe. His name is Heye, and his honesty is so bold that it needs to be shared. I’m not saying that this guy has all his problems solved – as he describes it himself, his cash game’s a mess, but he’s going about his practice of poker the right way: with candor, self-appraisal, and self-acceptance. It’s rare to get so frank a glimpse into another poker player’s mind and we can usefully treat such a glimpse as a mirror into our own.

Read this guy. Look into his soul. Don’t make judgments about his choices, values, ethics, or intellect (Or spelling, grammar, and punctuation – I left his text exactly intact). Just see what’s going on inside his head. Compare it to what goes on in yours, again without judgment. Remember: your thought process isn’t a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a thing that is. A thing you can always improve.

Everyone’s been lost in the woods at one time or another. Maybe you’re lost in them right now. Maybe Heye’s words will help you see where, exactly, you are.

Take it away, Heye.

Dear John,

My name is Heye, I’m a 34-year-old guy from Frankfurt / Germany, and I plead guilty.
I free downloaded one of your books, “Killer Poker Online 2”, because I heard so much great things about it. I bought the other one, “KPNL”, though.

Excuse me for kind of “ripping you of”! I didn’t buy all of your books, actually I paid only for one.

So why don’t I buy your books? At least there are only three or four authors that are really fun to read, that be Ed Miller, Andrew Seidman, Phil Gordon and you.

I’ll try to explain.

I cannot afford 50$ for a book right now. Even not 20. That’s for many reasons. First, I already bought a huge number of books from someone who quit playing the game. I didn’t have to pay much, because that books were old and somewhat outdated (but usefull, though!). Things like “Theory of Poker” (a MUST, as i think), “Harrington on Holdem” and stuff like that. What I really liked were the books of Andrew Seidman, “Easy Game”, and Phil Gordon, specially the “golden one”. I love the style they use to tell people things – straight forward, right into your face. Like you do (maybe you even do it a little more).

The problem with books about online poker is that the game changes so fast. But one thing I realized very quickly: The “standard” TAG-style, that many books are about, is not the kind of game I want to play. So I invested a bit more money last year and bought two pretty new books: “Kill Everyone” and Elky’s “The Raiser’s Edge”. I bought them in english, of course, because No Limit Hold’em is an american game, so I can’t stand it when people are talking about “schieben”, “ein Gebot machen” and stuff like that. I have all my poker lobbys set to english language, also. I never had problems with the english language, it was my best course at school, and I’ve lived in Portland / OR for a year when I was 16 (yep, including one year at Grant High school :) writing some A’s pretty quickly ;-p).

Now I’m totally off my track. Let’s go back to those two books: That’s the way I want to play. I don’t want to become a professional poker player, because I know that’s not very realistic. But I wanna become a constant winning player. I’m far off that. I’m close to break-even in multitable Sit’n’Go’s for 3.50 at Stars, and to win one of those with 45 players not only gives me 40$, but also a huge rush. That doesn’t happen very often, though, and my cashgame play is… a total mess.

I studied law at the university in Frankfurt, but I abandoned it one year before my examinations. One reason was, that I had huge drug and alcohol problems at that time, so even though I had passed all courses to qualify for the “finals”, I was not able to prepare for it alone at my desk for like a year or so. I quit my studies with 31, so close before the finishing line. Then I did what I had to do: Got clean. The last time I drank alcohol was the 29th of november, 2011. Of course I had to do that in a hospital, I felt into a bad delir and almost died. But I got over it, and I’m still not doing drugs or alcohol anymore. I lost my whole social network, though.

And, and that’s the next reason why I don’t have 50 bucks to buy your books, I don’t have a job since I quit university. I’m trying to find an apprenticeship all the time, I write applications and even get appointments for job interviews all the time. But there is this huge gap in my curriculum vitae.

The psychologists at the clinics I made my rehabs told us to always be honest, because that’s the only way to get over it. So that’s what I do. And what do staff executives do after that? Say goodbye and good luck.

Ok, enough of that. Actually I only have the money I get from unemployment assistance, and my girlfriend just got a new job. Lucky her. But I feel pretty bad about that situation. We live in a small two-room-appartement, it’s still the same appartement I moved into when I was 20 and left my parent’s house. That’s 14 years ago.

So now you know the reasons why I tried to get free copys of your books. Even though I hate to print out pdfs and read them – I like books! The real ones.

I just wanted to explain myself, and I feel really sorry. Of course I won’t “share” my copies with anyone else.

One last thing: I recently won a 180-men $1 SnG on stars and made second place in a $1.10 1k guaranteed regular speed tournament on stars with a field of 1500 people. I think I used a lot of stuff I’ve learned from your Killer Poker No Limit book, which I read about 10 times now. So even if I’m still not able to pay the “right” price for it, I would be more than happy to send you a share of those winnings, if you give me your paypal address. See it as a tip from a huge fan. That’s the least I can do.

I’m really looking forward to getting an answer from you, if you find the time.

With kind regards,

Heye

Frankfurt / GER

Thanks, Heye. Dear reader, if you think I’m shilling for my books, you’re missing the point. Go back and read the letter again. -jv ♠

John Vorhaus is author of the Killer Poker series and co-author of Decide to Play Great Poker, plus many mystery novels including World Series of Murder, available exclusively on Kindle. He tweets for no apparent reason @TrueFactBarFact and secretly controls the world from johnvorhaus.com.