My First Anniversary

This column marks the anniversary of my first Card Player appearance. Together we have explored poker strategy and theory pretty deeply, and I will continue that next month. In this column, though, I would like to give you a chance to get to know me better.

I started playing poker in summer camp, where I worked as a counselor, and continued to play in college in fraternity games. My main game at that time was bridge, and a lot of study time at the tiny college I attended (Cooper Union in New York City) was devoted to the complexities of that game. Poker games did not seem complex, since you just sort of threw money in the pot and waited to see if you were the winner.

My favorite game was "Anaconda," also known as "Pass the Trash." Each player was dealt seven private cards, and kept four and passed three to his neighbor on the left. For the new seven-card hand, players discarded two, set the other five in order, and rolled them one at a time. There were four betting rounds as the cards were rolled, followed a by a chip declare (yes, this game was played high-low), and a last round of betting. I would love to find a casino that spreads this game, as it was a great deal of fun. I am sure I could do an interesting strategy column on it.

After graduating with an electrical engineering degree, I ended up in Boston, where I did my master's work and played a huge amount of bridge. In fact, I met all of my wives (well, both of them) while playing bridge. My work in the high-tech industry took me to Austin, Texas, and eventually to Silicon Valley (San Jose, California), where I resurrected my interest in poker in a home game with several friends.

I had my most traumatic poker experience around that time. During one of my frequent trips to Las Vegas, I found myself wandering around the Las Vegas Hilton, and noticed a poker room. "Well," I thought, "I can do this," and I got a seat in a $1-$5 seven-card stud game. Here, my imagination took over, I guess. I was in Las Vegas playing poker, and it seemed to me that everyone at the table was a world champion. Several players appeared to be straight out of central poker casting: a tall gentleman wearing a huge cowboy hat, a tiny elderly lady smoking an incredibly long cigarette, and a studious-looking young man with glasses, among others. I was more nervous playing this little stud game than I was at my wedding!

Nervously, I played a few hands with nothing much happening. Then, two horrible things occurred. First, I played a hand against a bearded guy on the other side of the table. At the end of the hand, I called the final bet, only to be told that my hand could not beat his upcards. Then, in what was supposed to be a kind gesture, but just added to my embarrassment, they gave me my last bet back and told me not to do that again. Next, I ran low on money in the middle of a hand. Not being willing to ask what to do, I just threw my hand away, picked up my remaining chip, and left the table.

I realize that many of you would never do any of these things, but to this day, I have great sympathy for people who are trying casino poker for the first time, and I go out of my way to help them and make them feel comfortable.

It took several years for me to be willing to try public poker again. One slow evening, I wandered into Garden City Casino in San Jose to look at the poker room. I watched people playing hold'em, which I thought was a very silly game. How much interest could there be in a game with just two cards? In spite of this, I decided to try it, and took a seat at a $1-$2 hold'em table. This was the ultimate loose-passive game. Basically, we all put $1 in and waited for the flop. Sometimes, someone raised, and we all put $2 in and waited for the flop. I had no idea what I was doing, of course, but I was enjoying myself and was determined to learn. I found some books on poker in the bookstore, but they contained almost nothing about hold'em.

Eventually, I decided to try $3-$6 hold'em. This game was almost as loose as the $1-$2 game, but extremely aggressive. It was rare to go a full orbit without at least one hand being capped before the flop.

I was having mixed results, but a lot of fun. One day, I played a hand against an off-duty dealer. After winning the pot with what I guess was an unorthodox hand, the dealer needled, "What book did you get that play out of?"

"Book?" I replied. "There's a book?"

He told me the cashier sold books on hold'em. I then purchased some wonderful books that truly opened my eyes about the game I was playing.

Many people say you cannot beat loose, aggressive no-fold'em games, but I promise that you can. With the help of my new books, I was beating the $3-$6 game very nicely. I moved to $6-$12 after winning what I thought would be a nice bankroll, and beat that, as well.

Then, disaster struck. I took my winnings to a $10-$20 table and lost a lot of it. I went back to $6-$12 to rebuild, and then back to $10-$20 to lose it again. Stubborn as I am, I did this several times before I figured out what I was doing wrong. I had gone from one of the loosest games in the house to what was definitely the tightest. I had not made any adjustments, as I was relying on the "winning" strategies I had developed. After more studying and experimenting, I suddenly began to figure out how to win.

It was a big breakthrough for me. I had worked out how to beat loose games, and I now understood how to beat tight ones. It would have been nice to have had help, but overall I believe that learning by losing and slowly progressing helps any player improve his game. That is why I recommend that people start small and work their way up, even if they can afford to play the bigger games right away. The lessons learned from playing through contrasting games and styles provide substantial support when, say, a tight game suddenly becomes loose. I also suspect that this growing process is one of the reasons I am reasonably comfortable in shorthanded games today.

Along the way, I also got my wife, the beautiful and talented Betty (BLT), to take an interest in my poker hobby. She took to it as well, and became a terrific player. She worked for several years as a proposition player at the casino where I played (which certainly made it easier to see each other), and has had success in local tournaments in San Jose as well as in Las Vegas.

Eventually, I moved up to $20-$40, where I was also successful. I maintained my day job in a large computer company for several years, playing some evenings and weekends, dreaming of playing professionally. I kept very accurate records for several years, and convinced myself that I could support us, if need be, on the proceeds from poker. For others who are thinking of playing poker professionally, I recommend several years' of play and data to make sure it is not only profitable, but also a labor of love.

I also went through some health issues, which convinced me that health insurance (which is not easy for poker pros to come by, as I understand it) was critically important to me. My big chance came when an even larger computer company bought out the one where I worked, and offered longtime employees early retirement and some guarantee of continuing health benefits. Betty and I took them up on it and moved to Las Vegas, where I set out to try my luck (or, hopefully, skill) in the poker world.

I joined the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group in Las Vegas, about which much has been written in Card Player. I have made great friends and contacts among the wonderful people in the group, and they have strongly encouraged my career, including suggesting I do things such as write a Card Player column.

So far, so good. Professional poker has certainly been a roller coaster ride, with some good streaks and a few incredibly bad ones. Poker is evolving rapidly, and I am trying to evolve along with it. I really strive to improve my play every week, although I must admit that the bad streaks give me far more opportunity to do so than the good ones. When things are good, I congratulate myself too readily, but when they go bad, I sit back and ponder how to shore up the dikes and plug the leaks.

I continue to play regularly, mostly in live cash games in which a good pro can win 60 percent to 70 percent of the time. I am trying hard to change with the times, and I now play frequently online, as well. In fact, I have written about online tournaments, and will continue to do so. I know I am very lucky to be able to do something I really enjoy day in and day out. And now that you know a little more about how I got here, I promise that next month we will get back to poker strategy.