A Poker Life: Adam Friedman

You may recognize Adam Friedman from ESPN’s coverage of the 2005 World Series of Poker main event. The then fresh-faced 23-year-old was playing in his first major event and rode a combination of natural talent and some fortunate naiveté to a 43rd-place finish worth $235,390.

Now 33, the Ohio native has a decade in the game under his belt, along with a WSOP title and a regular seat in some of the bigger cash games running.

Despite his bracelet and the respect from his peers, Friedman’s lone goal remains to find longevity in a career that most have trouble sustaining… and the only way to do that is to keep winning.

Poker Beginnings

Friedman was raised in Gahanna, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. His father, Marc, practiced law for 35 years and his mother, Donna, spent three decades working as a teacher. He also has a younger sister, Jenna.

Although his father has always been a bit of a card player, it wasn’t until Friedman’s junior year at Indiana University that he discovered poker.

“I think I had a pretty normal childhood,” he said. “I played a lot of tennis growing up. My parents are obviously educated and they wanted me to get a good education as well, so I went to college and I majored in marketing and operations management with a minor in Russian studies and communication. If that seems like some pretty random areas of study, it’s because it was. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had no plan”

The poker boom hadn’t quite reached its fever pitch yet, with Chris Moneymaker still toiling away as an accountant in Tennessee, but the World Poker Tour was gaining traction on cable, and Rounders had become a cult classic in the rental market. As a result, poker made its way to Bloomington, Indiana and into Friedman’s life.

“There was never a dream of playing poker for a living,” Friedman admitted. “I kind of fell into poker by accident around late 2002. I would get together with some friends and we’d play for spare change. The big winner in the game might win something like $50 and he’d most likely give it all back to everyone else that night at the bar. It wasn’t serious, but I noticed that I was the guy buying drinks more often than not.”

When asked to explain why he was the consistent winner, Friedman says he doesn’t believe it was some natural ability or instinct, it was just some common sense.

“I wasn’t doing anything special to help me win in those games. I was simply playing good cards while everyone else was playing bad cards. It wasn’t until I found a $3-$6 limit hold’em charity game back home in Ohio that I felt like I could really make some decent money playing poker. When I graduated from college, I only had like $5,000, so it wasn’t like I was paying my way through school with poker. It was just something fun I did that happened to be profitable.”

Kicking Off A Poker Career

Friedman had graduated with two degrees, but still didn’t know what he was going to do with them. He ended up taking a year off to find some direction and continue playing poker.

“I didn’t feel like becoming a grown up yet,” he admitted. “I basically spent my days and nights playing poker and partying. I had made up my mind that, after a year, I was going to go get a real job, but along the way, I managed to win a $140 double shootout satellite into the WSOP main event. I ended up making a deep run in Las Vegas, got some TV time, and finished 43rd for about $235,000.”

It was an instant bankroll, but not as much as he originally thought.

“After the tournament, my dad actually took $100,000 away from me and told me to act as if I’d never see it again. He told me that he was doing it for my own good. I was furious with him at the time, but eventually I realized that he’s always had my best interest at heart.”

At the time, Friedman’s friends were all complaining about their jobs in the real world, upset with their bosses, their pay, or the hours they were putting in. It was clear that he wanted no part of that world.

“I still had enough left over for a bankroll, so I canceled all of my interviews and decided to see what I could do as a poker player. I started playing more and I kept winning. I was playing bigger and bigger, and then I won two tournaments back to back at the Midwest Regional Poker Championships for more than $180,000. At the end of a year, I realized that I was working whenever I wanted, didn’t have an alarm clock or a boss, and that I was pretty happy. For me, it was a no brainer to keep playing.”

Friedman was content with his choice, as was his father, but his mother was another story.

“I think my dad was secretly happy that I decided to play poker for a living. He’s been playing cards all of his life. He actually finished ninth in the $1,500 deuce to seven triple draw event at the WSOP this summer. My mom hated it and thought I wasted my education. Eventually she came around though, and realized that I was doing what I loved.”

The Inevitable Downswing

“All I kept hearing from people was, ‘wait until you start losing.’ What’s this losing thing that everyone keeps talking about? I never even had a losing month, let alone a losing year, until 2007. Then I discovered what losing was in a big way. It lasted about six months and it was the most depressing stretch of my career. I went the whole time without shaving or cutting my hair. One day I woke up and told myself that I had to snap out of it or go get a real job. I took a short trip to Los Angeles, determined to book a win no matter how small. I did that, then in February 2008 I got another win at the Midwest Regional Poker Championship for about $100,000. That recouped nearly all of my losses from the year before and all of a sudden, I was back.”

The winning continued, and the next year Friedman actually returned and successfully defended his title for yet another win and another $92,000.

“Not everything is going to go smoothly in this business,” he said. “Sometimes your mind is all wrong and you don’t even realize it. It’s important when that happens to be able to recognize it and make the right adjustments because it eventually happens to everybody.”

Friedman has a unique treatment for downswings, and believes that often it has more to do with your mentality than the cards you are being dealt.

“I’ve never been a person to sit down at a game, win a little and leave after half an hour. But the truth is, if you are in the middle of a prolonged downswing, that’s not the worst thing to do every once in a while. Book a winner, have a decent meal, pour yourself a nice glass of scotch, and get a good night of sleep. Sometimes that little win can get you going in the right direction.”

Scoring A WSOP Bracelet

In 2012, Friedman topped a field of 212 players in the WSOP $5,000 seven card stud eight-or-better event, winning $269,037. The final table was stacked with notables such as Todd Brunson, John Monnette, Nikolai Yakovenko, Bryn Kenney, and Phil Ivey.

“I was too tired to really enjoy that win,” he recalled. “I had a heads-up marathon with Todd that didn’t end until six in the morning. Winning a bracelet didn’t make me any happier or fill a void in my life. I got some media attention, which is always nice, but it was all about the money. Then a couple days later, Doyle Brunson came up to me and told me that I played really well. That was the real highlight for me, considering that I had just beaten his son. That was special.”

Okay… but a WSOP bracelet has to mean something, right? At least as an abstract symbol of his success.

“My symbol of success in this business is money, not bracelets. It always has been. Anybody who says they do this for the glory, trophies, or fame has no clue what it takes to do this for a living. That or they are already really wealthy. I actually keep this Mike Sexton quote on me all the time. ‘The object of the game, in terms of being a professional gambler, is to increase your bankroll, improve your lifestyle and provide for your family.’”

Moving Forward

These days, Friedman will occasionally play as high as $200-$400 stakes, but he doesn’t have any interest in one day moving up to the nosebleed games at $2,000-$4,000. Doing so would require him to liquidate all of those retirement accounts he’s been feeding for years.

“I’m thinking about the big picture now,” he explained. “When I was 23, sure, I had dreams of playing the biggest games in the world. But the truth is that playing in those games is usually about ego. If you really wanted to, you could actually make a living grinding $10-$20 limit. I don’t ever want to do that again, so I’m not going to take any unnecessary risks just for possible short term gain. I also have no problem dropping down when I’m running bad. There’s nothing embarrassing about dropping down in stakes. What’s embarrassing is when you can’t afford to be playing in the game you’re sitting at, you go broke and you have to borrow money. Poker players tend to eat like a birds and shit like elephants. That means that when they win, they win small and when they lose, they lose big.”

Friedman believes that having an end goal is the only way to be successful at poker.

“I’d like to do something with some substance, but the truth is that poker is profitable and my main goal is to get enough money in the stock market so that I can live off the interest and retire. Most poker players are really dumb when it comes to money. I keep telling them to invest as much as possible now because your mind will eventually go and you’re going to need something when you are old and can’t play anymore. This is what I didn’t understand when my dad took away all that money years ago, but now I get it. When you are 23, you aren’t supposed to know any of this, but these guys have all the money in the world and if they don’t figure it out, they will lose it.”

Although he might not be getting the same attention he got from ESPN a decade ago, Friedman is well aware of his place in the poker world.

“This business is all about longevity,” he explained. “When I first started, I’ll admit that I was occasionally starstruck by some of the big name pros. But then when you sit down with them at the table, you realize that not all of them are that good. Some of them are even downright bad players and they come and go as variance eventually catches up. It’s the guys who you’ve never heard of, who have been successfully grinding for years and years, who are the real players. That’s the career I’m aiming for.” ♠

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