Thursday, April 01, 2010

My retirement from poker announcement (5 years later)

 

(Circa March 2005) Recently I had the run of my life.  While most people know me for all of the Aruba wins (not to mention all of the pieces I had for the ones I did not win) I had 250k cash game runs multiple times in 2004.  I played most of the WPT events in 2004 and I am just coming off of a 150k run.  All totaled up that makes me a poker millionaire online (a feat that was difficult to do at that time because the games just were not that big).  

The Announcement

I know this seems odd that I would do this 5 years later but that did not stop Sammy Sosa or the many other athletes that go off in the distance with just a blurb on Sportscenter.  So I thought it would be nice for people to know how things have gone for me since my decent run and subsequent hiatus.  The fact that people right now think "who is this guy" is a testament to my resolve.

Between October and December of 2004 I played well over my head, playing and winning in the biggest game online at the time, the UB $25-$50 and eventually the $50-$100.  I was an occasional player in the $5-$10 no limit games but mostly I played $15-$30 limit poker, even when I played $5-$10 no limit I was rarely as comfortable as I would later become.  Also in those days when you won a second seat in the Aruba events on UltimateBet you would get $10,000, I won more than 10 and I had 10% of a win almost every single night.  I also did not play them for almost 3 months when they changed the rules abruptly (eventually they changed them back).  

What it took to beat the biggest games against the best players

I think the more important thing though is not how I won but what it took to win.  The tournaments were what they were and I would put my record against anyone in online poker EVER in terms of ROI for tournaments.  I hardly played them and I made a ton of final tables.  When I made the final tables I typically closed the deal.  While I did well in the Sunday's I never had a monstrous cash and I was in my head about that quite a bit.  In fact, that is why I never really came back.  To be really good at something it needs to consume you, that is why athletes have personal assistants because washing the car is mentally too much when you are engrossed in a subject.  I was, between talking to friends or staying up to 6 am to just wind down from a big win, bad beat or bad play that kind of lifestyle takes it's toll on a man close to forty years old.  What I remember most was the fog that I felt I lived in perpetually.  I was either in my head about hands or sleep deprived.  While many of my opponents were sleeping until 3 pm I had to be up at 8 am.  So when it came time to take a break in March of 2005 I did so, it just happened that I never really come back.

How my life changed

While I still do not exercise all that much I try to stay somewhat active especially since I have more time than before.  All my life I remember having trouble sleeping for one reason or another.  As I child I was made to lay in bed while everyone around me was sleeping and I would just lay there for hours.  When I grew up I just occupied that time and it made it even worse, luckily my lifestyle was mostly cooperative.  Sleep is different for everyone but what I found for myself was that waking up at a specific time each day got my body in a routine.  I have been doing that for about 2 years now and it seems to work, even when I travel abroad I can typically get back in the routine easily.  

My family took center stage

Most importantly though is my relationship with my children and my beautiful wife.  If you had to put a label on it I am an at home dad.  I get my daughters off to the school bus each day, now that they are in 2nd and 4th grade that task is a lot easier.  That was not always the case.  Early on I resolved that if I could figure out a game with 52 cards and smart people playing it I could figure out patience and resolve and for the most part I think I did.  If you know me you probably know that I am a relatively intense guy (certainly everyone with a close relationship knows this about me).  With my children though I can say I have only lost my cool once or twice and even those times I can not remember.  That is something I am very proud of because while most people look at the mathematical side of poker and try to translate it to life it's the psychological part of poker that has made the most impact on me.

Which brings me to my wife.  My wife is the type of person people dream about when they dream of living with someone for the rest of their lives.  She is literally the most attractive person I have ever met and remains so to this day.  As our relationship has evolved I think my wife realizes that I am the type of person that just figures out a way to get things done.  She has been there for all of the dramatic failures and all of the dramatic successes.  Some relationships are soul draining for people pursuing their dreams, partially because they give in too quickly but partially because they do not make their spouse aware that it is part of who they are to seek out adventure.  Once I made clear who I was my wife never wavered and supported me 100%.  You do not typically hear stories like that but mine is one.  Much like the relationships with my children it just did not make sense to put so much time and effort into a card game and not do so for my relationship with my wife.  We have date nights weekly and date weekends where we exchange our children with my in-laws monthly (one weekend every other month).  For families to work and be healthy it is my opinion that the parents need to make each other their number one priority, my wife taught me that (I think she learned that from her mom and dad).  My wife and I have a lot of alone time where we can bond, it's easy to do that with no children, it is much harder to do that after children.  Most people say that their wife and children are their priority I think I live that and that is something I am very happy about.

The things you learn in poker make you better at life

I am not saying the money was irrelevant but most of it has been swallowed up in various business interests.  Most people who have any idea who I am likely get rakeback from me.  I have never spent a nickel on advertising anywhere.  The system I developed with my business partner focuses on personal relationships and because of that we get a ton of referrals.  While we are not the biggest we are big enough to matter to virtually any cardroom in poker.  Today that income dwarfs anything I could have done playing poker, I just so happened to be in the right place at the right time.  While everyone else was trying to grind out becoming a poker celebrity that was never my dream so when I had the money I put it towards my business interests.  At least one of which became Bluff.com.  

I am writing this in response to Mike "Timex" Mcdonald (click that link for the blog) who is retiring from poker at the tender age of 20.  While he says he will still play (I of course still do as well) I would encourage him to see how it worked out for me.  Said simply if you put the effort into the other parts of your life that are more important that you did to become good at poker then the result becomes inevitable.  Poker is all consuming when you are trying to make as much money as possible in a short period of time.  The "Peter Principle" concept often kills poker players that are trying to rise to their level of incompetence, so it's rare for someone to step off the escalator.  I am one example of someone who did it and does not regret it one bit.

 

 

Tags: poker   retirement   announcement  

12 responses to My retirement from poker announcement (5 years later)