stevesbets

    This blog title was for a long time my favorite spy mantra from a Robert Ludlum novel. The spy  must stay frosty in extremely high pressure situations, his head clear like water, his emotions cool like ice. I always took it to be a good mindset at the poker table, and with much practice I think I have become very calm and unemotional at the table. With that said, there are situations that make everyone nervous, and that’s why seeing someone embody this clarity in EXTREMELY tough spots is very impressive.

At the end of the Ravens-Patriots, game tonight, I was amazed by Tom Brady. I’m making no comment on whether the Pats deserved to win or how well Brady passed on the last drive, but simply how very calm he was. This was a HUGE spot in the Patriots’ attempt to make history by going undefeated, but during the game winning drive Brady looked like he could have just as easily been waiting for a subway on a nippy fall day. His movements were graceful and fluid, in contrast with the spastic motions of someone who collapses under pressure. In between plays, he calmly directed his teammates and showed not even a hint of apprehension. It’s amazing to me that some people, myself included, can be phased at times by relatively minor things such as public speaking, awkward social situations or being involved in a big pot.

As a poker player I have adapted well to being calm and collected in a high stress environment, but at times of course nerves still creep in. Thinking about Brady smoothly leading his team down field in front of a massive national television audience and a 60,000 strong hostile crow makes me realize that I still do and probably always will have a VERY long way to come to be truly clear like water, cool like ice.

Dear Readers,

So lately I have been straying too much from my goals in both poker and life. This prompted me to make a prop bet with my buddy Nat tonight. I’m posting it here as a way to pound into my head that THIS is my lifestyle for the next couple months, and I will stick to it and I will win the bet. Here are the terms of the bet: between now and Feb 1, the only games I’m allowed to play online aside from MTTS are Pokerstars HU sngs at the 500, 1k, and 2k level. I need to play a minimum of 600 sngs total in that time frame. That’s it, if I am able to do those two things, I win the bet.

This seems like a slam dunk for me to win from the outside. 600 sngs in approximately 2 months is peanuts, and it should be no problem fulfilling that minimal commitment. The hard part of the bet for me, VERY HARD, is playing NO other games. I get easily bored and want to play PLO, o8, NL cash games, limit cash games, and everything else under the sun. The bet is for $1000. It will be interesting to see who wins.

In addition to this poker goal, I have other goals for the next few months. I don’t have a bet on these, but I hope to pursue them with the same ardent fervor as I do the SNG bet. They are pretty simple:

1) Finish and submit my business school applications. Work on the essays at least a little bit EVERY day until they are done

2) Go to the gym EVERY DAY

3) Do whatever it takes to stop biting my nails (to this day I’m not sure how I got started with this terrible habit but I’ve been doing it for as long as I’ve been conscious).

If I do these 3 simple things along with win the SNG bet I will be very happy with myself come Feb 1. I’m easy to please I guess.

I’m posting this online not because I have the delusion that other people really care much about the details of my life but because I crave the negativity that comes with putting your goals out there in a public arena and then failing. I ask you all to please make failure not an option for me. Criticize me mercilessly and tell me how pathetic I am if I fail. All of these goals are process oriented as opposed to results oriented, so if I do fail I can’t blame luck, or other people, or circumstance, only myself. As I wrote that I realized I was biting my nails, NO MORE. It’s time to take some responsibility for things that are within my control because god knows there’s enough in our lives we can’t control. I’ll post occasional updates to let you know how I’m doing on each of these goals so I can be ruthlessly blasted if I fall short.

Thanks,

Steve

Time for a “things that I hate about poker players” blog, I’ll be doing one of these at least once a month and it will all just be things off the top of my head that drive me crazy about poker players. For now:

1) Anyone in a cardroom (usually LA) asking for for a big scraaaaaamble or a new setup (new decks of cards) with the intent of changing their luck and in the process slowing down the game.

2) People screaming yesssssssssss at the top of their lungs in anything but a life changing situation in which they can’t control themselves at the poker table. A few examples off the top of my head are any number of times I’ve heard insanely loud screams from across the room during level 1 of day 1 of the main event of the WSOP. Someone who doubled up acts like they won the lottery because they have double the average stack with 8000 people to go. RainKahn during much of this years wsop broadcasts. He’s probably a good guy, I don’t know him but I cringed anytime he won a pot because of his idiot animalistic screaming routine. Humberto anytime he wins a pot with cameras within 1000 feet. Once again, he may be a good guy when you get down to it, but the way he acts is totally unacceptable. The idiocy of this screaming alone I could deal with, but couple it with the fact that in order for these people to win, someone else is losing, and the bigger the win for them, the bigger the loss for their opponent. The lack of class and social intuition they show is stunning.

3) People that are so obviously insanely lucky whining about luck. Primary example here is Joe Hachem. He wins millions in one of the biggest poker tournaments ever. He necessarily had a ton of luck to do so, and the next year he takes a relatively minor bad beat and acts disgusted and says, “Story of my life”. Are you kidding me?!?! Most people would kill to make the story of Joe’s life the story of theirs, and he can’t see past a hand and realize that not only is he one of the luckiest people in the world (like most people reading this) but he is actually one of the single luckiest poker players of all time even if he gets unlucky in poker in every subsequent hand he plays after the main event that he won.

4) Players verbally assaulting dealers because they didn’t like the turn and river. EVEN players verbally assaulting a dealer for making a mistake is borderline unacceptable, but to blame the dealer for their own misfortune is obviously absurd. Many of you honestly wouldn’t believe some of the things I have heard said to dealers, I can’t even believe them and I heard them.

I could really go on forever on this topic which is why I will post on it every once in awhile. People are just unbelievable, but I think its just people in general are bad, not poker players.  I happen to see the subsection of the population that happen to be poker players. Stay tuned for future tilts.

Dealing with downswings is the single hardest part of being a professional poker player. It’s cliched but true that most people don’t go to work, work all day, and end up with less money than when they started. The reality for poker players is that your compensation structure can be even bleaker than that. It’s entirely possible to go weeks or even months playing well, by all rights deserving to win, but losing anyway. Most people cannot handle this reality. Most people cannot be poker players, professional or otherwise. One has to be willing to rethink and readjust constantly.

A nonsensical but incredibly common question I get when I win for awhile then lose for awhile is, “Why didn’t you stop when you had X dollars?” I try not to get angry at the absurdity of this question because the people that ask me always have the best of intentions. Back when I first started playing, slightly over 4 years ago now, I remember I had won about 4000$ on partypoker prior to starting a summer program where I met a bunch of new people. My recent poker run came up after getting to know everyone better and a girl memorably stated, “Wow you’ve won $4,000 GAMBLING!! That’s amazing, STOP NOW before you lose it!!!” Sure enough I did lose it a few weeks later. She was kind, well intentioned, and in the end right…but still wrong.

So anyway, assuming stopping isn’t an option since we are doing this for a living, there are various strategies we can employ to cope with the negative end of our profession. Sbrugby, perhaps the most profitable online player of all time, makes it clear on his blog that what he does is thinks about his wonderful family, friends, house and retirement package and he always cheers up. My strategies are a bit easier to universalize since we don’t all have those things.

1) Remember that if happiness is the goal in the end, many rich people are miserable and poor people are happy, in the end money only is a piece of the puzzle and possibly a small piece.

2) Talk to ANYONE who doesn’t play poker about subjects other than poker. Trust me it helps.

3) When you’re ready to play again, be prepared to break the habit of losing. Play smaller, play fewer tables, do anything it takes to book a modest win

4) Forget the past. There’s a saying that if we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat it…forget that saying. There is a time and place for learning but to focus on the fallen glory of the past is to deny yourself a prosperous future. DON’T DO IT. Regrets are tough sheets to sleep on, especially when they stink. In poker there is only ONE direction to look. Owls would have no chance.

5) Get hungry and start thinking that all you want is a grilled cheese. You have 3 dollars in your pocket. Go to the diner and fulfill your goal.