Painless Poker

By Tommy Angelo

Are you still stewing over last week's bad beat? Does the game you love raise your blood pressure? Do you cost yourself money with tilted bets?

Painless Poker addresses these sources of poker pain and more. Tommy Angelo, esteemed author of Elements of Poker, reveals extreme pain from his own life and those of seven agitated players – and shows how to end that pain. Drawing on his 20 years as a professional poker player and elite coach, Angelo demonstrates effective strategies to make poker – and life – less painful.

In Painless Poker, you'll learn how to:

• Lessen the depth, time, and frequency of tilt
• Win the war of words at the poker table
• Reset yourself after any beat, however piercing
• Gain reciprocal advantage over your opponents
• Steadily improve any aspect of your game

With Angelo's trademark humor and insight, Painless Poker is as entertaining as it is informative. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tommy Angelo
• Release date: Mar 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9780996464819

Tommy Angelo

Once, during a poker discussion in Las Vegas, several top strategists were debating how to play pocket kings under the gun. Then Tommy Angelo popped in with “I can tell you the best way to play two kings. Decide in advance that no matter what happens, you won’t go on tilt!” Insights like that are what drove the popularity of Angelo’s first book, Elements of Poker, a tome highly regarded for its fresh and practical perspectives. Since he began offering coaching in 2004, over one hundred students have paid for his candid advice, wanting more of what they found in his 100 articles and 18 videos. In 2017, Angelo completed Painless Poker. “I have no words left,” he wrote to his mailing-list fans. "I put them all in here.” Painless Poker combines sections of Angelo’s own history with a fictional poker-coaching seminar featuring seven suffering poker players, in an innovative combination of memoir, fiction, and poker instruction. When at home in Oakland, California, Angelo writes, cooks, reads, and makes music, as part of what he calls his “urban monastic lifestyle.” He cohabits with two cats, and Kay, his wife. 

Book preview

1

Line-Half

My Longest Drive

Don’t even talk to me about how bad it hurts. One time it took me 22 hours to get home from St. Louis, which wouldn’t be exceptional except it only took me seven hours to get there, 420 miles, the day before, from Columbus, in my beloved 1986 Camry, my first-ever new car. It still looked great and ran great in 1995 when I was driving home from St. Louis, pulling over. I’d pull off to the side of the road, onto the shoulder, or the berm, or the breakdown lane, or whatever the hell you call the place you’d pull over to if you had to puke. Except I didn’t have to puke. Not physically anyway.

I knew I should have quit when Travis and Hammer busted out. I knew it I knew it I knew it. FUCK!

I’d pull off the highway and slow to a stop. I’d turn the car off. I’d lean the seat back. I’d squirm around, halfway sideways, trying to find a position that was comfortable enough to just close my eyes, and settle in, and…

FUCK ME!

How could I pay him off? Him! Of all people! Every dillfuck in Missouri knew he had me beat. I know what they’re saying about me.

My body had stopped, but the movie projector was still running:

I play so bad. How have I ever won at this fucked up game? One out he had. One fucking card! FUCK!

Oh boo hoo fucking hoo. You fucking crybaby. Where’s your heroic lone-wolf bullshit now?

Fuck you. I can beat those guys. Don’t you worry about me. When the cards break even, I’ll get mine. I just need to recover, that’s all. I just need to lie back here for a little bit and…

::: sleeping sounds :::

Have you ever woken up all sweaty stiff and exhausted in a hot car with your mind wailing in anguish? I have. It’s gross.

Twenty-two hours it took me to drive from St. Louis to Columbus. Twenty-two hours for a seven-hour drive. That’s 15 extra hours. I must have pulled over and conked out 20 times on that drive home. I didn’t understand what was going on with all the emergency roadside sleeping. In 1995 I didn’t know I’d been depressed on and off for years. It wasn’t like I was in agony when I would sleep, read in bed, watch a movie, sleep, sleep a bit more, pick up the book I was reading without getting out of bed and read it until I dozed off, then maybe wake up and grab the easiest thing to chew on in the kitchen such as two bowls of cereal and turn on the TV and sit on the couch and eat and smoke. I didn’t answer the phone or answer the door for a few days during those spells. Which led to a series of ex-girlfriends. One of whom told me I needed help, that I was depressed. I never thought anything of it. I was just living my life how it got lived, with occasional funks, and outbreaks of crazy energy and enthusiasm. Is that what they call mania? To me it was invincibleness. Like how I felt when I was driving down to St. Louis in the summer of ’95…

I’m going to crush those bozos! I shall fart in their general direction a third time. Here I come boys! Don’t start without me!! Man this car runs good. Making this trip in a covered wagon must have sucked bigtime. Led Zep. I want some Led Zep. I neeeeeeeed Led Zep. When the Levee Breaks. Fuck it I know it’s a long drive but I’m hitting the bowl now.

Whhhhhiiiiifffiittttttfhfhffhfhtttt…………….kHHHhhhhhhuuuuuu

I had two containers of cassette tapes on the passenger seat. One was a shoebox, full to the top. So many great jams in that box, but not the best ones. Those I kept in an attaché-case cassette holder, the kind with padded little slots for each of the chosen masterworks. I inherited it from a dead friend of my Dad’s. With one hand I lifted the lid and pulled out the prize. I put the tape in the slot in the dash. I turned the volume up loud. So loud that when I pushed the play button, the hissing of the leader tape let me know it was time to brace myself for…

BOO-boom BAP! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BAP!

T h e   g r e a t e s t   d r u m   i n t r o   e v e r!

BOO-boom BAP! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BAP!

Here it comes…

rrrhhRRREEEEAARRRREEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRrrr

God that harmonica sends me every time.

rrrhhRRREEEEAARRRREEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRrrr

I swear I could die right now of happiness.

rrrhhRRREEEEAARRRREEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRrrr

BOO-boom BAP! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BAP!

That sound.

rrrhhRRREEEEAARRRREEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRrrr

BOO-boom BAP! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BAP!

T  H  A  T    S  O  U  N  D  !

How did I decide to become a professional poker player? I’ve heard that question many times, from persons intrigued that there was such a thing. It’s a loaded question. The word decide carries the presumption of choice. But I didn’t choose poker. I played poker for a living because I was too hooked on it to do anything else. I had to win. I had to win enough to pay the bills. Or else I wouldn’t get enough poker.

I dreaded the thought of working a regular job. Not because I disliked work, or working for the man—I worked my ass off at a grocery store for seven years and loved it. And after that, when I played in a band for a living, I got just as excited about hauling the equipment as I did playing it. Yard work, no problem, all day. I can even write you some jingles if that’s what you need. I don’t mind working.

What I do mind is losing. If I had to get a job, it meant I couldn’t cut it at poker. It meant I’d lost the game.

Here’s a classic line I heard way back when from some crusty old grinder: I’ve seen ‘em come, and seen ‘em go. Mostly go.

NOT ME! I’m not going to be one of em. I ain’t going nowhere. No sir. Not me. I’M STAYING!

And then there’s this line from my first poker hero, Bailey Hall. Anytime someone said something like, Well boys, I’m outta here. It’s late and I have to get up early and go to work, Bailey would always say, No respectable gambler works.

And I’d laugh, because it was hysterical how he said it. But I also took it to heart. I heard those words, and they became my life mission. Why did I become a professional poker player? Maybe I did it so I could be respectable.

BOO-boom BAP! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BAP!

Crying won’t help you, praying won’t do you no good.

BOO-boom BAP! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BAP!

Crying won’t help you, praying won’t do you no good.

BOO-boom BAP! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BAP!

When the Levee breaks, mama you got to move. Ah-woo-oooo

When I was 17, I bought one of those octagonal poker tables with a vinyl top and wooden border, and a trough in front of each player to hold grungy money and spilled beer. Me and my poker buddies played poker on that table at least once a week for ten years. We played in my parents’ living room until I moved a mile away at age 19. After that, my place, wherever it was, was always a poker parlor.

In 1983, I was 25 years old and always wanting more poker. One day my mom handed me a copy of New Yorker Magazine, opened to a dog-eared page. I think you’ll like this article, she said. It’s about some big time poker players in Las Vegas.

Like it? You think I’ll like it? Gimme that!

The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez was loaded with facts and stories from the whole Brunson-Moss-et-al poker world, and the birth of the World Series of Poker, and about 1,000 of the coolest quotes that a young drooling player like me would read over and over, delighting, fantasizing.

That first dose of poker prose led to harder stuff. I bought a book. It was called Poker: A Guaranteed Income for Life by Frank Wallace.

Can you imagine what a title like that did to me in my condition?

In a mere 6.25 hours I will be there!

!poker!poker!poker!poker!poker!poker!poker!poker!poker!poker!

That’s me baby! Mr. Poker! I’m living the dream! I’m pulling it off! I don’t sell anything. I don’t produce anything. I offer no service and no entertainment. I have no employers or employees. Who else could say that? Bank robbers could. And stock traders. And gold prospectors. But seriously, am I the shit or what? And how is pride such a bad thing? Without pride, why would I be motivated to do stuff I’m proud of? Such as driving down to St. Louis and applying some of the old maximum extraction on these poor, poor pitiful grumps. Save my seat boys! I’m driving as fast as I can!

I was raised to dream small. Get an adequate job. Make adequate money. Party on the weekends. Rinse and repeat.

But when I read Wallace’s book, all of that changed. I took up residence in Dreamland, and I was dreaming the biggest dream of all. Absolute freedom. It could never happen to me of course, the life of endless poker without working. Of living within a few miles of a poker room with around-the-clock action.

To play poker. At a real casino. For significant money. Anytime.

It was the impossible dream, until I read more books. Books written by professional poker players. Even though I was playing low stakes and few hours, and even though all my opponents in Ohio were amateurs, I was learning how to play like a pro, and think like a pro, and keep records like a pro, and manage my bankroll like a pro.

The books taught me to think of my time at the table as if I was punching a clock and earning a wage. Excellent! I like steadiness. Even in the band, we paid ourselves a weekly salary. To be a poker pro, my wage-earning attitude did not need to change. Good. What else?

I had to rewire my brain to think in the language of EV and BB/H, that is, Expected Value and Big Bets Per Hour. That came easily for a gaming geek like me.

And then I had to learn how to grind. A grinder is someone who knows from experience that if you play the game right, you will often go an hour or two with no excitement. And that takes patience. A grinder has no problem with just sitting there, doing nothing.

The waiting is the hardest part.

Tom Petty sure got that right. It’s also the most vital part. To win, it was necessary to wait. And I’m still learning how.

In 1990, I left the band, got married, bought a house, and went on the grind. My hope was to make between $10-15 per hour, and play 40 to 50 hours per week.

It turns out that’s what I did, for several hundreds of weeks, with the occasional bump in the road…

FUCK! How can I be driving home broke FUCK! How does this happen FUCK! Just when I was finally getting some momentum going FUCK!

What a stupid fucking sign. What kind of assholes would make a sign like that. Why not just move the sign a mile and have it say 200 miles you stupid fucks. Nobody gives a rat’s fuck anyway.

My new life was poker five nights per week, Monday to Friday, in home games that started at 7pm and ran all night. During the week, I slept during the day. Then on the weekends I flipped my biological clock around because I had a wife, and a 10-year-old stepdaughter, and a house in the suburbs, and shit to do.

I’d get home from Friday night’s game at 7am Saturday morning while Toni and Lauren were still asleep, and slink into the basement and leave my clothes down there because they stunk so bad from smoke. Then I’d slip upstairs and into bed right about when they got out. After only a few hours sleep I’d drift around in a daze all day with my head plugged up with last night’s poker and ashes. Then crash hard Saturday night.

Sundays were reasonably energetic, and on Mondays I did domestic chores during the day while Toni and Lauren were at work and school.

They’d come home. We’d eat. And away I’d go, to play poker all night after being up all day. Tuesday morning at 7am I’d crawl into the kitchen from the garage, lights glaring. They’re all fragrant and perky. I’m gambled out and gritty.

Sleep until four. Get up. Do after-school stuff with Lauren. Do dinner with them both. Then out again, into the night. Repeat until weekend.

Does that sound grueling? And seamy? I never would have admitted this back then, but here’s how I felt: I thought of myself and my career as glamorous. Shh. Don’t tell.

My schedule guaranteed me five big and punctual highs per week. In my car at 6:30pm, with five hundred bucks in my pocket, heading out to play poker until sun-up. High on adventure. High on hope. High on fear. The buzz before the buzz. The science is in on this. It’s the best buzz of all. Those moments, juiced on anticipation, those really were the best of times.

What do you do for a living?

I am a professional poker player.

Before 2003, when I told people how I made money, reactions ranged from laughter, to disbelief, to worship.

Nowadays, the conversation goes like this:

What do you do?

I’m a writer.

What do you write about?

Poker.

An expression of curiosity invites me to continue. I played poker for a living for 15 years. Now I coach poker players and write about poker.

And then come the questions:

Have you been on TV?

Do you count cards?

My dog-sitter’s trainer plays poker.

Have you ever played against Phil whatshisname?

2003 is when the world discovered my universe. That’s when a small-stakes player won the Main Event at the WSOP. That’s when the invention of the hole-card camera transformed televised poker from the most boring thing on TV to the realest of reality shows. And that’s when anyone with a computer and a credit card could log on and play real poker, for real money, in the privacy of home, in just a matter of minutes.

Over the next three years, the number of poker players and poker websites rose by a factor of 1,000, as millions of well-pressed youngsters flooded into the game. Before poker found the internet, those people would not have found poker, a club for degenerates only.

When I talk about poker before the explosion, I am intentionally talking across generational lines, to the younger players who started during the poker boom or after. My clients keep reminding me what it’s like to be young and poker-crazed. And that to get good at this game requires years of immersion, and years more to find balance.

Games change, betting styles change, venues change, rules change. For all we know, Matt Savage will be president one day, and tournament buy-ins will be tax deductible. The one thing I have learned from coaching guys half my age is that while the game forever changes, the pain remains the same.

So sit with me, young friend, and let me tell you more about Poker Mountain, and my struggle to climb it. And about the most fucked up hand of my life.

When I showed up in Vegas to play poker in 1987, I was what they called a Hometown Champ. That’s someone who plays slightly better than the other morons in their Friday night home game, and now thinks he can hold his own against the toughest grinders in the world.

My first time was at the Stardust casino. I’d been playing poker for 15 years, and I had no clue what was going on. Everything was at lightning speed. All I remembered from that first trip was the chip riffling that everyone was doing, where they use one hand to shuffle two stacks of chips into one. That was the coolest thing I’d ever seen and I had to master it immediately.

Several years and books and Vegas trips and thousands of dollars later, I had developed somewhat of a clue. So I went pro, which back then was defined as quitting your job.

My lucky break was that my opponents in Columbus happened to be the worst poker players in the world, and all I had to do to generate a steady edge was play tighter than they did, which I had learned how to do from books and from watching the pros in Vegas. So right from the beginning, I was able to make enough to survive, playing in local $3/6 games.

Whenever I got a few grand together, I’d go to Vegas for another lesson. I played nothing but $6/12 for a couple trips, then I started taking shots at the big prize: The $20/40 limit hold’em game at The Mirage.

It’s like that line from the song New York, New York:

If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.

The jump from $6/12 to $20/40 was a huge leap in stakes, and in skill level. And a necessary leap, for poker success. If you could beat $20/40 limit hold’em handily, you had it made. And if you couldn’t, you became a dealer.

I had no shot at first, at $20/40. I was under-skilled, under-bankrolled, and appropriately afraid. But I was in Vegas and they were playing $20/40 one table over and I had enough to sit down so you’re goddamn right I did. With one rack of red chips. Five hundred bucks. I knew it was a sacrifice, but I could always get lucky, right?

I put out my first-ever $20 blind, and I was overcome by altitude sickness. The air was thinner at this elevation, or why else was it so hard to breathe? Everything was different. Like, way different. The talk. The tone. The pace. The non-reaction factor. The play. Yikes, the way they played. Without fear. There’s nothing scarier.

The predators in the $20/40 game at the Mirage chewed me up fast and spit me out like gristle. But only the first 10 sessions or so, spanning a year. Lots of pain, and also gain. Each time I went to Vegas, I lasted longer in the $20/40. They chewed me up slower now, like tenderloin, with some respect. And back to my Columbus grind I’d go, beaten and depressed and kicking myself, but not entirely unhappy.

Eventually I started stringing wins together, in Vegas, and Atlantic City, and yippee! I can live happily ever after now! Except of course for the inevitable pain. The soul-crushing, tilt-inducing pain, of losing money, pride, and hope.

On a typical day of mid-stakes poker, I won or lost somewhere in the $500 to $1,500 range. And to pay for things like buildings, floormen, cards, chips, and chairs, I paid about $100 per day to the casino in rake.

Those are big numbers, especially back then.

But my daily and monthly expenses were normal, as in, small. And this was the warpage of my world. Spending only tens of dollars per day, while wagering hundreds.

Dangerous? Nope. Risky? Not by my view. Was I living on the edge? Was I putting it all on the line? No and no. I was a professional poker player, and the business model required that I wager amounts of money that were obesely out of proportion to what I spent.

Can you see anything but pain in this formula?

This can’t be real. It didn’t happen. ::: sigh ::: damn ::: dammit ::: goddammit ::: ugh ::: GodDAMmit. God fucking damn it mother fucker

Poker experienced an earthquake in 1998 that totally reshaped Poker Mountain:

At a casino, the smallest you can play for is dollars, whereas on the internet, you can play for pennies. And if you’re better than your opponents at every level, you can win enough to play for nickels, then dimes, then quarters, dollars, tens of dollars, and so on until you rule the world. It’s a gradual ascent, on the internet side of poker mountain, but it’s deceptively treacherous. And on the other side, the live side, it’s all steep cliffs.

There’s no easy way up this mountain.

A   t w e n t y   t h o u s a n d   d o l l a r   p o t. Fuck me.

I can tell you the exact moment when I knew for sure I didn’t suck at poker. It was in 1992, at the Mirage. I was playing $20/40 limit hold’em. In the game were two middle-aged guys I recognized from previous trips. Very strong players. Two of the top pros in Vegas. So, here’s what happened. First, we were playing, and then, we weren’t. The game broke up, with me still in it, and that could mean only one thing: the two biggest sharks in town did not see me as prey.

Just look at me. Two days ago I was laying some kind of proud shit on my cousin Anthony about how I’m a lone wolf and I don’t need anything from anyone because I can always survive from poker and braggadocious bullshit about I either swim alone or sink alone. What a bunch of crap. Do poker players float? Apparently not because I’m fucking sunk.

I quit poker in 1993. I went eight months without playing a hand. Before that, I don’t think I’d ever gone eight days. What happened was, I ran really bad, then got really scared, so I got a job, sort of. I was in sales. Financial services. I learned a ton about how money works. And I admired my teachers. As to making money, that didn’t go so well. In eight months I made only $2,500.

On a Thursday, my buddy Nick called. They’re having a Vegas Night Charity Game at a church in Gahanna this weekend, he said. Mikey said they’re going to have a $10/20 game. Dahmer and Beefball are coming. I don’t think you want to miss this.

Power surge.

Did I mention yet that Columbus was home to a frantic flock of batwits? And that the highest-stake game in our circuit so far was $5/10? And that $10/20 is twice as high as that?

Put me in coach! I’m ready to play!

Well, not quite. There was the funding issue. Toni and I had a talk:

ME: I have to go play.

TONI: With what?

ME: I’ll get a $1,000 cash advance on the credit card.

TONI: (Translation: I hate it, but do it.)

I played 40 hours straight, from Friday night to Sunday morning. It was indeed a charity game in that it was populated by charitable players. I won $2,500. A colossal win. I came home to my bright kitchen at noon, on a cloud. Toni was waiting. I fanned out a two-handed array of dirty bills of all denominations. I drizzled them slowly onto the counter, leaving a messy pile.

This is what thirty-five hundred looks like, I said.

Toni bumped me aside and started sorting the bills.

Honey, I said. I think I should go back to playing poker.

Silence.

And that was that. My course was corrected.

You gotta be shitting me. I’ve only gone 20 miles?

YAAAAAAWWWwwwwnn

Ugh.

This sucks. I can’t be tired already, can I?

IT DIDN’T REALLY HAPPEN!

IT. CAN. NOT. HAVE. HAPPENED!

AARRRRGGggghhhhhh…

Fuck it, I’m pulling over.

The S.S. Admiral is an old steamboat on the Mississippi River. It was converted into a casino and moored in St. Louis, slightly upstream from the Gateway Arch. The poker room was downstairs, away from the pit games and slots. They had some low-stakes poker games, and two mid-stakes games, the games I came to play: A $20/40 limit hold’em game that ran everyday at noon, and a pot-limit hold’em game on Wednesdays and Fridays at 7pm.

Heedlessness. That’s what casinos provide, and profit from. Play as long as you want, for as much as you want, and while you’re at it, drink for free!

But the Admiral didn’t do it like that. They had two rules that worked liked a governor on an engine.

The main restriction on defilement was that you were not allowed to lose more than $500 every two hours. This applied to pit games—craps, blackjack, and slots—and also to the poker room. The way the law was explained to me was that the boat had to prove that it was a boat, by floating around. During each two-hour tour, you could not buy more than $500 in chips. If you lost your $500 and you wanted to keep gambling, you had to wait until the next tour.

This rule would normally make mid-stakes games impossible. You can’t just have someone sit down at a poker game and put $500 on the table and lose it all and then have the casino say, We are sorry to inform you, Mr. Loser, that you are not allowed to keep playing, even though you have a pocket full of cash. If you would like to try to win back what you’ve lost, come back in an hour, when the next tour starts, and put your name at the bottom of the waiting list.

You just can’t do that. It goes against the basic right of all poker players to commit suicide nightly.

I can’t believe I slept for a fucking hour. I’m not even tired. What if I didn’t wake up. What if I happened to run into a phone pole. Look at them going by. It’d be so easy. One little turn of the wheel and BAM! Game over. I’ve had this car up to 110. What if I sped up to 110 and plowed into a pole.

But the players on the Admiral found a way around the $500 rule. Let’s say Joe plays in the pot-limit game on Wednesday. He buys in for $500, and he wins $2,500. So when he cashes out, he’s got $3,000 in chips. Instead of trading them in for $3,000 in cash, he colors up, to six $500 chips. Then he pockets the chips, and brings them back on Friday, when he can put as many of them on the table as he wants, or sell them to those in need.

Conveniently, the bathrooms had no cameras, meaning players could sell chips to each other in there, undetected by the authorities. During the game it was common to see two guys give each other the eye and scamper off to the bathroom.

The other buzz-kill rule on the Admiral could not be worked around. On weekends, the casino was open all night, but on weekdays, at 4am, it was All ashore! That’s right, folks. It’s closing time.

The good news is that at 3am the poker action heats up because stuck players gamble faster, trying to get lucky and get even. It’s poker’s equivalent of football’s Hail Mary pass. Put a few desperate players throwing long balls in the same game, and you’ve got yourself an action table, brought to you by the tick-tick-tocking of time running out.

Departed Columbus on Tuesday at 2. Arrived St. Louis at 9. Checked into my hotel. I was on the Admiral for the 10pm tour and at 10:15, I’d done it. I was where I was meant to be, playing $20/40, mucking hands, with a black coffee on the way.

Played for 5 hours. Broke even. At 4am, they cattled us off the boat. I left a wake-up call for 5pm, and watched TV and smoked cigarettes until I fell asleep. Wednesday 6pm I was back in the poker room, ordering food, trying to conceal my shivers of anticipation. It was the big show coming up. The pot-limit game.

This is ridiculous. I gotta get some miles behind me. I have to… to… Shit! SHIT!!! WHERE’D IT GO? Oh, whew, got it. And now there’s one more black burn mark on my once-luxuriant floor mat.

::: sigh :::

I’m going to quit. Tomorrow.

Cigarettes suck. That’s all there is to it. The hassle, of carrying them, buying them, even smoking them. And the worrying. I might run out! Do I have a light? And the stench. Sticks to everything, my clothes, the inside of my car. Yuck. And the hacking. HACKITTY GACK. And the cost. Ouch. Cigarettes are like the rake at poker, but without the poker, and with plenty of mucoid lung phlegm. And the littering. And the badge of weakness. And the blight of bleakness: I am killing myself. And I know it. And I know it’s a trap. And I know that few escape.

I dealt some poker in the basement games in Ohio. Did you know that when smoke comes off the lit end of a cigarette, it seeks out poker dealers and invades their skulls through any and every opening? It’s stifling, suffocating. But that wasn’t the worst. The worst was the toxic gray clouds billowing from charred lungs. So thick and foul I could barely breathe, I’m talking gasping. But eventually I’d get to take a break, thank goodness, and I’d rush outside, and have a smoke.

There was this guy in the Columbus circuit named Oxygen Tom. He was an older fellow who carried an oxygen tank with him everywhere because he had emphysema from smoking. He’d sit there and play good and peaceful poker. I really liked his game. And him. I often thought about Tom and his affliction, like The Ghost of Christmas Future, from Dickens. He was me, down the road, playing poker, nozzled up to a tank, acting like everything is fine. Except there was that tank.

Man I’m starving. I’m pulling over next time I see one of those GAS-FOOD signs. Gas food? Is that beans? I know what I’m getting. McDonalds. McDonalds breakfast. Ahhh. McDonalds bacon egg and cheese orgasm. And a EggaMuffin. I’m gonna get me two bacon egg and cheese, an Egg McMuffin, and maybe I’ll get a … This is going to be good… So good… McDonalds breakfast… Mickey Deez, Mickey Deez… special sauce and a sesame… McDonlzz… zzz… HUP! SHIT! That was close, whew. C’MON WAKE UP! I don’t want to. I’m not that hungry anyway. Maybe I’ll just pull off to the side here. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Rest my eyes a bit…

I drove to St. Louis three times in July 1995. The first trip, I left home with $3,000 and I came back with $5,000. The second trip, I took $5,000 and came back with $9,000. The third trip, I drove down there with nine thousand dollars cash, and came back with a story.

I needed all $9,000 with me on that third trip because I was waging war and my weapon was money. The more I had, the stronger I was, especially in the pot-limit game, where having only one thousand on the table when the donators have several thousand is like throwing money away.

Sounds brave, doesn’t it? All that warrior talk? Ha! I took the whole nine grand with me on that third trip because my ego had something to say to those people in St. Louis, and to the whole poker world for that matter, and it could not be spoken, only shown: Hey guys, look at me, I did it. I have a very thick wad of hundred dollar bills in my pocket, just like you. All mine. Did you ever know that I’m my hero?

A side benefit of taking all $9,000 with me was so that I could severely injure myself should the opportunity arise. It was normal for me to risk too much. But not in a dignified, fearless way. More like a decrepit, junkie way. As a pain junkie, I got what I needed from the naturally occurring ups and downs of poker. As a risk junkie, that wasn’t enough. Winning and losing predictable amounts of money was not risky. It was the opposite of risky. Risky would be to put all the money you have on the table in a game where you could lose it all in one pot. That’s risky. Even if the risk is slight of that actually happening, it’s there. It’s possible. It could happen. And that’s enough to give the risk junkie a buzz like nobody’s business. So everybody wins, except the carcass in the car…

uuuuuggh…wha? where…? … why is the…?

fuck

Ouch! God I’m sore. God I’m hungry. I have to start drinking more water. For real. And quit smoking. When I get home I’m starting over. I mean everything. No shit. I have to. I just have to. I always say that but seriously, this time, I really mean it.

Wednesday evening on the Admiral, closing in on seven o’clock. The recreational players have had their dinner. The professionals just finished breakfast. Players are locking up seats for the pot-limit game, saying their howdies, talking sports and weather, going to the bathroom in pairs.

The guy in seat one, Hank, he totally overrated himself. Plus he had all these stupid sayings, and those oversized tinted glasses, and that bullhorn voice, and that toothpick he was always gnawing on. I will give him credit for one thing. He sure knew how to rib me. I think he knew that my poker skills made me the rightful owner of his money, and that pissed him off, which made me happy, which pissed him off even more. So he tried real hard to piss me off, and he got pretty good at it.

The blinds were $5-5, and the minimum buy-in was $300. Everyone bought in for somewhere between $500 and $2,000, except for Elvis in seat nine who always bought in for $300. Elvis was one of these sharp-dressed Stetson-wearing big-tipper types, and a terrible player. Last week he plowed through three thousand, three hundred at a time. It’s how he protects himself from himself, with small buy-ins. He likes to go crazy in a pot, and this way he doesn’t get hurt too bad, so he can afford to go crazy more often. Everybody has their own ways of getting away with going crazy.

Finally! Another gas-food sign. I’m fucking starving. And low on gas. And must pee. There’s a BP. Gotta go bad now bad now bad now. Where is it? Where’s the restroom? Is it inside or outside, inside or out? Is that a door? Yes. I’ll just pull up to the restroom and … fucking don’t tell me… is that a sign on the door?

:::sigh:::

Jesus Christ look at this line. C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon. FUCK!

:::sigh:::

Fucking Quinn. Jesus fuck.

:::sigh:::

C’MON PEOPLE! HURRY THE FUCK UP!

On my first trip to St. Louis, with $3,000 in my pocket, I bought into the pot-limit game for $1,000, planning to rebuy $1,000 twice more if needed. I never needed. On the second trip, armed with $5,000, I was more bigtime. I bought in for $2,000 to start the game, planning to rebuy $1,500 twice more if needed. I never needed. On this trip, with $5,000 cash plus $4,000 in chips in my pocket, I was feeling very much like The Man, and I bought in for $2,000, planning to never rebuy again in any game ever.

So much for that idea. Right off the bat I lost two big pots, $500 each. The first one I played it great but it looked like I played it bad. Then I paid Hank off for $300 on the river after I flopped a gutshot with A-Q and made the nut straight on the turn. Hank picked up a backdoor flush draw and on the river, he beat me with a club.

Tough hand, kid, he said through his toothpick. It happens to the best of us. It happens to me, and I’m the best of us. He chortle-­snorted. I wanted to kneel on his neck and drip molten lead in his ear.

On the very next hand, Hank made a hopeless call and gave my money to the least likely player to give it back, Quinn.

I was stuck a grand already, a major downswing given the slow pace of the game in the early going. But I felt good. I had enough money.

I tightened up and hunkered down and waited. Teet-te-dee Teet-te-dee. Next came more waiting. Ho-hum, tiddley dum. Shuffling chips. Examining the mysterious little gross dark blobs that accumulate on poker chips. What is that stuff? Skin paste? Meanwhile, the game was lubing up. More sucking out happened, more big pots, more rebuying. Stacks and feelings rose and fell. It was a fun game to watch.

I saw an occasional futureless flop, and my arsenal slowly shrank from $1,000 down to $800. Then came this pot versus Hank. He was stuck $3,000 already, with $1,000 on the table. I flopped huge and he jammed a draw and got there. On the river, he bet out, and I paused. Then I paid him off, again.

Think long, think wrong, Hank said, taking his sweet time stacking my chips. Grrrrrrrrrr.

I put all four of my remaining $500 chips on the table.

I just need some food, that’s all. Almost there. I can see Micky Deez, coming right up. Looks like no line at the drive-through. Okay, almost there.

Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?

Yes indeedy you may.

I went card dead for an hour. At live poker, that’s about thirty hands. Online, a multi-tabler can play 1,000 hands per hour. So for them, getting 30 dreck starting hands in a row at one table goes unnoticed.

But at live poker, with two minutes of dead time between preflop folds, if you’re losing, and you go card dead, that’s the ultimate test in patience, to keep folding when you should. And I was acing the test.

And here comes a small pocket pair, and finally I flop a set, and my two grand vanished. Except that I knew right where it was. It was in the pocket of some dickwad who got lucky as hell on me and went running for the door.

So now I was stuck $4,000.

I gave Quinn the bathroom eye and he gave me the affirmative nod and two minutes later I was in the porcelain temple, trading 30 pieces of paper for 6 pieces of clay.

Back at the game, I put all six $500 chips on the table, and color changed.

Waiting. Waiting for a good hand. Waiting waiting waiting. Nothing nothing nothing. Steal a pot. Wait some more. Snag another. Wait some more. Get out of line and get nailed for a few hundred, and back into my shell I crawl. There’s plenty of gamble in this game. No hurry.

Finally, I get a big hand, and flop a big draw, and pull the trigger, and get action. And miss. My stack dips to $1,500. Hanging in there. Hanging in there. I get pocket kings under the gun. The oily haired drunk guy two to my left had been raising a lot before the flop, so I just limped for $5, in ambush. They called him Hammer, short for Hammer Down, to describe his approach to drinking.

On this hand—with me in the bushes with pocket kings—Hammer clipped the straw sticking out of his drink and knocked it over, and in a panic he folded before the flop without even looking at his cards.

Shit! Bad beat. But oh well.

And then Quinn limped behind me.

Uh oh.

In this game, Quinn was my teacher. I’d guess he was thirty-five. He was fit, and funny, and I never once saw him complain. And as best I could tell, he played a perfect game of poker.

Most places I played had one or two guys like Quinn. Guys who schooled me. I picked up betting-strategy tips, and lessons in comportment, just by being at their table. Everybody else in this game was just people I was trying to get money from. Except Quinn. No way did I want to tangle with him. Especially when we both had big stacks. And me looking at pocket kings, such a classically tragic hand. That’s what I meant by uh oh.

So, I limped for $5, Quinn called on the button, and then Elvis raised it to $30 from the small blind. Elvis would not mess around in that spot. He had a good hand. The big blind folded and I made it $100, and everyone knew I would not do that without a premium hand. And now Quinn made it $300.

Where the hell did that come from?

Let’s see the river, boys! Elvis said. He pushed his hat back and called his last $200.

I should have stopped and thought. But instead I brainlessly raised it to $700, and Quinn said all-in, and I called my last $800, and Quinn turned over pocket aces—duh—and they held up, and in the bathroom Quinn gave me sympathy that I didn’t need or want because I’m a pro, right? I knew better, right? I’m supposed to be able to figure it out and muck those kings when Quinn made it $300, right? It doesn’t matter that I’d never mucked kings before. This was the time to do it, and I didn’t.

I only had two grand left from my initial nine. I bought four $500 chips from Quinn and went back to the game. I splashed my face and leaned my hands on the sink, staring into a Picasso portrait of myself. I’d noticed the broken mirror before, but never really looked at it until now. It made me look just how I felt. Broken up.

I rebought for one chip. Just $500. The other three chips I kept in my pocket. I rebought small because I very much needed to shh, slow things down. But no. I lost the whole $500 immediately when I got a free play on my big blind, and flopped huge, but someone else flopped huger. I could hear Doyle himself telling me to never go broke in an unraised pot.

You know what, Doyle? I appreciate the help and all. Really, I do. But this is not the right time to be scolding me.

I pulled out my last three $500 chips and put them on the table. I was going down. They knew it. I knew it.

I’ll have one Bacon egg’n’cheese, one Egg McMuffin, and, uh, make that two Bacon egg’n’cheese.

And one Egg McMuffin?

Yes please.

Anything else?"

And a large coffee.

Is that all?

Yeah. I mean, no. Better give me a vanilla milkshake. Small.

It’s 7 in the morning. You can’t get a milkshake yet.

Right, okay, give me one of those yogurt parfait thingies. Those are really small, right? Better give me three of those.

Two bacon egg and cheese, one Egg McMuffin, one large coffee, and three parfaits. That’ll be…

… the day, when you say good-bye-eye. That’ll be the day, when you make me cry-eye. You say you hit your one out, and I say oh why, ‘cause, that’ll be the dayayay, that I die, and cry, and fry, and FUCK!!!! I’m done. It’s done. I’m over done. I’m done over. I’m … ::: sigh ::: … FUCK! … it’s … ::: sigh ::: … unbearable, unbelievable, unbelievably unbeara… ah, the food, ah, yes, take the money quickly please, ah, yes, hand the food to me through the hole in my cocoon, ah yes, be careful with that, my crinkly sack of pleasure…

The gamble demon is a frenetic spirit arising from a sudden and unquenchable craving for more money in motion now. Faster action. Higher stakes. More gamble. And behold, the demon bore a child. We call it: The Straddle.

All straddles are the same in this way: Before the dealer deals the cards, one player voluntarily posts an extra blind that is double the amount of the big blind, thereby raising the stakes significantly for that hand.

The key word here is voluntary. Most pots are not straddled. But sometimes every pot is straddled, by player agreement, such as what happened at midnight, when Hammer put ten bucks out and said, Who’s up for taking it up? Mandatory straddles anyone?

The demon slipped through that slit and dashed from mind to mind, building a quick consensus. The chorus sang out, Let’s do it! and Kazzang! What began at 7pm as a tame $5-5 game turned into a late night $5-$5-$10 brawl.

Lock the doors! Hank said. And the demon’s work was done.

The higher stakes put my final $1,500 at greater risk. Which would normally make the risk junkie happy, except this was too much risk. And too soon. It was all wrong. An overdose. No longer titillatingly treacherous. More like totally terrifying.

I raised before the flop with pocket nines and got called by this loopy fossil named Travis. Maybe it was the bushy white hair and paisley vest, maybe it was being on a Mississippi Riverboat, but when Travis was in the game, I fancied myself playing poker with Mark Twain.

The flop came 8-7-6 with two clubs. I had an overpair and a straight draw. I bet $100. Travis raised it to $400. I already knew what I would do if he did that. I shoved all-in. And he already knew what he would do if I did that. He called quick and showed his hand, the ace-five of clubs, giving him a straight-draw flush-draw.

And there I was, my life riding on a coin toss.

My pair held up. And of course Hank had to comment. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and again, he said, for probably the millionth time, like he was yelling to someone outside.

The higher stakes also meant that if the cards were kind, a huge comeback was possible. And that’s what happened. After I won that pot from Travis, my stack stood at $3,000. Next I won a series of middle-sized pots with a satisfying combo of good cards and good betting. I was up to $4,000 and feeling some relief, and solidity.

Got me a little cushion now, whew. And some muscle. Still stuck a ton but feeling okay. The fruit’s hanging low and there’s nowhere to go. Just playing. Just waiting. You’ve done it before, been out of the groove, and got back in it. The opportunities will come. To get the money in good. Wait. Wait for them. No need to zig and zag. Steady now.

Three hours later my stack was up to $6,000. I was still stuck $3,000 for the night, which sucked, but I had survived a near-death experience and made a miraculous recovery, so I was ecstatic about that, and I felt great about being on my best game, despite being stuck bad.

One hour to closing time, Travis and Hammer got busted by Quinn and Hank respectively. We were down to seven players. Quinn had a big win going, even for him, about ten grand. The other solid regulars were up a grand or two each. And Elvis was still in the building. He had $400 on the table and he was stuck about two thousand.

The main action source was Hank. He had $4,000 on the table, and he was stuck $4,000 for the night. He was edgy, seeing lots of flops, hoping to get lucky and win a Hail Mary pot to get even before All ashore!

I had the same hopes when I called with 54 offsuit from the big blind after Elvis limped for $10 and Hank made it $50 on the button. Plus I knew how bad Hank wanted to win a big pot off me, so it seemed sporting to give him a chance. Elvis called Hank’s raise too, and three of us went to the flop.

For all you poker players who have not played with a dealer button before, here’s what it is. The button is a disc, like a hockey puck, but thinner, and white, with the word Dealer on it. It’s a travelling marker that moves one seat to the left at the start of each hand. The player with the button acts last on every betting round that hand, and that’s why everyone likes to have the button, because acting last is a big advantage.

Back to the hand at hand. I had 54, and Hank, as it turned out, had pocket aces. The flop came 9-3-2 rainbow, giving me an open-ender. I needed a six or an ace for the nuts. I checked, Elvis checked, and Hank bet $150. I called, Elvis folded, and the turn card came—ba-da-bingo—an ace.

I checked, he bet, I raised, he reraised, and we were all-in. When the river didn’t pair the board, I nearly seized from rapture. It was the biggest pot I had ever played, and it was all mine boys. Eight thousand dollars. That pot put me ahead $1,000 for the night.

And, I spanked Hank. When he saw my straight he chomped his toothpick in two and threw it at the floor. No fond farewells. Not even a stupid saying for the road. He just stomped up the stairs and out. I resisted the urge to say, Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. It’s easy to be kind to a vanquished foe while you’re stacking his chips.

One of