CARDRUNNERS

I know that if I stay in this town long enough, I will inevitably go insane.  It's just the way Las Vegas is - it is a town meant for visiting, not for living.  A town meant for gambling and entertainment - but most certainly not for employment :)

And yet, there is always something so damn exhilarating about finally getting here.  It may sound silly, but I intentionally try to book night time flights to Vegas because I love that unique descent into flashing lights.  If you haven't experienced this ride, you must.  Las Vegas is in the middle of nowhere, truly.  You see nothing but pitch black darkness for a full sixty minutes before approaching Vegas.  And then all of a sudden, your plane banks to the left, and lights sprawling further than any eye can see emerge beneath you.  It's a city that shouldn't exist.  There are natural causes for why this town should have been populated, and yet it has.  There's just something special about Vegas.

More to the point, I know I love Vegas because I'm losing right now.  I am running awful, having horrible luck, losing gigantic pots as 95% favorites, and yet I'm happy.  I'm happy to be around my friends, getting caught up in the hoopla of the World Series of Poker.  After my third horrendous day of the trip, I walked back to my room, somewhat sulking and feeling a little sorry for myself.  And then I realized that I'm staying at the Encore, the nicest hotel in Vegas, and possibly a top 5 hotel in America.  My room is gorgeous - hell my hotel room is larger than my apartment in Chicago.  And I'm complaining?  What right do I have to feel sorry for myself when my days consist of playing a game that I love, living luxuriously, and staying young with my friends.  It's so silly to get caught up in losses or the craziness of it all.  In a world of tough times, I have to appreciate when things are truly good.

The first time I ever came out to Vegas, I had turned 21 just 3 weeks before.  I stayed at Treasure Island, and was in awe of the Wynn.  My parents took me see Avenue Q at the Wynn - I was intimidated by the hotel.  The nicest place in Vegas...gorgeous surroundings, perfectly polished floors...would I ever be able to stay there?  Would I ever be able to roam the halls with such successful people?  And now that I do, and now that the Wynn/Encore are just a routine, it's so easy to forget about earlier thoughts.  I believe that success is extraordinaly important for my life.  But I also believe that it can be extremely dangerous, when we lose sight of our definitions of success.

I don't know if my life is a success, just yet.  But I do know that it's genuinely amazing.

Love,
Ezra Moses

Okay, I admit it - my game is rusty.  I didn't play poker for about two weeks, because my attention was fixed elsewhere.  It's kind of startling to me how easily I'm able to forget about poker when there are opportunities or people that appeal to me far more than sitting behind a computer :)  On the surface, this shouldn't really be surprising.  But when I'm alone, I spend the bulk of my free moments playing or thinking about poker.  So the fact that I'm just as easily able to drop it, makes my wonder why I emphasize it so much during my free time.  I don't know the answer...it might simply the money, it might be desire to improve and get better.  And it might just be that poker is how I react to free time.  I know so many people that spend their free time lounging on the couch watching TV - I'd rather spend that same time earning money and challenging my mind.

So why do I say I'm rusty?  Well, after 2+ weeks off the game, I auto-dropped 10 buyins attempting to make a return.  It was actually kind of startling how poor I felt about my game.  Now admittedly, I ran pretty atrociously, but my reads were off and my timing was horrendous.  So last night, after Shabbat, I decided to get my head on straight, drop down in stakes and play until I'd found my groove again.  I promised myself nothing above $600 NL (and obv I was multi-tabling $5000NL a few hours later) but whatever.  As expected, I dropped about $4k playing 6 tables of $400 and $600NL which was annoying.  But I hunkered down, continued to grind, and clawed my way to back to the green. 

Around this time, I noticed that a huge fish from the mid-stakes games was clearly tilted and deciding to kamikazee his way to riches or bust at the $5000NL tables.  I'd told myself nothing above $600NL, but couldn't pass up open seats directly to his left, so I short-bought for $1,500 on the tables, and just tried to play super tight.  I got some cards, made a few thousand at the higher stakes tables, and continued to win in other games ultimately booking a ~$5k win.  It was really gratifying to pound through a few thousand hands and to feel like my game was starting to feel sharp again.  It's something that I haven't done in a long time, and I always enjoy a challenge like this.

To anyone who's not in the poker world, it might sound insane that after a mere two weeks, I'm talking about my game being rusty.  But that's just the way it is...the players online are so good and so tough these days, that if you're not playing every single day, you're at a disadvantage.  The games and reactionary tendencies of opponents are actually changing every week, if not every day.  It's kind of startling, but online poker is cutthroat.  That doesn't mean it's not beatable for someone looking to work hard - it most certainly is.  But with so many talented young people in the game, I don't think you can win in mid-stakes games without spending at least 5-10 hours/week thinking about, analyzing, and breaking down your hands.

So....on to my 2009 WSOP goals.  I will be out in Vegas for only about three weeks, and won't be able to play many events.  I figure I'll focus on the cash game action and try to make a run in some of the juicer 10/25 and 25/50 games.

Goals:

1. Don't go insane in Las Vegas like I have the past two years.

2. Successfully figure out how to wire money to the Bellagio.

3. Concentrate when playing WSOP events.  They may be all day patience festivals, and I need to work on staying calm.  I always try to play too many hands, and outplay people.  I never give anyone credit in WSOP tournaments.  This is why I always run up stacks at the beginning, only to incerinate them in epic fashion.  FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS.  PATIENCE PATIENCE PATIENCE.  Care about your money - these tournaments have huge payouts - often over $500k for first.  Why don't you care more?!

4. Win $50,000 in cash games - between online and live in the 3 weeks I'm out there.

5. Work on improving my live poker game - talking more at the tables, trying to manipulate opponents with my speech.

6. Have fun, make new friends, and uphold my dignity.  Las Vegas is a foolish place, and I'd like to think I can carve out my own niche of tranquility in an otherwise pulse throbbing city.

Anyone have any good suggestions for goals?

Holla,
Ezra Moses

PS - thanks for all the comments on last blog post.  Interesting that dividing by zero almost goes unnoticed.

Thoughts?  Source is the book Zero by Charles Seife

Let a and b both be equal to 1.  Since a and b are equal:
 

b² = ab

Because a equals itself:

a² = a²

Subtract equation 1 from equation 2:

a² - b² = a² - ab

Factor both sides of the equation:

(a + b)(a – b) = a(a – b)

Divide both sides of the equation by (a – b)

a + b = a

Subtract a from both sides and we get:

b = 0

But we set b to 1 at the beginning, so:

1 = 0

I basically took two weeks off poker to spend time with with my family for the Passover holiday and then with my girlfriend.  I guess it must've done some good to take a poker break, because I'm having one of my best weeks ever (it's actually only been 4 days) booking a little over $20k in wins.  I won a ton of coinflips, and was the beneficiary of getting some mediocre setup hands versus bad players (good players might've lose 25% of their stack - these bad players lost 100%).  Feels pretty good, especially because it was all at $5/$10.  So yay for poker.  Hopefully I won't lose it all :) 

So I had a reservation to Cancun on May 4th, but I've effectively cancelled it due to swine flu fears.  When I write "effectively," I mean that I've cancelled the hotel, but the airline refuses to take anyone's calls.  I wish I were joking, because it sounds absurd, right?  I understand that there's mass hysteria and they're likely understaffed, but it's not even like anyone can get into the holding system.  When you call the number, they just start giving you weirdo error messages.  The airline is AIR MEXICANA, and I would recommend against flying them in the future.  I'm sure they're all nice people, but they've been extraodinarily unhelpful via live chat and e-mail, and no one can get through on the phone to them.  I even talked to the Orbitz Vacation Reps last night, who was helpful but couldn't get through to Air Mexicana either.  I decided to take a flier, and ask if he'd actually gotten through to them at all that day.  There was this awkward pause after which he responded "actually sir, no one has been able to get through to them since we started our shift at 4pm."  The time I was talking to him? 12:30am - 8.5 hours.  How can I cancel my flight if I can't get through to them.  If I get charged the flight because the line is too busy, I will demand a charge back on my credit card.  No idea if that will actually work.  Any thoughts?  I know I'm being whiny, but it's the principle of the thing.

Anyways, I've decided to re-book and hang out in Myrtle Beach instead.  We'll be staying at the Anderson Ocean Club which is supposed to be one of the best resorts in the area.  I honestly have no idea if Myrtle Beach is fun for young people, but I guess we'll find out :) If you're a CardRunners member and want to hang out, just drop a comment and I'll try to get in touch with you via PM.  Also, if anyone's been to Myrtle and has some recommendations, that'd be hot.

Okay, that's all for now.  I'm gonna finish up my work at the office and then head home to finish packing up my apartment.  I will miss you Chicago :(

Ezra

Mark my words.

I.  will.  make.  this.  blog.  great.  again.

I've had so many interesting stories over the past two months that I couldn't mention because of my HPSML series.  Oh wells.  It's not the end of the world for some stories to remain hidden forever.

Right now I'm lying in my bed about to zonk out.  It was a long day - my first day back in the CardRunners office after a three week hiatus.  It is weird that I am leaving.  Oh so very, very weird.

I basically hadn't played poker in two weeks, because I'd been spending time non-stop with my girlfriend.  Time with her is so much better.  Over the past two nights I've played about 2,000 hands and won five figures.  Life is weird.  The world is in a "financial meltdown" yet in pokerville, it keeps growing on trees.  The money still doesn't make me happy --  I keep expecting that to change.  To be fair, winning gives me some satisfaction.  But I think I'm going to try playing higher stakes.  to really challenge myself.  

I have a trip booked for May 4th to Cancun.  But now the world fears pigs.  I always knew the Jews were right.  And they laugh at me for going to Yeshiva.  When Shrimp Scampi Flu breaks out, all doubt will fall to the wayside.  But would you go south?  Is there actually real danger?  Or is it all, as my Mexican customer service rep said: simply "mass hysteria."

I wish you a good night.  And with a promise to blog once more.

Ezra Moses

Graduating college was one of the toughest days of my life.  Unlike so many of my peers who dreamed of adulthood and its associated freedoms, I simply wanted to remain a kid.  It’s not that I’m not mature – I am.  Nor irresponsibility, laziness, the works – it’s just that I love being young.  I loved being in college.  I loved being in an atmosphere of unbridled potential, in an atmosphere where all students are hopeful.  Excited for the future, and excited for possibility.  To me, college represented potential.  It  was tens of thousands of energy particles crashing into each other, debating each other, looking to each for inspiration.  As I sat in my room after my graduation ceremony, I cried for 10 minutes.  I had no control over it.  My four years of undergraduate college were unequivocally over.  There were no second chances, there was no extension.  I cried because I had to force it behind me, and pretend to enjoy a fundamentally different lifestyle.

That said, it soon became clear that I had overreacted somewhat.  I didn’t have to prepare for a job, and I didn’t have to wake up at 7am.  I was officially a poker player.  I never called myself a “professional,” because I never felt like my skills were worthy of that status.  If people asked, I’d say I was taking some time off and playing cards “semi-professionally.”  With so much of the game being a mental experiment, being able to relieve pressure in any way is vital – this was one of my outlets – not taking myself too seriously.

After college came the World Series of Poker, after which I began travelling to a number of circuit events: Foxwoods, Aruba, Niagra Falls, Carribean Adventure in the Bahamas to name a few.  My regular travel buddies were Emil Patel (whitelime), Justin Bonomo (zeejustin), Dani Stern (ansky), and a few other associated friends.  This was late 2006 and early 2007 when poker was still golden – I was dabbling in games up to $10/$25 NLHE and winning at a decent clip.  I don’t think that I ever went on a huge tear, but I was making more than enough to live comfortably.  I played a number of tourneys on my trips, and sold off action here and there to reduce variance.  Life was good and I was loving it.

But as the months wore on, the allure of being a professional poker player began to wear off.  The swings were epic.  And the pressure seemed to crescendo into horrible nights that would negate weeks worth of hard fought earnings.  I was much weaker then.  I didn’t have the mental fortitude that I do now.  These days, I can lose $10,000 in a night, and barely be affected – it’s just money, I have plenty, and I am 100% certain that I will make it back.  But that wasn’t always the case.  I remember the first night I lost $1,000 – I didn’t sleep.  And the first night I lost $3,500 – running out of my apartment looking up at the sky and questioning what I’d just done.  Were these overreactions?  Absolutely.  After all, how did I have the money to lose it?  Yes, that’s right, I’d won many multiples more playing.  But my vision of the world, poker, and money was far more vacuous in those years.  To lose money playing poker was almost sinful – think of all the good it could’ve been put towards.

That was a beautiful way to see the world – and anytime I tell my mother or my girlfriend my losses (which is why I don’t do it anymore), I can see the same thoughts going through their heads: think of what you could’ve done with that money!  But as a professional, or (semi-professional) poker player, you can’t look at money that way.  Bets are an investment.  Sometimes, investments lose.  Sometimes, you play badly.  And sometimes, you shouldn’t have been playing at all.  But all of these elements factor into your winrate, your expectation, and your confidence.  And after thousands of hours and millions of hands of poker, you either have the self-confidence to face your losses or you run away from them.  As I’ve matured and experienced poker swings far more painful than I ever could’ve imagined, I no longer play in fear.  I put my best effort forwards, and if I feel that slipping, I stop.  I’ve always told anyone who would listen – friends, parents, students – that all you can ever do is give a project your best effort.   I feel truly minimal emotion whether I win or lose $10,000 – what gives me pride, or alternately, tears at my mind, is the effort I put in.  If I think I played my best, it doesn’t matter how much I lose.  If I played awful, got lucky and win, I scold myself.  This is the best way to face the game of poker.

Unfortunately, as mentioned, this was early 2007, not 2009.  And my life might be very different if I had been naturally gifted with this thought process.  But I wasn’t :( I was still just a kid (am I still just a kid?) and poker had been wearing me down.  I wasn’t as good as I knew I could be, and it was frustrating watching all my friends play higher and higher stakes, while I kept things safe at mid-stakes games.  So, when the Los Angeles Poker Classic rolled around, I was determined to play the $10/$20 and $20/$40 NLHE games to really give myself a shot.  Everyone had spoken of the unbelievable softness of the Commerce games and I knew I was good enough to beat them.

Arriving in Los Angeles was really exhilarating.  Poker was everywhere and the Commerce Casino was buzzing with a mix of big personalities, Hollywood stars, poker stars, and thousands of amateurs.  I truly felt at home in the midst of it all.  The first three of four days I switched between the $10/$20 games in the casino, $5/$10 online, and whatever tournament they had running that day.  My first four of five $10/$20 sessions went alright, and I think I booked a total profit of $3,000 or so – not much, but I hadn’t been putting in many hours and the wins felt solid.  The following night I was placed at an especially juicy table, directly to the left of two massive fish.  I bought in for $6,000 (if I recall correctly) to cover both of them – and you can guess where things go from here.  I 3-bet an MP open from one of the two fish to $300 holding 4d5d.  The flop came all diamonds.  He check/called my flop bet, and check/raised my turn bet on an offsuit ace.  It was the ultimate cooler board versus the ultimate fish.  I found myself drawing dead in a $10,000+ pot.

I was immediately shaken up for a number of reasons.  (1) I think most online players would agree with me that it is far more painful to lose money in a casino than online.  In a casino, you physically watch as thousands of dollars are pulled away from you, your pocket, once filled with cash, is now noticeably lighter.  In a lot of casinos, in the higher stakes games we play with stacks of $100 bills on the table in addition to chips.  It’s a weird affect, and I think I play worse live, because I have to face tangible dollars at every decision.  Online, if you lose a pot, you have a massive bankroll in your virtual cashier to back it up.  Losing all $3,000 cash in your pocket feels far more traumatic than losing $3,000 of a $50,000 virtual bankroll.  Plus, after those losses, you can pull up your Poker Tracker results to look at your lifetime, monthly, or weekly earnings – it helps minimize the pain.  (2) Poker had been stressful lately, and I had been thinking about where to head next.  But in Los Angeles, I was surrounded by poker friends, great restaurants, and lots of action.  I had forgotten that my mind was swirling with questions of the future.  Losing the pot was a wake up call.  It was a reminder that while an entertaining week was pleasureful, it could only mask, not solve, my fundamental issues.

The next day I resolved to rebuild some stability in my life in the form of less travel, a home base, and a steady job.  It was about two months to the day from that night in Los Angeles until my first day at CardRunners.  It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and it’s quite fitting that this post is made on the two year anniversary of my tenure at CardRunners, as well as my last official day.

So, did poker really save my life?  And, if so, how did poker save my life?  The simplest answer is that poker taught me how to think.  It forced me to handle adult issues, but allowed me to face them  through a youthful framework.  Poker allowed me to be different.  It allowed me independence, responsibility, and potential.  Without poker, there’s a good chance that I would be in a large advertising firm in Manhattan.  I feel like I have so many friends who are going through the motions, who think they’re living, but they’re NEVER taking the time to reflect on who they are, what they want, and what their emotions tell them.  To a point, that’s okay – it’s okay when we’re 19 years old.  But as we approach our mid-twenties, we no longer have those luxuries.  Carelessness and irresponsibility are no longer options.  We have duties to ourselves – to our futures, and to our lives – to reflect on who we truly are and what we’re truly doing.  We don’t have force ourselves to act mature, or stop getting drunk, or turn into a sea of drone-like prudes.  No, no, no.  We must retain our character.  But we also need to think.  We need to reflect.  If it hadn’t been for poker, I think there’s a fair chance that at the age of 34, I’d look around my corner office on 34th street, look at all my accomplishments, and realize that they simply weren’t accomplishments at all.  

I love living.  But there’s a difference between action/reaction and reflection and thought.  My experiences through the poker world over the past four years have forced me to reflect in a way that I doubt I would’ve otherwise.  It’s forced me to consider what’s truly important – and it’s allowed me to view others in a different light.  I’ve revealed probably too much private information through the course of this story.  But one thing remains hidden: who I truly am, deep down.  Inside.  And I have this journey to thank for allowing me its discovery.

[sidenote: The Crash Moderns were in town on Thursday and I went to go see their concert.  They invited me out on tour as they open for Bret Michaels.  Let the hilarity ensue…]

My Senior year of College is when things really started to come together for me – both personally and in the poker world.  I found CardRunners in September, and began developing a friendship with Taylor.  At NYU, Emil (Whitelime) and I starting becoming close friends, bonding over poker, making travel plans, and sharing sweat sessions.  At the same time, my friendship with Chuck (Danzasmack) was developing and we would often hit the bars around NYU talking poker until late in the night.  It was in these late night chats that Chuck first started telling me about his friend at Boston University who was a total maniac, but crushing the $5/$10 and $10/$20 games.  This was Krantz.  Within a year, he would be an extremely close friend of mine as well.

Yet despite all this, my life didn’t revolve around poker.  I lived with my best girl friend Whitney, and cultivated a deep bond with my classmate Jaideep, who is one of the smartest young minds I’ve ever encountered.  We spent just about every afternoon in the Fall and the Spring playing football in Washington Square Park, talking about girls, and making plans for life.

But by January, my plans for “life” were starting to change.  I didn’t have a formal job when I returned from Florence (though I recall doing some consulting for Buzz Marketing Group here and there).  But at some point in January, everything just clicked for me poker-wise.  Whenever you read any poker interview, there’s always that terrible question – “what was your aha moment?”  I have no clue specifically what mine was.  But I know that I had one.  I vaguely recall having lost about 30 buyins straight at $200NL, and asking Whitelime to sweat me one afternoon.  I went over to his apartment, and played poker for 2 hours.  After that coaching session I didn’t have a losing month for over a year.

If I remembered the exact concept he taught me, I’d have started my own training site and been rich.  But I don’t think it was any specific thing – it was more, he just reminded me that poker is more than matching up the suits on your cards.  You really need to think, and do things that are creative.  I started crushing $200NL.  I would play 12 tables at a time, and won nearly 10bb/100 over 200,000 hands.  I still say to this day that I’m the biggest winner in the history of $200NL on Party Poker.  I doubt that’s “actually” true, but I never encountered a bigger winner while in the games.  In some respects, I regret never moving up to higher stakes.  It’s very possible that I could’ve gone on a run and been a high stakes superstar.  But it’s also equally possible that I would’ve gone bust, lost a lot of confidence, and had a difficult final semester of College.  I took the lower variance, lesser glory route.  It was the right decision for me.

It was around December/January that I started getting to know a kid by the name of David Paredes, aka Gaucho2121.  He had made a post on the CardRunners forums where he was playing an insane style – something like 50/38 over 25,000 hands (just insane) but winning at 20bb/100 (also insane).  Everyone called him an idiot fish.  I thought he was too.  But we were both from NYC, started messaging each other and meeting up in underground poker clubs around the city.  We both took a liking to each other even though he was six years my senior.  We began meeting up once a week to discuss hands, review sessions, and try to improve the other’s play.  David also started coaching me on beating live poker (something I’d never been able to do).  He helped me to develop a table presence, and to pick up reads on players.  I quickly realized that my natural table presence was to be a jokester at the table.  And so, I recall one hand in particular, where I raised 9T suited, and flopped QJ8.  As soon as the flop came down I said “Oh my God, I just flopped the nuts” and overbet the pot – everyone called.  The turn blanked and I said “I cannot believe you guys are calling my bets – I am NUTTEDDDDDD.”  I bet full pot and one guy called.  The river blanked, I thought for a second and said “Nuts are good, yea?” and overbet shoved.  He called with just a queen.  That was a $1500 pot at $1/$2 NLHE.  And that’s when I realized the power of psychology at the poker table.

One of the fortuitous things about my friendship with David was his exhaustive network of friends in the city.  I’d never really been a club rat, but David liked living the good life.  Under his wing, he began taking me to a variety of city hotspots, many of which were being promoted by friends of his.  Though this lifestyle would’ve been unthinkable to me a year before, I was making $175/hr playing $200NL and felt like I should be living the high life.  And to be totally honest, it was a complete blast at the beginning.  Gorgeous women all around, employees treating you like royalty, free booze, plush seats – I felt like a hotshot NYC celebrity.  And best of all, I was just a kid.

One afternoon in March of 2006, David came over and we put in a pretty long session of $200NL sweating each other.  I ended up booking one of my biggest sessions ever at the time, I think around $2,500 at $200NL.  This was a huge score for me and I felt on the top of the world.  One of David’s close friends, Brian, was promoting that night at a place called Union Bar.  I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but he had basically taken over the promoting gig from a friend of his, but didn’t want his friend to get angry.  So he told the club owner that the promoter was named Ezra – me!  I wouldn’t actually have to do anything, merely pretend like it was my party, and chat a little bit with the owner if he came by. 

I’ve never been the most confident person in the world, but that night was simply electric  - I could’ve sold even the most cautious skeptic a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge.  And though I spent the bulk of the night, relaxing into the plush sofa, I would get up every 15 minutes or so, be all professional, and ask the girls if they needed anything.  At some point in the night, I noticed a new batch of girls hanging around our area, and went to introduce myself.  I doubt many of you have experienced this, but when your name is Ezra, and you’re in a loud bar, it’s not all that easy to introduce yourself.  Jason, Mike, Shawn – those are all commonplace names.  But there’s no more awkward moment for a guy then saying “Hey, I’m so and so,” and have the girl look all confused and respond “WHAT?!?!”  Sigh, that has happened all too many times.

But the point is that I’ve gotten really good at enunciating my name clearly, especially in loud places.  And as such, when one of the new girls, a simply stunning brunette in a black and white spotted dress with a dazzling smile introduced herself as Shira, I was quick to respond “Oh, your name means Sing in Hebrew.  I’m Ezra,” the connection was born.

I wish I could call it one of those love at first sight type of silly stories.  And maybe in some ways it was.  All I know is that she inspired me to spend the night chatting away, in spite of the blaring music, about future goals, our outlooks, and of course Jewishy stuff.  And when my crew decided it was time to move on to the night’s next hot spot, and I saw her shivering in the chilly Spring air, I gave her my blazer. 

And while this may be a pretty standard, chivalrous move, performed by millions of guys looking to impress a girl, I think I took it one step further.  She got in a cab with her friends, while I got into one with mine.  I shouted out where we were heading and told her crew to meet us there.  But as best I can recall, there wasn’t any real certainty she would show up.  Luckily, she did.  She returned my blazer, I finagled my way into a date, and I’m proud to call her my girlfriend to this day.

In many senses, as much as it’s weird to think about it this way, if I’d never joined CardRunners, I never would’ve met David Paredes and been in the bar that night.  And if it hadn’t been for poker, I never would’ve been on cloud nine, coming off the biggest win of my life.  All these little elements combined to shape my life as it is now.  I’m sure that anyone can look back on their lives and find loose, unconventional connections that brought together major events.  But, undeniably, at the root of it all, was poker.

As the year came to a close, and all my friends scurried off to the labor market, I was completely, entirely at peace.  I’d made the rash decision to basically take a year off, travel, and enjoy my life.  I hadn’t a concern in the world.  I’d had four or five straight five figure months, had $30,000 in the bank, and was able to enjoy my last few months of school, rather than sweating the impending job interviews or Law School apps.  It was this laid back attitude that allowed me to enjoy my final year of college on such a deep level. 

There’s this annoyingly weird element of life – that we’re always preparing for the future.  High school is spent preparing for college.  College is spent preparing for Grad school.  Grad school is spent preparing for a job.  An entry level job is spent preparing you for management.  Management is spent saving money to purchase a home, and have the financial security to start a family.  I guess I’ve always wondered when this circle ended –if it’s a circle at all.  Quite possibly, it’s a straight line to nowhere.  And that has always scared the shit out of me.  Ever since discovering poker, I’ve been able to live in the moment.  I’ve been able to take advantage of all those individualistic desires that perpetuate our lives.  Most people spend their lives building up to one or two of those “hopes.”  But with my different orientation towards life, I was able to immerse myself in these “hopes.”  And I was grateful every single day for my good fortune.

I would spend the next year travelling the world playing poker before finally making CardRunners my home.  And that passage will mark the end of my story – so stay tuned!   

Being on tour with a rock band is basically just an extended summer camp.  Your band becomes your brothers – they are your family.  They are the people you depend on, care for, and grow to love.  Three weeks cooped up in a van is not equivalent to three weeks of “normal” time.  These three weeks are an entire story.  There’s the burgeoning excitement, the journey, the failure, the climax, and – if you’re fortunate enough – the happily ever after.  The necessity of proximity is a huge issue.  On the road, you’re expected to handle your share of duties, clean up after someone more exhausted than you, and always be entertaining.  And, of course, there’s playing the part.

 

I had been to a ton of concerts in high school, and I was always so jealous of the roadie – getting to be on stage before the show, hanging out with the band after the show, chilling in the van, hanging out with the girls.  There were so many perks, and yet they were somewhat mysterious.  Rather than exposing themselves completely (or some façade) they were hidden, behind the scenes.  The roadie is part of the band, and here’s part of the family, even if he’s not on stage performing.  It had always been a dream of mine to play this role.  And it was everything I had hoped for.

Every gas station, every food stop, every moment you are in a band.  You exude bandness.  It sounds so freakin silly, but that’s the way it goes.  There are normal people around you in their normal cars.  Except you’re not normal.  You hop out of the van, raid the convenience store, and then disappear across state lines leaving a trail of pretzels and candy in your wake.  It didn’t matter that we expected to play in front of 20 people.  0 people is no different than 1,000.  The best part of being on the road is “playing famous,” acting like you don’t have a care in the world.  Your house is at home, your friends are at home, your girlfriend is at home, your bills are at home.  There is no obligation, no responsibility towards anyone else but yourself.  Your objectives are the simplest they’ve been since the womb: 1. Get to location, 2. Don’t crash, 3. Earn enough money for gas, 4. Rock out.

Sadly, I don’t remember the exact itinerary or course of events, but things really began to materialize for us as we headed west.  The show with American Hi-Fi came together nicely, and after impressing the club owners we were offered a number of additional shows with national acts like Lifehouse and Bowling For Soup.  We travelled from city to city, meeting new people, and sampling our nation’s many fast food specialities – Steak n Shake, Jack in the Box, Quiznos, Taco Bell, etc.  (On a side note, I have never become so violently ill as the first – and last – time I ever ate Taco Bell.)  We toured across the mid-west, from Pittsburgh to Akron to Dayton to Fort Wayne to Chicago to Aurora to Columbus, and more. 

Things were confusing for me though.  At first, the excitement of fans and punk rock was exhilarating.  As the youngest person in the band – and given that our teenage fans were closer to my age than my bandmates – I made dozens, if not hundreds of “friends.”  Girls giving me their phone numbers, inviting us to parties later that night.  Even more hilarious was that being under 21, I couldn’t legally drink in any of the clubs we were playing.  So my band would sneak me drinks, or load up the van with liquor for me to chug before any show.  I didn’t spend the tour in any time of drunken haze, but being intoxicated was part of the job.  You were expected to show (nor have) any inhibitions.  If someone said: “the party’s an hour away,” you were expected to speed over there, not worry about directions or proximity to the hotel.  There were no rules, no expectations.  Aside from the necessity of being at a gig at certain hour, the entire road life is one massive improvisation.

It wasn’t until after our biggest show, opening for Lifehouse in front of 2,000 people at House of Blues in Chicago, that I began to question the lifestyle.  I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but we had finished loading up the gear into the trailer and were pulling out of the House of Blues parking lot.  A couple of girls hopped into the back of the van.  They started flirting with us - all entirely normal.  Entirely normal until one of my bandmates, who had a serious long-term girlfriend, started hooking up with one of the random, trashy girls.  As everyone was tipsy, I blurted out “Hey, don’t you have a girlfriend?!” knowing I could get away with it.  I saw his eyes rise up slightly, but I was otherwise ignored.  As the night came to a close, and we returned to our hotel, he pulled me aside and chastised me – “Never say shit like that again, you understand?  We have an image here.  None of these girls would give a shit if they thought we were taken.”  I kept my mouth shut from that point forward.  But I knew it wasn’t right.

 

To some degree, I compromised my moral integrity on the road.  I averted my eyes when it suited me, and put myself in the middle of some situations which didn’t really represent my personality – all because I felt like I was supposed to.  Being on the road was more than a game, it was living an act.  And so I performed all the actions that I felt represented that lifestyle.  Though I have zero regrets, and wouldn’t trade the experiences of that summer for a million dollars, I slowly became aware that I belonged in a different world.  And that while I could tap into this act for a couple of weeks, or even a couple of months out of every year, it wasn’t how I was meant to live my life.  And either way, I was about to start Senior year of College.  I still had a year to figure my life out.  And amazingly, and somewhat naively, at the tender age of 20, I believed that one academic year was plenty of time to figure out my life’s purpose, direction, and needs.

For the next three months, I basically existed in the most blissful paradise one could ever imagine.  To suggest that the period I spent studying abroad in Florence was the highlight of my collegiate years, would be a truly tragic understatement.  I became the city.  I absorbed the culture – it soaked into my veins – and I became a new person. 

No one factor was responsible.  If I’d had Florence without poker, it couldn’t have happened.  If I’d had poker but not Florence, it couldn’t have happened.  Within a month of touching down in Rome, I was $25,000 richer, living in one of the most exquisite cities in the history of the world, in an apartment building of 27 girls, and taking classes on 67-acre villa known as La Pietra.  It was paradise.

I remember the first time I saw Michelangelo’s David.  I expected to be underwhelmed.  But when I stood at his feet, humbly enjoying the sun perfectly accentuating the room, I finally realized how remarkable the city’s culture was.  Inside: one of the finest sculptures ever devised by human hands.  Outside: yet another unremarkable looking building with barely a plaque on the door to reveal its holdings.  The city is magical – and I don’t throw that term around lightly.  There is something bone-chilling about walking home on cobble-stone streets, shopping the same markets as the world’s greatest literati.  Stumbling through side streets, finding new restaurants, and enjoying the culture.  If you find someone who is too serious – too focused on their career, or on business.  If you find one of these people, one of these poor souls who’ve lost sight of what really matters, send them to Florence.  Send them into a grocery store.  And when a 70 year old man hobbling on a cane puts his newly purchased bottle of wine in his briefcase rather than a plastic bag, they will finally understand the charms of life.  I don’t recall exactly when it hit me.  I don’t remember the day, and I don’t remember the thought.  But one morning I woke up – and I realized: I had lost sight of why we live.  I had lost sight of what I wanted to do.  I didn’t know all the answers.  I knew only one.  And it was the only one I needed. 

I used my three months of paradise for a mix of poker, friends, dining, and travelling.  I travelled nearly every weekend – about two thirds of the time with friends, and a third of the time, for poker by myself.  I went to poker tournaments in Brighton, Paris, and Jesolo, Italy, and prowled around with my friends to Munich, Barcelona, Seville, Madrid, Athens, Mykonos, and more.  I spent my nights on the town – flirting with Italian women (I was conversational after 4 weeks), flirting with college girls, hobbling down cobble-stone side-streets, and drunk dialing anyone who would listen.  And somehow – no idea how – I pulled straight A’s, including an A in the toughest course on the program.

And as for poker, I basically broke even or won a little.  I probably made another ten or fifteen thousand dollars in cash games, and blew a lot of it in tournaments and related travel expenses.  And before I knew it, May had arrived.  I’d booked a flight to Paris the next day for a poker tournament, so I was the absolute last person to leave my apartment complex.  I remember how lonely I felt, realizing that possibly the best experience of my life had ended.  I’m sad until this day.  Florence is where I learned how to live.

I got back to America excited to show off my poker skills to Eric Kesselman and prove that he had successfully mentored me.  A good friend of ours, Bill, had opened up an underground poker club in New York City called Aquarium where we started hanging out every night.  Eric would play in the $10/$25 game with all the high stakes NYC pros, and I would play $2/$5 mostly.  But the magic of Florence soon wore off.  I lost $10k or so in a month, and basically stopped winning.  I dropped down to $1/$2 NLHE and started grinding, winning small here and there.  I don’t remember the exact fluctuations of my bankroll, but my dreams of jumping the ladder into the high stakes games were nixed.

As was to be expected, I slowly began to fade back into the same comfortable routines of before.  My ex-girlfriend and I began seeing each other here and there.  I went out with same friends, and did the same things.  I sat in my apartment and played poker during the days, and would head out to Aquarium at night.  The creative energy that had sparked in Florence was beginning to dull – and it wasn’t long before I realized it.  I was heading into my Senior year of college, and was worried that everything would return to “normal.”

Though I haven’t mentioned this until this point, I had started a band my Sophomore year of college.  My 18^th birthday present to myself was a guitar – though I’d never played a chord before then.  And within a year, I was pretty musically competent and writing half-way decent punk/emo songs.  By a stroke of luck, my Sophomore roommate was a pretty good drummer/bassist and we started playing some songs together.  He inspired me to continue with the band, and I found an amazing guitarist online named Jon, who got us in the studio with some of the guys who’d done All American Rejects and The Starting Line.  We only recorded four songs, but they were extremely strong. 

But the band wasn’t meant to be, and was one of the toughest internal struggles I'd dealt with to that point.  Jon was a savvy musician – he’d played in a variety of pop acts, and knew how the labels worked.  He didn’t think my Sophomore roommate would cut it.  I can’t remember the exact points: either he wasn’t personable enough, or not a good enough bassist – it doesn’t matter.  But he basically gave me an ultimatum.  And because I didn’t think it was right to kick out a good friend, I basically let the band lapse.  I kept putting things off until, eventually, they just went nowhere.  I don’t remember exactly how this transpired, except that one day, my guitarist Jon was playing in a new band.  I never held it against him.

His new band was called The Crash Moderns.  And in the summer of 2005, a month after I’d returned from Florence, they were about to go on tour.  I asked Jon if he needed a roadie, and, as they had some extra space in the van, he invited me along.  It was the exact experience I needed – an experience that poker made possible.

I am never going to be a rockstar.  When I was younger I thought there was some chance I would be a famous actor or musician.  But my priorities have shifted by now.  I am older, jaded, and no longer feel the desire for thousands of adoring fans (though, obviously, it would be fun).  But in the summer of 2005, I finally got that experience of living life on the road.  Travelling from motel to motel, living dollar to dollar, and getting to know major bands like Lifehouse, Bowling for Soup, and American Hi-Fi.  And none of it would’ve been possible without poker.  I would’ve been slaving away in an internship, or committed to the next stage of my career.  My re-orientation of life’s values, had allowed me to recognize that a summer scrounging for gas money in Topeka, Kansas could be far more enriching than a paycheck and a promotion.  But when I hopped into the back of the van, I had no clue what the tour would have in store.  Our itinerary was littered with mom and pop bars in the middle of nowhere.  There was talk of possibly playing a show with American Hi-Fi, but it was still a distant longshot.  The next three weeks would prove to be some of the most exhilarating and entertaining weeks of my life…

The Crash Moderns: