Turning Poker Pro: A 51 year-old's perspective

Today is the day.  As I type this, I can feel the resistance to becoming a Professional Poker player in my chest, and I feel greater reluctance to making it public. 

For a few years, I’ve been part time Professor, part-time writer, part-time entrepreneur and part-time Poker player.  Although I’ve 500k in cashes (300k live, 200k online) in two years, the ‘pro’ bit was always hedged.  

Partly this is because of family and societal pressures and partly my ADD likes to do lots of things.  However, it has become increasingly clear to me that I cannot do everything well.  I’m 51, have two kids, live a long way from Las Vegas. My Poker performance has been exceptional, but I don’t yet think I’m that good.

There is a great scene in the old Karate Kid movie.  Miyagi says:  ‘Walk one side of street, fine; walk other side of street, fine; walk middle of road, squash rike glape.  Same karate. Karate do, fine; karate not do, fine; karate half do, squash rike glape’.

This means a shift in my identity: how I see myself, or, the story (narrative) that guides my life.  Now that I’m fully pro:

-        Super late sessions when I play horribly will end.  Not what a pro does.

-        A renewed attention to study – at least ten hours a week.  That is what a pro does.

-        My body and mind have to be treated like money making machines. (They are in every discipline, but in other areas it is easy to get away with being tired, out of shape, or in a sugar-coma.)

-        A much more disciplined approach to the game.  No more ‘f^%# it, I call’, less randomly shoveling chips in, randomly jumping up three stake levels  in cash games because I’m bored.

-        Approaching each hand with all the care, attention, mindfulness and concentration I can.  No more missing the previous action (at least once a live tournament), no more forgetting the blinds are up and being forced to min-raise, no more ‘insta’ calling and then saying ‘why the f*#k did I do that’ – patience grasshoppah….

One old coach used to say I could treat each day as a Samurai, disciplined, peaceful and focused in every interaction, lethal with a sword.  I never ever made it, but was a lot closer than now.

I’m old to be doing this.  I have to think what my competitive advantages are over young pros that eat, breathe, and shit poker 24/7.  Few to be sure, but perhaps this old head can bring some wisdom in its approach to the game to make up for less stamina and lower testosterone levels.  (Yes, I am still talking about Poker.)

I have been wildly successful in everything I've tackled in life.  My old father said to me yesterday, 'you have a habit of stopping just before you make it huge'.  I graduated college at 19, made a million a year by 24, quit consulting before becoming a partner, exited the firm I founded after six years when it would have been really valuable after a few more, abandoned a subject on which I literally 'wrote the book' before real fame took hold, and moved to the US when more or less at the apex of my career in the UK.

I can no longer afford to half do anything.  I have two kids who depend on me (and they are 15 years from college), and am under-invested for my autumn years and constantly stretched for cash today.

Time to get serious.

Poker as a Career Choice: Should I play Poker professionally? (Part 1)

What started as pure recreation in 2004, and became a substantial focus in 2009, is now my chief source of income and where most of my productive time is spent.  To some extent, I chose this, and to some extent circumstances pushed me into it.  As the Buddhists say 'and now this'.  Here I am, what should I do.

Despite the fact that I am 51 and have achieved a great deal in other spheres, have several college degrees, have had several different white (starched white) collar careers, there is an old nagging question: is this what I ought to be doing with my life?

My credentials for writing this?  One of the things I’ve done with my life is to earn a degree in Organizational Psychology, and one aspect of that field is ‘career choice’.  Another thing is to qualify and earn my living as a career/ life coach for some of the highest paid people in the world.  And I play Poker professionally now – so my comments come from ‘inside’ the profession (so to speak).

The reasons I ask this question of myself, and you should ask it of yourself are two-fold.

If you don’t think you ‘ought’ to be doing this, then there will be limits to your happiness.  You may achieve a lot, but if the voice in your head (sometimes called the ‘itty bitty shitty committee’) feels you ought to be doing something else, the ‘bracelet’ moment will be quickly followed by more existential malaise.  This is not theory.  I returned from a massive series where I’d won two tournaments and narrowly missed ‘player of the series’.  I’ve been somewhat depressed since and this ‘ought I to be doing this’ is part of that depression.  (In a later article series, I'm going to discuss poker, addiction and mental health.)

If you don’t think you ought to be doing it, you will not devote yourself passionately, whole-heartedly to being the best you can be.  You may be talented, but you will not spend the countless hours away from the tables improving.  You may not take ancillary factors seriously enough: diet, sleep, exercise.  You may distract yourself with other, more ‘legit’ pursuits.

So we, I, need to settle this question.  You need to settle this question.

Let us first deal with ‘ought’.  In ethics, ‘ought’ has some moral force.  In Freudian psychology, ‘ought’ is the superego (parental and societal influences) talking.  Always, the ‘ought’ in poker comes out against it.  It doesn’t count as a legit occupation in the eyes of society – despite the fact, as I’ve argued elsewhere, that poker is precisely the same set of intellectual activities as trading on Wall Street.  Few parents, and especially not mine, find tears of pride when they discuss ‘my son the poker player’.

However passionately we may feel about the game, those are substantial psychic forces – greater in some individuals than in others – will act as a counterweight to our passion: a ‘but’ that will always be there.  That can be hard to live with.  In this century, in the West, we are unlikely to get invited to the snootiest of country clubs.

It is ok to care about this (negative) influence; it is ok to not care about it.  What is less ok from a psychological point of view is to pretend not to care (who gives a s^&t) when actually part of you does.  Intellectual honesty is required, and in my case, with my parentage, and the cultural influences in my life, the ‘my son the poker bum’ will be hard to avoid.  It is one of the realities I have to live with.

When you do decide ‘I can live with this’, it is wise to be aware that it may limit opportunities elsewhere.  The nice girl you now want to marry, may decide as tying the knot comes closer, that the ‘oughts’ in her life are too strongly against marrying a poker player.

Samurai warriors used to visualize their fear out in front of them, at their sword tip, so they could 'look it in the eye'.  That is what, if you are serious, you need to do with the 'oughts' in your Pokerlife.  They are always there - the choice is how to accept them fully, and deal with them honestly and squarely.

In part 2, I will look at a model of career values, and provide you with a ‘values questionnaire’ to help you decide whether poker aligns with your values.

In part 3, I will look at a three-part career model (from career counseling), which asks whether the three key career choice factors are there:  passion, skills/ aptitude, and lifestyle fit.

Paul Gibbons has been an investment banker, a consultant, a top executive coach, and a successful serial entrepreneur.  In 2011, he founded Healthy Poker LLC.  He has $500k in live and online cashes during the last eighteen months. He has degrees in Biochemistry, Philosophy and Psychology.