Bruno Mars, who's the best poker player ever?
The Flop
I first stepped into a Californian public poker room in 1986 at the ripe age of 30. I was a total fish back then. I was V.P. of marketing for an international cosmetics company and spent a large chunk of my paycheck losing it to seasoned pros. At the time I wasn't even aware that people actually made a good income playing poker. I thought you played, gambled, had fun, lost all your money and went home! It didn't take long for me to say to myself either I start winning or quit playing poker. I was having too much fun playing poker so I chose winning.
The Turn
The turning point was when I picked up a Poker Player Magazine (now Card Player Magazine) and saw an ad for "Poker University" operated by an eccentric character named Chip Johnson. In those days there were no databases for poker players so I just had to take his word that he was "a winning world class master gamesman". I plunked down $750 cash (he didn't take checks or credit cards) for 10 hours of 'personal training'. It was a major decision because I could of used that money for a couple of buy-ins or rent or food. Wisely, I spread the 10 hours over a two week period. The lessons turned out to be more about general gaming theory and not specifically about poker. I was disappointed at first and almost demanded a refund. I had envisioned after a few hours of training I could go to the tables and dominate and win all my money back.
Instead, he talked about Bayes' Theorem, Zero and Negative Sum Games, Probabilities and Statistical Analysis. He was teaching me math and all I wanted was to know when to check-raise somebody. To his credit he did enlighten me on starting hands, position, hand equity, calculating pot odds, implied pot-odds, counting outs, tells, hand reading, value betting, blocking bets, game selection, money management and aggression and more.
The Suck-out
The ten hours with Chip led me to a path of self learning. I bought all the books there were about poker. I started to live and breathe poker. There weren't many good poker books and you couldn't find them online in 1986. Nevertheless I was able to glean all the important and useful tidbits of information available at the time. I started to keep records of my poker sessions, I took notes on players and specific hands. I watched for tells, I calculated pot odds, I always knew my outs, I played fewer hands, I ramped up the aggression when I did play a hand, I started winning! It was May of 1989 that I played my first hand of poker in a public room. I lost consistently for the first three months, by the end of the year I had turned it around and earned more playing poker than my annual salary at my V.P. Marketing job.
World Series of Poker, Amazon Room
The River
I have continued to play an average of 50 hours a week every year since then and have never had a losing year. I quit my job because it was getting in the way of me getting into juicy games. Juicy games usually happened late nights and into the morning so I could not possibly go to work after an all night poker session.
A few years later in 1989 I entered the Ace to Five Lowball event at the World Series of Poker and made it to the final table. Since then I have earned over 1.9 million in tournament wins with 51 cashes and 9 first place titles. I am not a tournament player, I am considered a cash game player and have consistently won in cash games over the last 30 years.
The Series
Being an "Old Gun" poker player, I will attempt to share my 30 years of experience and battle proven knowledge. I will write about the famous and infamous characters I have encountered. I will write about winning strategies. I will write about the different popular poker games you should be playing. I will write about where to play. Playing poker can be fun but only if you win!