Maybe There's Hope for Me

(Note: if you want a reference to poker lingo, click here.)

As you know, I’m taking some time off from poker. I’ve been spending a lot of money on poker tournaments in the past couple years and winning very little back. I’ve learned from my years in business that this is a bad thing.

I’ve used the break so far to watch a lot of poker on TV and follow it on Twitter. Is that still a break? Well, I’m not spending any money but I’m still analyzing lots of poker play and poker players, so I think that counts. What’s interesting is that I see professional players in major tournaments faced with the same kind of circumstances that I’ve been faced with over the past year or two, and they generally make the same plays that I do. And the results are often the same as mine, where they misread some player or, worse, they read the player correctly, but that player gets the long-odds card that wins the hand. A lot of times, I even note mistakes made by well-known players, sometimes resulting in big losses. I saw Eric Seidel call a shove on the river at a final table with only a two pair, a Q in his hand, a Q on the board, and another pair on the board. His opponent had a full house, and he busted, costing him $250K in real money. I saw Tom Dwan lose his giant stack in the WPT Championship against a player with pocket As who shoved on the turn and Dwan called with only a pair of 5s and a flush draw. I never would have made those plays. And I even saw pocket As beaten by pocket 9s when the As flopped a full house but the 9s flopped quads. There’s nothing any player can do about that kind of bad luck.

But one thing that’s given me some hopefulness for 2024 is the WPT Championship tournament. As you’ll recall, I bought in twice, each time for $10,000, going way over my monthly poker budget. I didn’t get far either time. The picture above is of Danny Sepiol who took down the tournament for a prize of over $5 million, one of the largest in poker history.

I met Danny last year at a tournament at the MGM. I’d seen him around over the years, but that night we were playing at the same table. As poker players often do, we were sharing bad beat stories. “I’ve had a horrible year,” I said.

“Me, too,” he replied.

“I bubbled 7 or 8 times last year.”

“My year was worse,” he said.

“I’ve only cashed a few times this entire year,” I replied.

“I didn’t cash at all. And I play every day. This is my career.”

OK, he had me at that. For me, poker is just a hobby.

I busted out shortly after that, quietly lamenting my continuing bad luck. I saw Danny around once in a while over the next few weeks, usually looking dejected, and I felt bad for him. And then, on Twitter, I saw this picture and clicked on it to read the article about it. In a single tournament, his luck turned around and he made up for a year of losses and many more. And he had gone from just another dejected poker player to world-renowned champion.

I need to keep in mind that that’s how tournaments work. The losses pile up frequently, the cashes come occasionally, and one big win covers everything. That one big win may never come, but if I play well and keep playing, I may get my shot. If I stop playing, I’ll never get that shot. I decided I’ll return to poker when the time is right.

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If you like my poker blogs, you’ll like my book Election Hacks, a first-hand account of the story of my debunking the 2020 election fraud “proof” of pillow salesman Mike Lindell and the subsequent arbitration that awarded me $5 million.