Rewind: April 2006

Posted by davidzeitlin

You just won $85,500 in your third month as a professional poker player. What are you gonna do now? Go to Disney World? Nope. The correct answer is… you find out how much gamble you got in ya. My answer: not much.

There are many stories of pros who made their first big score and then “never looked back.” So after giving myself a few days off, I had to decide what came next. Some 50/100 NL cash games? $1,000 sit ‘n go’s? Some $5,000 heads up matches? Buy directly into the $10,000 WPT Foxwoods main event?

I chose none of the above. Instead, I drove back up to Foxwoods and tried, unsuccessfully, to cheaply satellite into the main event from the $230 level. Then I drove back home and returned to online play at the same stakes I’d been playing before. What kind of gambler was I? What a wuss!

As it turns out, priority number one was maintaining my self confidence. I could have tried to turn the 85 grand into a million, but I was more concerned with proving that I was a solid winning player, that Foxwoods wasn’t a fluke. The downside of blowing through my profit far outweighed the upside of possibly joining the upper echelon of poker pros. I told myself that slightly bigger tournaments, buy-ins of one and two thousand dollars, would now be fine, but in the afterglow of the shining achievement of my young career, I didn’t take even one big shot.

I settled right back into the daily grind of $109 tournaments online. I sat on my 85k, protecting it like those March of the Penguins guys protected their eggs. A part of me was surprised and disappointed. I have told people that Stu Ungar is one of my heroes, but Stuey never would have taken the shopping bag full of cash to the cage. The truth is I don’t have much in common with him beyond playing cards.

I wondered what I would have done if I was younger, if I had never worked a paycheck-to-paycheck job. If I hadn’t gone through three years of bullshit just so I could fill out timesheets every two weeks to validate my existence. If I hadn’t spent my days, for months at a time, looking through boxes of meaningless papers. If I hadn’t forced myself to smile in the hallway. If every morning hadn’t been the same, put on one of my four suits, catch the subway, read the Post, walk to court, sit and wait. Good morning, Your Honor.

Yeah, if I was 21, I’d probably have flown to Vegas and taken my big shot. Sat down with Doyle and the rest of ’em. But I was about to turn 33, and I understood how many days of drudgery $85,000 was. More than that, I understood that I didn’t want to even think about going back to that world. No way. *penguin noise*

I suppose I probably did the right thing, because I opened April on a hellacious losing streak. Nothing was going right at all online, so I decided to visit one of New York’s poker clubs for a little live action.

When I walked in, the proprietor (name withheld of obvious reasons), who I’d known for many years but only made occasional small talk with, approached and congratulated me, giving me a hug. It was a nice acknowledgment of my recent win. I played a three-table $100 tournament, and caught cards the whole way, winning easily. The proprietor gave me a funny look, which I interpreted to be one of newfound respect, and paid me my first place share. I shrugged, thanked him, tipped the dealers and walked out, passing on the 1-2 NL cash game. It would be the last time I’d play in his card club. The cops shut him down the next week.

I resumed playing online, and resumed losing. But as the month drew to a close, I pulled another rabbit out of my ass. On April 30, a Sunday, I entered the $500 Pokerstars event at 4:30. I played well. I won a few races. Before I knew it, I was in the money. Then it was 9:30 and there were 3 tables left. Another major score in the works?

I was doing my thing, picking my spots, when I noticed something funny. All the spectators, all the railbirds, were rooting for me. The online version of the rail, the chatbox, was filled with words of encouragement for me. Huh? Why? I’m not a chatty player and no one knows me. I scrolled up, and then I discovered the reason. None other than JohnnyBax, the undisputed king of Pokerstars and my PokerXFactor mentor, was watching and rooting for me. Everyone else followed his lead. Such is the power of the almighty Bax.

His reason for doing this was personal: being able to cite the winner of online poker’s biggest monthly tournament as a subscriber to your brand new instructional website would be a nice selling point. The short testimonial that I’d undoubtedly write would bring in new customers. But the chat also indicated that Mr. Bax at least knew who I was, and that felt good. And, I must admit, so did all the other assorted chatter from the less accomplished people.

Down to 18 players, two tables. The big stack, to my immediate right, made a standard open-raise from the button. He could have a wide range of hands. I had the KcJd in the small blind, and roughly 4x the amount of the button’s raise in my stack. Easy shove. I pushed. He called and showed two red queens. The flop came all babies, with one club. “kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk,” said the chatbox. The turn was the 4 of clubs. “kkkkkkkkkkkk, club club club club club club,” said the chatbox…

The river was a harmless ace of hearts. I was out 18^th, but had made enough to salvage my month. And that was fine for now.

Hand Analysis: min reraise by excellent player

Posted by davidzeitlin

This is a test to see if I can post a hand from the PokerXFactor hand replayer. And if it works, I’ll review a key hand from the Party Poker tournament I finished 2nd in Friday Night (woot!).

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.pokerxfactor.com/swf/trainingApp3.swf?xmlHandID=10577&fn=1275_20060604_151009&hn=0&mh=0&sc=1″ height=”375″ width=”500″ /]

If you are a registered user of pokerxfactor, then click here to view a large version of the hand.

It works (Jon rules)! I intend to use this tool to discuss hands that illustrate important NLHE tourney concepts, or were otherwise instructive in some manner. I promise I won’t limit the selected hands to ones I won.

This particular hand took place in the middle stages of the tournament. I had a mid-sized stack, and I made a standard raise from under the gun with 10-10. It was folded all the way around to the big blind, a big stack, which is where things got interesting.

The big stack made a very small reraise, almost a minimum reraise. Now the wheels started turning. What to do? First of all, a minimum reraise in online play almost always means one thing: the reraiser has KK or AA. This is a very common play. The player has a monster hand, wants to get more money in the pot, but doesn’t want to scare his opponent off. He wants to get all in on the flop, so he makes a small raise that will commit his opponent further. I happen to hate this play, and I never employ it unless i’m playing a complete donkey, because all solid players know exactly what it means. The correct response against a normal or unfamiliar player is to call and try to flop a set. If you don’t flop a set, you give no action.

But notice the terms I chose to put in italics in that paragraph. I said that MOST opponents who make this move have AA or KK. But what did I know about the player “ibite123”? A lot, actually. I know that he’s a very tricky, very good player. So good, in fact, that he’s currently ranked #35 amongst online tournament players by Pocketfives.com. So what was this excellent player trying to accomplish with the small reraise? It was one of two things. He either: 1) thought I was a donkey and was trying to trap me with AA or KK; or 2) had some kind of hand–probably AK or AQ–that wanted to see the turn and maybe the river for free, and was trying to accomplish that, i.e., freeze the action, with the min reraise. I was unsure of which, so I decided to call.

So as the video shows, the flop came Jd 4c 2d. “Ibite123” checked, and I was still unsure whether he was trapping me, so I checked as well. I would have happily shown this hand down, as his play had succeeded in confusing me. The next card off was the 3c, which put two 2-flushes on board, and now ibite put me all in. And so we arrived at one of those super-crucial tournament moments. What now?

I had to put this guy on a hand. The only ones I could imagine were AA, KK, AK or AQ. I felt that with QQ and JJ, this player would have put in a bigger reraise preflop rather than invite action with the min reraise. I figured the odds were about 60% AK and 40% AA or KK. As I stated above, if i was not familiar with the player, I would have automatically assumed AA or KK. In light of this information, I was compelled to call, which I did after thinking for about 30 seconds (isn’t it amazing how much information the human mind can process in a short period of time?). And as you can see, in this instance it was the correct decision. He didn’t fill his flush, hit either of his overs, or make his gutshot straight (wow, he had a LOT of outs) and I won the hand.

In short, my opponent knew I would respect the min reraise and managed to freeze me on the flop by employing it preflop. Because I knew that he’s a very good player, I was able to figure out that he wasn’t making the min reraise to trap me with a monster. I used that knowledge to alter his range of holdings and thereby made a difficult call. I guess the lesson here is “know your opponent.”

Rewind: March 2006

Posted by davidzeitlin

Priority number one in early March was a trip upstate to Turning Stone casino for their annual March tournaments. These tournaments were not very expensive (the grand finale was only $1,000), so they fit my bankroll nicely. I have a lot to say about the Turning Stone facility and will devote an entire blog entry to it later. The highlights of this trip were a nice cash game session at a table populated by internet kids and Al Krux of 2004 WSOP Main Event final table fame and my car breaking down on the New York State Thru way on its way to the Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse.

OK, the car wasn’t really a highlight; it was awful. I waited over an hour for a tow in 15-degree conditions. A day later, I took a cab to scenic Utica and hopped a bus home to Manhattan. Particularly memorable were the two passengers seated behind me: two hideous biker babes Greyhounding their way to rural South Carolina and the Florida panhandle, respectively. Their conversation, which was inappropriately loud, alternated between stupefying and horrifying. Topics included, but were not limited to, American Idol, tattoos and dildos. Both of these self-described badasses refused to disembark at Port Authority for their half hour layover because they feared they’d get mugged in the big city. I fled to the safety of my apartment.

I returned to online play with uninspiring results. I treaded water for three weeks, notching small wins here and there and then blowing through the profit on new buy-ins. I was still working on a couple of projects for my father, which was growing very tiresome. It was around the middle of the month when I learned of the pending grand opening of PokerXFactor.

PokerXFactor.com is an instructional tournament poker website run by “JohnnyBax” and “Sheets.” In the insular world of online poker, these two guys (those are their Pokerstars screen names) are behemoths, celebrities. I don’t know the exact details of their story, but the general background is this: Sheets (real name Eric Haber) was working on Wall Street and Bax (real name Cliff Josephy) was his client. Both discovered online poker and began playing, discussing it regularly. Soon they were discussing it more than whatever financial stuff they were supposed to be discussing. Both became obsessed, and through their constant play and strategic discussion, they improved drastically. They improved to the point where they became two of the best players on the net. Bax in particular, now a WSOP bracelet holder, he’s basically the Babe Ruth of online tournament poker. Today, both are revered, almost idolized, by scores of online players who aspire to similar success.

I personally witnessed Bax and Sheets’ ascent to the top, having played against both of them a few times prior to, during and after their climb. My reason for liking them runs slightly deeper: both are family guys in their late 30’s or early 40’s residing in Syosset, Long Island, ten minutes from where I grew up. And I have no way of verifying this, but I believe both are non-observant Jews (like me). They’re also funny, personable people (like me!). Through no fault of their own, Bax and Sheets came a little late to the online poker party and are constantly pitted against younger foes (like me). When Bax and Sheets talk (in actuality, type, or “chat”), I feel a kinship, it reads like something I might say. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities end. I could learn a lot from them. So when I found out about their website, I immediately signed up, despite the pretty steep cost, more than double what similar sites charge.

PokerXFactor allows you to watch tournaments played by the instructors as they narrate along. It’s a great tool. And it immediately plugged a few leaks in my game. Namely, after watching only one or two videos, I learned:

stop stealing so much early in tournaments, particularly with weak aces;
when and why to re-steal (a move I was generally too timid to implement previously); and
how to handle small blind/big blind confrontations late in tournaments.

pretty soon i’d be putting these concepts to work.

David Suffers Rain Shortened Loss

Posted by davidzeitlin

My least favorite kind of result in baseball is a rain-shortened game. They play six innings, one team leads by two runs, and the skies open. So they put the tarp on the field, the players retreat to the clubhouse, everyone waits around for three hours, someone consults with the weatherman, and finally the umpires cancel the remainder of the game, awarding a win to the team with the lead.

Today, for the first time, I experienced the online equivalent of a rain-shortened loss. I was chugging along in two tournaments when my internet connection went out. I thought it might be the typical hiccup and waited for my connection to be restored. Then I realized that my TV had shut down as well. Not good. A frantic call to the cable company accomplished nothing. I went downstaris and my doorman confirmed the bad news: my entire building had no cable service.

FU Time Warner. Going to my bathroom, dropping $175.00 in the toilet and watching it swirl away would have been more pleasant.

It occurred to me during this episode that I have no “poker friends,” no one I can phone in this kind of situation so that they can log onto my accounts and finish the tournament(s) for me. Anyone wanna be my poker friend?

Rewind: February 2006

Posted by davidzeitlin

I celebrated Groundhog Day 2006 by making like Punxsutawney Phil and holing myself up in my Upper East Side apartment. It was done partially out of necessity, as the legal writing work was still hanging over my head. And it was done partially to answer an important question. With the NYC poker clubs facing constant heat from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and with Atlantic City and Foxwoods each around 3 hours away, I knew that mastery of internet poker was the only way I’d be able to sustain my new career without relocating.

And so I embarked on a quest to log as many hours online as I could. By this time I knew that I could not sustain a decent hourly rate without “multitabling,” i.e. playing several online games at once. Historically, my results when multitabling had been significantly worse than my results when focusing on a single online table. Determined to change this, I purchased a new high resolution monitor for my desktop that would allow me to play four tables at once without having the table images overlap. Armed with an account on each and every major poker site, off I went. I played sit ‘n go’s. I played tournaments. I played cash games. And I lost at them all.

For a stretch of about four weeks, I did almost nothing but lose. My bankroll wasn’t spiraling out of control; it was more of a slow, steady leak. Not drastic, but impossible to ignore. By the last week of February, I was pretty worried, and “you don’t have what it takes to do this” was creeping into my mind a lot. The vast majority of the super successful internet pros are kids over ten years younger than me, savants who have somehow trained their brains to instantaneously calculate odds and notice betting patterns in eight or more games simultaneously. Here I was, 32 years old, trying to emulate them, and failing.

My brain just doesn’t work that way, I began telling myself. At every level of my education, and then in the workplace, I had been trained to think analytically, to take pieces of information and apply them logically in accordance with a framework created by a teacher, textbook or case law. This form of problem solving takes time. You’re supposed to sit and ponder before you answer. Playing multiple tables of online poker does not afford one this luxury. Now I was expected to speed up the problem solving, or somehow craft brand new instincts out of thin air. After a few weeks I started to attribute my success in Vegas to pure luck. I also began to think seriously about moving to either Henderson, Nevada or some awful town on the Jersey shore, so that I could prey on real live tourists instead of mixing it up with adolescent Rainmen online. It was a sobering idea, because I really do love New York City.

Playing out the string, at 11:00 p.m. on February 28, I entered a $109 tournament on Party Poker. Immediately I began to accumulate chips, and sometime around 2:00 a.m. on March 1, the field of 356 entrants had been pared down to 30, and I held the chip lead. I shut down the other 2 games I was playing and focused in, realizing that a big payday was possible. I made the final table, and when we were down to 5 players, the following hand developed:

I had been playing very aggressively. The stacks were about even, and I sensed that one of the other players was ready to make a stand. I nevertheless raised on the button with 4-2 offsuit. The big blind, the only player with more chips than me, called. The flop came K 10 6 rainbow. Now the big blind led out with a pot-sized bet, leaving him with about the amount in the pot in his stack. The difference between 5^th place and 1^st place in this tournament was several thousand dollars. The sane thing to do was concede the hand. The maniacal thing to do was anything else. But it occurred to me that this guy would probably trap me by checkraising all in if he was holding a K. His bet smelled like J-10 or 99, or something like that.

Now I knew I was going to bluff and try to take down this pot, but how? Raise all in now? No, I would wait for him to show weakness. I went with the no limit hold ’em equivalent of the rope-a-dope, the bluff-call, cringing as I clicked away half my stack with absolutely nothing, knowing that the outcome of the entire tournament rested on my hunch. The turn was a 7, and now the big blind checked, trying to conserve his chips and get to the river without using any more ammunition. I checked behind. The river was another 7, and he checked once again. Now I executed the rest of the play– I shoved all in. I was hoping he’d quickly muck, abandoning his ill-fated steal attempt without much thought. But he didn’t. He obviously had a piece of the board. He let his time clock drip down to about 2 seconds before he mercifully folded. I let out a yelp, and, having made a wild play I hadn’t realized I was even capable of, I showed my opponent the 4-2. He said “nice bet,” Party shipped the chips, and I proceeded to take down the tournament.

When I went to bed on the first day of March, my ledger showed that I was a significant winner for the month of February even though I had struggled through the short month’s first 27 days. Fuck Henderson, Nevada. And fuck Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey. This groundhog’s got balls!

Rewind: January 2006

Posted by davidzeitlin

I have a particular way of describing my mental state when I’m on my game in a poker tournament: I call it being “in the moment,” which means that I’m acutely aware of what the players around me are doing and seeking to accomplish. When I’m “in the moment” I seem to rely less on rational thought processes and more on something that can best be described as “intuition” or “feel.” When I’m in the moment close decisions become easy, and I always seem to get my money in as a favorite.

Well, it seems that blogging really needs to take place “in the moment” as well. I am having a difficult time figuring out a way to write about events that took place several months ago. So I guess I’m just gonna go with quick off the cuff monthly summaries and we’ll see where it goes.

January 2006:

I spent most of January splitting time between lawyering and playing poker. After my signoff date at my father’s office, a few cases lingered which only I could take care of. Dad is completely at home in the courtroom, or screaming at opposing counsel over the phone, but when it comes to drafting briefs, he’s lost. So I was stuck with a few research/writing projects which would not go away. I spent most of the month playing a few hours a day on the internet and I managed to build a small bankroll playing sit ‘n go’s (one table tournaments). My biggest score actually came in a live charity tournament that my good friend Craig Sklar managed to get me invited to. I finished second in a field of 65 drunk nitwits, winning four front row seats to a Yankees game. Thanks Craig.

In the meantime, Paris Las Vegas sent me a promotional mailer offering me three free nights at the end of the month if I’d come play in an invitational poker tournament. It didn’t take long for me to RSVP “yes.”

The trip to Vegas accomplished two things: 1) it gave me a much needed respite from the horrible divorce appeal I was drafting, and 2) it gave me my first opportunity to see what I was all about as a poker pro.

The Paris tournament was a joke. It was simply a promotion for the hotel’s customers who spend a lot of money on slots and non-poker table games. Half the field had never played before, and the tournament was structured in a way that it would be over with as soon as possible. In other words, the luck factor was magnified. I was still able to weave my way pretty deep into the tournament, taking advantage of blackjack players who didn’t realize folding was an option. Then a nice asian lady woke up with pocket aces when I had KQ, and I was out.

So I sat down in a 2-5 NL cash game at Paris. Immediately I began to win. I flopped sets, I turned straights, I rivered flushes. Things were just falling my way. Plus, I was better than everyone else at the table, many of whom had just discovered hold ’em in the tournament. I was up about a grand before long. After chipping away a little while longer and working my stack up even farther, the following hand took place.

The under the gun player (who happened to be Bill Frieder, former basketball coach at University of Michigan) brought it in for a raise. He was sitting on a monster stack. A player in middle position, also with a huge stack, called, and I called as well with the 10-7 of spades. The flop came 8-8-5 with one spade, and Mr. Frieder led out with a pot-sized bet. The middle position player called and I decided to call as well. Yes, I called with nothing, intending to outplay both of them on the turn and/or river. The turn brought the 9 of spades, giving me an open-ended straight flush draw. Frieder checked, and the middle position player made a big bet. I quickly called, but when the action got to Frieder, he checkraised!. The middle position player called and there was now a huge pot developing. If I hit a straight or a flush, would it even be any good? I figured I might be up against a made full house, but the fact that Frieder had raised under the gun convinced me otherwise. The middle position player chose to call, and so did I.

The river brought my gin card: the jack of spades, giving me the nuts–a straight flush. Frieder now made a massive bet, and the middle position player called again. I pretended to mull this situation over before finally announcing I was all-in. After a long time Frider folded and MP went into the tank and eventually called. I said “sorry, bud” as I tabled the 10-7, and the dealer shipped me the biggest pot of my young career. Frieder said he folded a full house, but I think he was full of shit. When I cashed out of the game the dealer said he thought it was the biggest win in the history of the Paris’ very new poker room. I remained very calm as I took rack after rack of red chips to the cage (required two separate trips), converted them to cash, then strode slowly to the hotel elevators and watched the doors close. Then, riding up to my room, in the privacy of the elevator, I executed several fist pumps. Hello bankroll.

The next day I went to the old Mecca of poker: Binion’s Horseshoe in downtown Vegas. The story of Binion’s has been covered many, many times (most effectively by A. Alvarez in “The Biggest Game in Town”), so I’m not gonna rehash it now. The bottom line is that in its heyday it was very low on glitz and very high on action: a gambler’s place to gamble, a place where more legendary risk-it-all gambling stories took place than the rest of sin city combined. Today, it is simply a dump. Even the “Poker Wall of Fame,” situated in the corner of the room where Doyle, Puggy, Slim and the boys did battle for the better part of three decades, and always prominently featured on all those ESPN telecasts, is vaguely disappointing in person. The carpet is stained and the whole place smells like a stale Winston.

Sold to Harrah’s after coming very close to bankruptcy, Binion’s now appears to make a meager profit cashing in on its legacy as the longstanding home of both the WSOP and the biggest cash games in poker history. Binion’s today sports a huge, drab poker room and promotes its cheap daily tournaments, one of which I entered on January 26. The buy in was small and the competition was weak, and I worked my way to the final table, having outlasted 70 players. But this was no ordinary final table. At Binion’s, once the last 10 players are established, play moves to a special elevated table with brightly lit borders and space on the sides for a crowd to gather and gawk. And gather and gawk they did. A rather scary collection of trashy downtown tourists appeared and hovered around the goofed-up table, making comments (“the fella with the toothpick just busted Jimmy, he’s a tough-‘un”) all the while.

Before I knew it I was heads up with a modern-day Binion’s regular. Not exactly Johnny Moss, he was sporting sunglasses, a visor and a mustache, all likely purchased/cultivated in the 1980’s. He needed some dental work, and he wasn’t very good. I dispatched him and won a decent sum. But who cares about the cash when you also get THIS:

After dumping off a bunch of money in tournaments at Wynn and Bellagio, I wound up my January by notching another very good cash game session at Mandalay Bay.

I flew home from Vegas positively giddy about my performance, ready to put the lingering legal work behind me and really open fire on the poker world.

Live from the beach: Verona, New York

Posted by davidzeitlin

All poker players know the worn out axiom: “It’s a hard way to make an easy living.” I’m telling you it’s true.
Maybe my extended tour (I have spent 15 of the last 17 nights in a hotel bed) is playing games with my head, but right now I’m exasperated.

Actually it’s not poker per se that is driving me nuts right now, it’s tournament poker. After my score in the Foxwoods tournament (I intend to go through my year in chronological segments on here once I return to NYC, I’m jumping forward right now), I decided to focus more on tournaments and less on cash games.

The problem is this: cash games are to strip mining as tournaments are to wandering up and down the beach with one of those metal detectors. Strip miners unearth something every day. Meanwhile, those wackos on the beach find a lot of aluminum cans, and maybe, just maybe,once a year they’ll find a gold earring.

Right now I’m at Turning Stone casino in upstate New York (more on this wondrous facility later), and I have played a combined 25 hours of poker. I have cashed in both of the events I’ve entered,a pretty difficult feat, each taking up a full day. Even by my lofty standards, I have played awesome poker (if I do say so myself). What do I have to show for it? About $800 profit. Barely covers the overhead.

It’s a tough game. I’m constantly at war with myself (never mind my freakin’ opponents) psychologically. Right now I’m rethinking my approach and might allocate more time to cash games. Don’t get me wrong, I feel that this internal struggle goes with the territory. I think what I mean to say is near misses suck. Details to follow in the appropriate chapter.

Stay tuned and I’ll bring everyone up to speed on January through May. Riveting, isn’t it?

David in Blogland.

Posted by davidzeitlin

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve officially joined the legion of idiots spewing nonsense into cyperspace. Welcome to my blog.

About me:

I spent my entire childhood and most of my adulthood sidestepping the question of what I wanted to do with my life. As an undergrad, I fancied myself a writer, and was told that becoming a lawyer was a nice way to parlay my supposed skill into a lucrative career.

So I went to a fancy law school. I graduated. I landed a job at a big law firm. And after a few years, I got fired.

None of it resonated. Not the austere law school or its reputable curriculum. Not the diploma with the Latin words on it. Not the pompous law firm or the oversized egos populating it. Not even the experience of being rejected from that culture. I felt nothing. I was nowhere.

I still fancied myself a writer, so for awhile I pretended I’d make a living doing that. It didn’t take long to discover that I lacked the talent and determination to make it happen.

Still directionless, I latched onto my father’s criminal defense practice. As it turns out, I did not inherit my father’s drive or his love for courtroom wrangling. What I did inherit from Dad is his taste for games of chance.

As a child, I can remember working out the odds for blackjack and craps with a paper and pencil. I can also remember possessing an uncanny knack for handicapping professional football games (I trait I think I still possess). And I can remember my time as a childhood bookie, running football pools at an age when most kids could not do long division. And, most importantly, I can remember my late maternal grandfather teaching me the basics of poker, and I can remember using that knowledge to separate my Junior High School friends from their lunch money on a regular basis. I enjoyed that a lot.

My love of poker lied dormant through high school, college, and law school. It was not until sometime in 2001 that it was rekindled. I began to participate in a home game in my neighborhood, and found poker on television (a Travel Channel special airing a luxury cruise line’s tournament won by Kathy Liebert hooked me). I soon found myself buying instructional manuals and thinking strategically about hands I had played in my home game. I also discovered online poker and internet poker newsgroups. Before long, I was a bit of a budding poker know-it-all. Something funny was happening: I felt most alive when I was challenging myself at the poker table. I began to play in much of my spare time: at new home games, in New York’s poker clubs, and online.

Sometime in 2003, I became a consistent winner. Sometime in 2004, I became a prodigious winner relative to the low stakes I was then playing. And in 2005, I qualified for the World Series of Poker’s Main Event online and proceeded to cash in that tournament. At that time, another strange thing happened–I began to consider playing poker professionally. This was not strange because playing poker for a living is so unusual, but because I was taking charge of my life for the first time. I felt energized. In October of 2005, I gave my father notice that I’d be setting off on my own.

I’ve been playing poker for a living since January 2006, and as of the date of this first blog entry (May 16, 2006), it’s been a success. Also, I’m as happy as I can ever remember being.

This website is unlikely to break any new ground, but I feel like I have a lot to share. I hope to use this space to track my progress as a pro, to discuss interesting hands I’ve played, and to arbitrarily discharge my pearls of wisdom and sure-to-be-amusing anecdotes.

I guess I still fancy myself a writer. So hello everyone.

-David Zeitlin