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Speaker 1: So you want to be a those stage question.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: From the Blinds to the River, Stay smooth, stay shuttle,

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stack chips, stack skills, Let the fears get muted.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to this show.

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Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome into a bonus episode of the Lolamit

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Cash Games Podcast. I want to thank you for joining

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me today for this bonus episode. I'm just gonna be

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upfront with you. It's not gonna be any strategy in

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today's episode. It's gonna be a little bit different.

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Speaker 1: Uh. This is one I've been wanting to record for

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Wite quite a while.

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Speaker 3: I would think about recording it, that would change my mind,

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Then I'll think about doing it again that I will

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change my mind.

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Speaker 1: And due to some things going.

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Speaker 3: On with people I know and also in social media,

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I decided to record it. Now there's this thing happening

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with poker content online like YouTube. They're just clamping down

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on poker channels. Some creators have just stopped making poker

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content altogether. Others are having to change what they're doing

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to try to survive the algorithm and not have their

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channels just get banned. And underneath all this springs up

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a bigger question about poker, like how does society really

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view poker.

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Speaker 1: Is it just gambling?

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Speaker 3: Is it destructive? Is it something people should be ashamed of?

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Or is there something more to it? As poker a

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positive thing for society? And can it even save lives?

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And for me at least, the answer to that last

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question is yes, which is part of what I want

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to talk about today. Of course, I want to talk

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about the downsides to poker, because there absolutely are downsides,

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but I also want to talk about what the redeeming

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qualities of poker are, what it can teach us, what

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it can reveal about us, and very personally, what poker

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has meant to me in my own life. So let

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me take a step back to the very beginning my

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first experiences with gambling.

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Speaker 1: It was not poker.

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Speaker 3: It was blackjack, way back in the late nineties into

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the early two thousands. Somewhere in that window, I got

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interested in blackjack and I went to the library, I

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got a book, and I really there was a strategy

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you could use, and supposedly blackjack was quote unquote the

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best game in the casino if you know what you

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were doing. So I studied basic strategy for a few weeks,

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and I mean I had it down cold. I was

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very proud of the work. I went in and I

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drove about four hours to the nearest casino to me

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with three hundred bucks in my pocket. And I didn't

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know anything about casinos. I didn't know about table minimums.

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I didn't know blackjack was cheaper in the morning that

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it is late on a Friday night. Like, I didn't

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know any of this stuff. And I walked in on

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my three hundred dollars, found the cheapest blackjack table they

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had on a Friday night, which was a fifteen dollars minimum,

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and I sat down and two hours later I was

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up about seven hundred and fifty dollars.

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Speaker 1: I was super excited, to say the least. I cashed out.

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I stayed that night.

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Speaker 3: I woke up the next morning, I had breakfast at

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the casino, and I drove back home, thinking, Wow, you

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know what, I'm just gonna play blackjack for eleven man.

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That was amazing. Of course, I didn't know anything about

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blackjack at the time. I did keep going back. I

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started reading more. I learned about counting and all this

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type stuff, and somewhere along the way, I just realized,

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you know, the more you learn about something, you know,

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the more you learn, you shouldn't be doing it. And

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it became apparent to me the more I studied by Jack,

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you needed a very large bankroll to make any amount

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of money. You're very likely to get caught counting, like

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it's fraught with peril. And somewhere in that time period,

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I walked by a Roulette will and Roulette got its

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hooks into me. So I've got a mind that loves numbers.

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I like patterns, pattern recognition, statistics systems. I've got this

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ad D type mind, I've got OCD, and Roulette just

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lights up all those parts of my brain.

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Speaker 1: It just sets that part of my brain on fire.

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Speaker 3: Have you ever seen those memes where someone's thinking their

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numbers and formulas swirling around their head like they're deep

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in thought and they're decoding the matrix or whatever. That's

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what it feels like when I'm at a Roulette table.

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I started seeing patterns, I started seeing numbers. I start

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seeing things that make sense, and I became convinced there

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was patterns. You could beat Roulette if you got good

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at recognizing them. And the next thing you know, I'm

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losing money. I can't afford to lose not huge money

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by rich people's standards, but huge money for me, and

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to my credit and not to you know, necessarily pat

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myself on the back too much.

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Speaker 1: But I called on to this very fairly early.

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Speaker 3: I realized that if something didn't change, I was going

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to have a serious problem gambling with Roulette, like it

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just had its hooks into me hard. So I started

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looking for other ways to gamble that I could you know,

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either break even or make money at. And you know,

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stumbled across poker. Coincidentally, right around that time online poker started.

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You know, I found a site called Ultimate Bed. It

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was the first poke I ever saw. I downloaded it,

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I put some money on there, and I started learning,

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and you know, I wasn't that good at it first,

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but I bought some poker books, started studying, and you know,

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back then, most of the online poker was limit hold them,

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so that's something you rarely see today. But I played

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a lot of limit hold them. You know, you could

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see some some no limit games occasionally.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: As time went on, I downloaded Party Poker and played

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and then Poker Stars and then Full Tilt. I played

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on a site called Paradise Poker, and you know, somewhere

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along the way things started changing. You know, I was gambling,

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quote unquote gambling, but now I was winning and I

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felt really good about it. You know, poker was being

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very good to me, and it was something I really

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enjoyed in it. The strategy part of it scratched that itch,

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that pattern recognition, that numbers, the statistics, you know, all

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that stuff that my brain loves. You know, poker was different.

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It rewarded you if you studied. It rewarded discipline. It

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rewarded you know, getting better and improving, recognizing patterns and

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reading people and understanding people and understanding textures and understanding

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you know, just a lot of things. So you know,

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I was making reasonable money with the poker I was

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playing online, you know, considering the stakes I was playing.

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And then in two thousand and five, my life took

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a very weird turn. So, you know, I'd moved up

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in my career a little bit.

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Speaker 1: By then.

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Speaker 3: I was making some decent money, and I was playing

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more and more poker, and I was working. I love

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my career, by the way, loved my career so much.

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But this Easter Sunday, two thousand and five Easter Sunday,

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some stuff happened that I really won't get into. But

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as a result, I got fired in an email, which

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is a stupid way to get fired. I still find

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it insulting to this day, Easter Sunday fire an email. Coincidentally,

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when the email came in the way I read it

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was I was playing a poker tournament Ultimate Bed on

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Easter Sunday, and you know, you get a five minute

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break in those tournaments, and during one of the five

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minute breaks, I checked my email and found an email

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from my boss saying I was fired. So I mean,

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what do you do then? Like I just stress about it.

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I'm I'm in a tournament, I'm doing well, and I

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just continue playing the tournament. And I wanted it was

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about thirty eight hundred dollars or something, you know, not

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life changing money, but you know, not bad for playing tournament,

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a poker tournament online on a Sunday afternoon, and I thought,

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you know what, you know, I'm pretty good at this.

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Screw it, I'm just gonna play poker for a living.

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Speaker 2: So I did.

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Speaker 3: I had a four oh one K. Wasn't a big

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four one K by any stretch of the imagination. Like

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I didn't know not I have very much money, but

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you know, I cashed out the four oh one K,

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which is enough money to pay my bills for you know,

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I don't remember the amount of time I figured I

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could pay bills with my four one gay, but it

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was four or five months.

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Speaker 1: And then, on top of that, have enough money to.

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Speaker 3: Play, you know, reasonable amounts of poker without worrying about

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a bankroll. So I was playing tiny steaks online ten cent,

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twenty five cent, super multi Tabling, twenty twenty five cent,

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fifty cent in a limit hold on Super Multi Tabling.

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And then I played these small tournaments, eleven dollars tournaments,

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twenty dollars tournaments, you know, thirty thirty threes. They would

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be eleven twenty twos, thirty threes, you know, et cetera.

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And then I also went through a spell where I

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was just grinding sitting goes hard man. Started out doing

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nine man sitting goes, and then I started doing six

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man sitting goes. And I would have like twenty sitting

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goes open on my computer desktop at one time, just

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playing all of them, and I was pretty good at them.

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So I was just grinding my life away at poker.

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I was playing like sixteen hours a day, six days

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a week, sometimes seven days a week. But I was

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meeting my financial needs in life. At that point, I

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was enjoying it. It was a challenge. Then a weird

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thing happening. The same company that fired me, well, the

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man that fired me, he got fired and somebody that

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I had worked with at this business before got hired,

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and she liked me and we had always worked well together.

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Speaker 1: She called me and asked me to come back. So

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I went back.

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Speaker 3: Terrible decision, by the way, but I did go back,

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and at that point I started moving higher and higher

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up in that company in that career, and poker kind

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of faded in the background, and I was making pretty

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good money. And then we fast forward to twenty and twelve.

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Twenty twelve, life happened. That's where my life changed, indirectly

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by the way it really changed for my mom. Now,

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I don't have a big family. I don't have siblings.

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My core family was very small, like my mom, my dad,

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my grandma, and me. You know, I have aunts and cousins.

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I love a lot, but like my core family very small.

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I'd i'd lost my father in twenty ten, I lost

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my grandmother in early twenty twelve, so it's just basically

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me and my mom.

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Speaker 1: That was basically my core.

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Speaker 3: And then in late twenty twelve, my mom was diagnosed

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with stage three covarian cancer, and not just that, but

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a very aggressive form of it. And you know, we

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tried to be an optimistic about it, tried to fight it,

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tried to do everything right. But things went just bad

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almost immediately. Like I remember her having pneumonia for nine months,

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chemod rector immune system, her lungs got damaged, her body

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was trying to fight cancer, and there's treatments, there's infections.

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It was just right out the gate immediately. She didn't

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have very good responses to the chemo, and you know,

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I knew cancer, and I did a lot of study

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on her cancer specifically, and I knew her five year

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survival rate, which was probably about the best she could

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hope for unless something really went exceptionally positive for her.

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And I knew she was gonna, you know, need me

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through that journey, and I started immediately started taking time

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because we just basically had each other. And thankfully my

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work where I worked, they allowed me to start working

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from home, and so I was working from home on

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a laptop remotely, I could log in. It was interesting

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because I could log in, you know, from my laptop

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or desktop from the house and directly access the desktop

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at work and use all the software and programs and

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stuff remotely.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I was doing my job remotely.

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Speaker 3: And they seemed really cool about it at first, but

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after a few weeks went by, they were They just

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kept started calling me, asking me when I was coming back,

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when I was coming back. And one day the owner

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of the company called me, the owner who lived two

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states away by the way, you know, they had different

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parts of this company all over in different states, and

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he calls me and asked me when I said, look, man,

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my mom is my first priority.

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Speaker 1: I'm the only thing she has. You know, if you're

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going to.

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Speaker 3: Press me about it, I'll just leave or whatever. And

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you know, I quit, I left the job. There's really

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no decision to make there. My mom is the most

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important thing in the world to me, and so we

241
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dove into that. And my mom's cancer journey, you know,

242
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as predicted, lasted about five years. And during that time,

243
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I started an online business and I worked on it

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whenever I had fair moments I had, you know, I

245
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tried to take care of my mom, but you know,

246
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a lot of times she tried to be independent. She'd

247
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stay on her own for like the most of the journey,

248
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as a matter of fact. So basically I was just

249
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you know, trying to call and check on her. I'd

250
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go stay at her house. Some she'd stay at my house. Some.

251
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I drove her to all of her appointments, all of

252
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her doctor appointments, all of her hospital visits.

253
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Speaker 1: I was in the hospital with her every time she

254
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was in it. I didn't leave her side.

255
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Speaker 3: But then any other time where stuff like that one's happened,

256
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I was online building this online business, and I was

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working sixteen hours a day at it, many many days,

258
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and became very successful at it, made a lot of

259
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money at it, and about two months before my mom died,

260
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I actually sold it, sold the company. And I remember

261
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telling my mom, who was getting pretty weak by that time.

262
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I remember telling her that I sold the company and

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what I sold it for, and like, like, I don't,

264
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you know, I don't have a huge number of positive, amazing,

265
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memorable moments in my life, but I remember my mom's

266
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were actually going wow, you know, she was just she

267
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was very impressed. For how much we sold it for anyway,

268
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her cancer journey ended. Now, when my dad died, it hurt.

269
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It did when my grandma died, it hurt. But when

270
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my mom died, it literally broke me. Like she was

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the closest person I'd ever been to in my entire life.

272
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Speaker 1: She was my rock. And not just that.

273
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Speaker 3: Anybody that knows my mom knew she She was just

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the sweetest, kindest, most loving, giving, selfless person that ever existed.

275
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And not just to me and not just the family,

276
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she was that way to complete strangers. She just was

277
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that person. And watching her go, watching cancer rip her

278
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away and the brutal, horrible, just terrible ways it does it,

279
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it was hard to watch man and hard to not

280
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be able to do anything. And it was the worst

281
00:14:01,919 --> 00:14:03,600
thing I'd ever been through at that point, and it's

282
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the worst thing I'll ever go through. She shuffered so much,

283
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and sometimes even through all of it, you know, tried,

284
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she was just positive, like she just was so positive,

285
00:14:12,679 --> 00:14:15,159
Like you know, you can't, I can't lie to you

286
00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:17,000
and say my mom was positive seven days a week,

287
00:14:17,039 --> 00:14:19,480
twenty four to seven, because there were definitely times she

288
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would just be beat down, beat down from pain. I

289
00:14:24,039 --> 00:14:26,320
learned when my mom's cancer journey, what it's like when

290
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:29,360
a person is in pain every day, all day, how

291
00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:32,759
much it affects you. It just grinds you down mentally

292
00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:36,279
and emotionally. And some days it would get my mom

293
00:14:36,399 --> 00:14:39,600
down so much, but she would rebound from it in

294
00:14:39,679 --> 00:14:42,519
a day, or she'd sometimes rebound from it in hours,

295
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:44,919
and sometimes it would go on for two days. But

296
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my mom never stayed in that place long. She was

297
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just amazing. She would be back on the positive, thankful,

298
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I'm blessed side of it.

299
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Speaker 1: Of anything I'd ever seen, she just was amazing. Anyway.

300
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Speaker 3: When she passed, I went into this depression that I

301
00:15:02,039 --> 00:15:05,320
can't describe in words, like I was in a place

302
00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:06,919
where I didn't have to work because I'd sold my

303
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:09,840
company and so I didn't really have any responsibilities. I

304
00:15:09,879 --> 00:15:11,679
didn't have any appointments, I didn't have anything to do,

305
00:15:11,799 --> 00:15:13,559
and so I would just lay in bed with depression

306
00:15:13,679 --> 00:15:17,159
for days and days. I would eat and lay in bed.

307
00:15:19,360 --> 00:15:21,440
Sometimes I would get up and drive to the convenience

308
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:23,519
store near my house and just feel the bag as

309
00:15:23,559 --> 00:15:25,240
full as I could with little debbe snack cakes and

310
00:15:25,360 --> 00:15:27,159
junk food, and I would come back home, and I'd

311
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get in bed and I would throw those that bag

312
00:15:29,639 --> 00:15:33,080
full of little Debbie snack cakes to my side, eat

313
00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:35,799
until I'd go into a sugarcomb and pass out, sleep

314
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for twelve hours, wake up, eat another ton of them,

315
00:15:38,159 --> 00:15:39,679
pass out like I would just do this for days

316
00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:43,399
on end. I would sleep for a day. Sometimes sometimes

317
00:15:43,399 --> 00:15:47,159
I would sleep for two days. You know, that was

318
00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:51,600
my life for a pretty good while. And then you

319
00:15:51,679 --> 00:15:54,399
know this grief was it was initially it was grief,

320
00:15:54,679 --> 00:15:58,320
and it morphed into something even worse than grief. It

321
00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:03,000
turned into self hate and regret and just beating myself

322
00:16:03,159 --> 00:16:03,840
up over.

323
00:16:05,159 --> 00:16:09,799
Speaker 1: Not being there better for my mom. I started remembering things.

324
00:16:09,919 --> 00:16:12,879
Speaker 3: I started remembering every decision she made that I made,

325
00:16:12,919 --> 00:16:14,960
that we made together, every moment, every little thing I

326
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:20,000
wish I'd done better, every little time that You know,

327
00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:22,320
when you're when you're a person needing care and a

328
00:16:22,399 --> 00:16:25,039
caregiver and you're trapped in a room with each other

329
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:27,759
seven days a week, twenty four to seven. No matter

330
00:16:27,799 --> 00:16:29,480
how much you love each other and how kind you

331
00:16:29,559 --> 00:16:31,559
are and how compassionate you are, there will be little

332
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:35,799
schisms that happened. Now, now, we never yelled each other

333
00:16:35,879 --> 00:16:37,559
or falter. I don't want you to get the wrong imprision.

334
00:16:37,559 --> 00:16:39,320
It was nothing like that. But we would just have

335
00:16:39,399 --> 00:16:43,799
a little, just a little disagreement sometimes, And I remembered

336
00:16:43,799 --> 00:16:45,279
every single one of them. And there wasn't a ton

337
00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:47,279
of them, by the way, in her five year cancer journey,

338
00:16:47,279 --> 00:16:49,000
they may have been two or three like that just

339
00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:51,519
wasn't us. But you remember every one of them when

340
00:16:51,559 --> 00:16:57,159
she's gone, and she just had this angry form of

341
00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:03,399
aggressive cancer. And the main chemo. You know, I don't

342
00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:05,279
know how much you know about cancer, but they starts

343
00:17:05,319 --> 00:17:07,079
you out on the very best chemo for the kind

344
00:17:07,119 --> 00:17:08,039
of cancer you have, and.

345
00:17:08,119 --> 00:17:11,759
Speaker 1: Eventually it will stop working. That's first line.

346
00:17:12,559 --> 00:17:14,240
Speaker 3: Then they'll move you to second line therapy and this

347
00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:16,759
is the second best chemo that they have for year,

348
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:17,839
and they hope that it works.

349
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:18,960
Speaker 1: Sometimes it doesn't do anything.

350
00:17:19,039 --> 00:17:20,880
Speaker 3: Sometimes it does a little bit, but whatever, it's the

351
00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:24,319
second best option they have, and so you move to it,

352
00:17:24,559 --> 00:17:27,200
and you move it. It'll either work a little bit

353
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:30,359
and they'll say we'll keep trying it. And basically this

354
00:17:30,599 --> 00:17:34,440
goes on throughout your journey. Eventually the cancer becomes versus

355
00:17:34,680 --> 00:17:37,599
that chemo, and now you go to the third line treatment,

356
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:39,359
which is the third but you know, and each time

357
00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,799
you go it's less and less effective. To the point

358
00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:46,920
she had no more chemo options and that you know,

359
00:17:47,279 --> 00:17:49,160
it had been fighting it off to where she was.

360
00:17:49,759 --> 00:17:52,319
You know, I would say sixty percent of the time

361
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:55,000
she was leading a pretty normal life and forty percent

362
00:17:55,039 --> 00:17:59,200
of the nime could have been complete. Hell, it just depended.

363
00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:01,720
There'll be periods of time like when she had a

364
00:18:01,759 --> 00:18:05,000
bowel obstruction and she was hospitalized for like three months

365
00:18:05,039 --> 00:18:06,759
with that and nearly died and they gave her a.

366
00:18:06,799 --> 00:18:08,160
Speaker 1: Five percent chance of survival.

367
00:18:08,240 --> 00:18:10,880
Speaker 3: So, you know, it's hard to describe the journey, but

368
00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:15,079
like when when horrible things like that weren't happening, you know,

369
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:17,599
the times that were left over were like sixty percent

370
00:18:17,759 --> 00:18:19,680
decent and forty percent hell or whatever.

371
00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:22,160
Speaker 1: But it was coming to an end.

372
00:18:22,279 --> 00:18:25,960
Speaker 3: And so finally they had this experimental drug that she

373
00:18:26,079 --> 00:18:28,559
was qualified for, and their doctor's likes, this is your

374
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,559
last best chance is this drug, and you qualify for

375
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:33,680
it medically, we just got to get your insurance to

376
00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:39,400
pay for it. And so the insurance fought it and

377
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:42,079
for her to start taking the drug. She could not

378
00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:44,640
take chemo anymore, So she had to stay off chemo,

379
00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:47,039
and she was on the last line chemo they had.

380
00:18:47,119 --> 00:18:49,000
It was the very last option. There would be no

381
00:18:49,079 --> 00:18:53,720
more options. So it wasn't like it was that helpful anyway,

382
00:18:53,839 --> 00:18:55,680
but you know, it did a little bit of something.

383
00:18:56,599 --> 00:18:58,839
You know, it calmed it down from being an aggressive

384
00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:02,960
spreading level ten into maybe aggressive spreading level seven, like

385
00:19:03,079 --> 00:19:05,279
it was still spreading aggressively, but it slowed it down

386
00:19:05,279 --> 00:19:06,839
a little bit. But she had to stop taking it

387
00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:10,880
because to qualify for this drug, you couldn't take chemo, like,

388
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:12,200
you had to be off the chemo.

389
00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:14,480
Speaker 1: And so she's off the chemo and we're waiting and

390
00:19:14,559 --> 00:19:16,039
waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

391
00:19:16,119 --> 00:19:18,039
Speaker 3: In two weeks, and three weeks and four weeks go by,

392
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:21,680
and five weeks and finally, you know, finally they approved her.

393
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:24,359
And then they send us this medicine in the mail.

394
00:19:25,039 --> 00:19:26,680
And by the time we get at my mom has

395
00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:29,680
declined to the point that she's skinning poems. She's bedridden,

396
00:19:30,640 --> 00:19:37,000
she can't really walk anymore. You know, long story short,

397
00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:39,119
she didn't.

398
00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:41,319
Speaker 1: Live long after that. Yeah, it was four or five weeks,

399
00:19:45,519 --> 00:19:48,200
so my mom was gone.

400
00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:50,759
Speaker 3: And after she died, I just tortured myself with all

401
00:19:50,799 --> 00:19:54,720
these memories and questions I talked about before, and it

402
00:19:54,839 --> 00:19:55,519
just tormented me.

403
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:02,519
Speaker 1: It just tormented me. I decided to get an RV.

404
00:20:02,839 --> 00:20:05,000
Speaker 3: So one of the things I did, you know, when

405
00:20:05,039 --> 00:20:06,599
my mom would be staying with me or i'd stay

406
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:08,440
with her, and like I wasn't trying to work on

407
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:10,440
my business, I'd look at YouTube videos and stuff, and

408
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:13,279
I stumbled across van life, right, this van life, and

409
00:20:13,319 --> 00:20:15,880
they make it look so romantic and amazing and beautiful.

410
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:18,920
And my mom would look at stuff with me and

411
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:20,519
I would say, hey, look at this. Look they took

412
00:20:20,559 --> 00:20:22,440
the little van. And look where they're waking up this morning.

413
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:24,079
They're opening in the back doors of their van, and

414
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:27,119
they're on the bank of some stream coming down on

415
00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:31,519
the mountain. I'm like, anyway, I decided it was about

416
00:20:31,599 --> 00:20:33,880
eight or nine months after she died, to get an RV,

417
00:20:35,079 --> 00:20:37,920
And you know, I went to some places like that,

418
00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:41,160
but for some reason, poker came back to my mind,

419
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:43,599
and I used the RV to travel from state to

420
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:44,480
state to state.

421
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:45,839
Speaker 1: Playing poker rooms.

422
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:48,400
Speaker 3: And the first time I stepped in a poker room

423
00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:53,440
and played and sat down, my mind stopped doing the

424
00:20:53,519 --> 00:20:56,599
thing it was doing I for I didn't blame myself

425
00:20:56,640 --> 00:20:59,480
for my mom's death. I didn't remember every single time

426
00:20:59,559 --> 00:21:02,920
something went it went wrong, Like the grief stopped, the

427
00:21:03,039 --> 00:21:05,839
regrets stop, the question stopped, Like my brain was at

428
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:08,559
peace for the first time and forever, my brain wasn't

429
00:21:08,559 --> 00:21:09,119
attacking me.

430
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:10,599
Speaker 1: It was working.

431
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:13,640
Speaker 3: It was focused on poker decisions. And you know, then

432
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:15,640
when I'd leave the poker room, it would all come back.

433
00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:19,880
But that's when poker became the only thing that could

434
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:22,200
turn my brain off. So I started playing more and

435
00:21:22,319 --> 00:21:24,279
more and more. And I'll be honest with you, there

436
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:27,880
was hundreds of days where I would wake up and

437
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:29,839
I would be sitting there in the morning and I

438
00:21:30,079 --> 00:21:33,079
would have to physically decide, mentally and physically decided, sitting

439
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:36,000
only as your bed, feet on the floor, do I

440
00:21:36,039 --> 00:21:37,079
want to keep living today?

441
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: Do I want to keep living today? And there was

442
00:21:42,079 --> 00:21:43,640
two things during that time that kept me alive.

443
00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:46,000
Speaker 3: There's two things that are the reason I'm still here,

444
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:48,559
and the reason I'm recording this podcast is one of

445
00:21:48,559 --> 00:21:53,200
those reasons. So reason number one was this aunt. She

446
00:21:53,599 --> 00:21:55,440
was an aunt who I was very close to in

447
00:21:55,519 --> 00:21:58,720
my youth. When I was very very young. You know,

448
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:02,480
as I got older and of my thirties and older

449
00:22:02,599 --> 00:22:05,000
than that, we you know, we weren't as close because

450
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:05,799
I didn't live there.

451
00:22:05,839 --> 00:22:06,880
Speaker 1: I'd moved to another state.

452
00:22:08,079 --> 00:22:10,319
Speaker 3: But then when I came back and my mama got six,

453
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:12,880
I was there a lot right because my mom lived

454
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:14,400
right next door to her, so I was seeing her

455
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:16,880
a lot again. And there was two people in the

456
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,440
hospital room at that two am or in the morning,

457
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:21,240
whenever it was when my mom passed. Two people were

458
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:23,000
in the room with me, two and she was one

459
00:22:23,039 --> 00:22:27,480
of them. And she just stepped right in. After my

460
00:22:27,559 --> 00:22:29,480
mom died, and every day she would text me tell

461
00:22:29,519 --> 00:22:31,279
me she loved me, and asked me how I was doing.

462
00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 1: And those texts kept me alive. Those texts.

463
00:22:40,079 --> 00:22:42,920
Speaker 3: Many many days when I would think, you know what,

464
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,519
I just don't want to be here anymore, I would

465
00:22:45,559 --> 00:22:46,200
just get a text.

466
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:50,880
Speaker 1: And the only thing that kept me alive was poker.

467
00:22:52,759 --> 00:22:53,279
I knew if I.

468
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:55,559
Speaker 3: Could get up, shower and get dressed and just get

469
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:57,799
to a poker room somehow, that my brain would turn

470
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,640
off and the depression and the grief and the you know,

471
00:23:01,839 --> 00:23:04,920
horrible thoughts would just go away. Now I'm not glamorizing it.

472
00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:07,599
I'm not saying poker as a treatment or a cure

473
00:23:07,759 --> 00:23:11,720
or a salvation. Poker hurts many people too, people who

474
00:23:11,839 --> 00:23:16,200
have gambling addictions and addictive personalities. That damages lives. It

475
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,640
causes financial problems, It breaks up relationships and marriages. And

476
00:23:20,559 --> 00:23:24,319
I'm not saying it's good for everybody. But poker was

477
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,440
good for me. It wasn't a roulette will wasn't a

478
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:33,839
slot machine. It was something I could do to turn

479
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:38,079
off the internal monologue, and you can win.

480
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:39,839
Speaker 1: You can win playing poker.

481
00:23:41,519 --> 00:23:43,559
Speaker 3: So fortunately I had the history with poker and I

482
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:46,480
understood poker, so it started working out for me pretty well.

483
00:23:46,559 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: Now.

484
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:50,039
Speaker 3: You know, I never stopped playing poker. You know, when

485
00:23:50,039 --> 00:23:52,000
I went back to work in two thousand and six

486
00:23:52,079 --> 00:23:53,359
or two thousand and seven or whatever, it was like

487
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:55,400
I would still play poker, but it'd be like once

488
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:58,680
a month or something. You know, it wasn't all the

489
00:23:58,759 --> 00:24:00,480
hours I was doing before. So it's not like I

490
00:24:00,599 --> 00:24:03,519
never really left poker. But now it's back full blown

491
00:24:03,559 --> 00:24:09,960
where I'm just playing tons of the time. So yeah,

492
00:24:10,759 --> 00:24:13,000
poker isn't a panacea, it isn't a cure all, but

493
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:14,599
for me, it was, and for a lot of people

494
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:16,680
it was. And if you approach it the right way,

495
00:24:16,839 --> 00:24:20,559
you can get better and improve, and poker can return

496
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:27,079
many things to you. Poker's a microcosm of life, right.

497
00:24:28,319 --> 00:24:31,160
It teaches you discipline, It teaches you emotional control, It

498
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:32,960
will if you let it. By the way, there I

499
00:24:33,039 --> 00:24:35,319
see many people who poker doesn't teach them many lessons

500
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:38,759
because they don't allow it. But you learn from laying

501
00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:40,960
poker a lot of valuable lessons that translate to life.

502
00:24:41,039 --> 00:24:43,160
How to stay calm when things aren't going your way.

503
00:24:43,559 --> 00:24:46,160
How you can't have a melt time meltdown every time

504
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,079
there's a bad beat or something that's twenty percent chanced

505
00:24:49,079 --> 00:24:52,200
to happen comes in. Can't let frustration turn you into

506
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,720
a worse version of yourself. And poker reveals that stuff

507
00:24:55,759 --> 00:24:57,960
to you, and it reveals it to everybody else around you,

508
00:24:58,039 --> 00:24:59,400
by the way, and you get to decide whether you

509
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,039
want to work on You want to let it teach

510
00:25:01,039 --> 00:25:02,960
you something. You want to let it teach you patience

511
00:25:03,039 --> 00:25:06,079
or discipline. You want to let it teach you learn

512
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:09,119
how to wait, to deny your worst impulses, to learn

513
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,480
that not every situation is worth than entertaining to learn

514
00:25:11,559 --> 00:25:13,799
that you can make all the right decisions every day,

515
00:25:13,839 --> 00:25:15,559
all day and still get a bad result.

516
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:16,599
Speaker 1: That's just like life.

517
00:25:18,559 --> 00:25:22,599
Speaker 3: You learn how people act when they're strong, weak, scared, confident, tilted, pretending.

518
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:24,279
You learn how to sit with people that you may

519
00:25:24,319 --> 00:25:26,960
not like, let's still get along with them. All these

520
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:28,960
things that matter in life, like poker is such a

521
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,440
beautiful microcosm in life in so many ways. But the

522
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,240
biggest thing poker teaches you is resilience. Because in poker,

523
00:25:35,279 --> 00:25:37,559
you can do everything right and still lose. You can

524
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:40,599
make good decision after good decision and good decision and

525
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:45,039
still have a losing session. And if you can learn

526
00:25:45,079 --> 00:25:47,799
to accept that and handle it with grace, handle it

527
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,759
with joy, handle it with cheer, it will translate into

528
00:25:51,799 --> 00:25:54,039
your life because life works the exact same way. You

529
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:58,200
can wake up every day, do the very best, make

530
00:25:58,319 --> 00:26:00,640
all the right decisions, do all all the hard work,

531
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,519
and things still go badly for that day, for that week,

532
00:26:03,799 --> 00:26:07,759
even for months. But just like in poker, in life,

533
00:26:07,799 --> 00:26:10,240
if you keep making good decisions and you keep waking

534
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:12,319
up every day and showing up and doing your best,

535
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,000
and you don't let the bad results destroy the process,

536
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,680
destroy your mind, destroy your drive. Eventually, the rewards for

537
00:26:18,839 --> 00:26:21,000
this will come at some point. It might not be today,

538
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:23,680
might not be the end of the week, but they

539
00:26:23,759 --> 00:26:28,319
will come. Look, I don't know if you're as passionate

540
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:30,480
about poker as I am. Like you subscribe to the pod,

541
00:26:30,599 --> 00:26:33,000
so obviously you like poker a lie. But at this point,

542
00:26:33,279 --> 00:26:35,920
I'm still all these years later, and you know, my

543
00:26:36,039 --> 00:26:38,559
mom died like eight years ago. I'm still just full

544
00:26:38,599 --> 00:26:44,599
bloom poker. I love it so much. I recently recorded

545
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,000
what will be the first episode of the year twenty

546
00:26:48,079 --> 00:26:51,000
twenty seven. Because I record things in advance and I

547
00:26:51,079 --> 00:26:55,319
schedule them out in advance. But when that episode hits,

548
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,559
that will be the eighth season of this podcast. Eight seasons.

549
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,960
That's crazy to think about. So not only has poker

550
00:27:03,079 --> 00:27:05,480
been very rewarding to me, this podcast has been one

551
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:07,279
of the most rewarding things I've ever done. I've met

552
00:27:07,319 --> 00:27:10,799
so many great people. I've had the opportunity to help people,

553
00:27:12,799 --> 00:27:15,720
and something I didn't expect was so many of the

554
00:27:15,759 --> 00:27:18,240
people that I've joined the podcast, that I've met in

555
00:27:18,319 --> 00:27:21,160
the coaching tier, people that participate in the discord, They've

556
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,200
helped me they've helped my game, They've helped my enthusiasm

557
00:27:25,279 --> 00:27:26,920
for the game, my passion for the game, like it's

558
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:31,000
been a mutual exchange, and the whole thing, Poker, the podcast,

559
00:27:31,079 --> 00:27:31,400
it's all.

560
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:33,160
Speaker 1: Been very, very very good to me.

561
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 3: And again, I'm not trying to sell poker as some

562
00:27:35,519 --> 00:27:38,440
kind of romanticized cure all for everything.

563
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: It's not a miracle. It's not for everybody. But for

564
00:27:41,559 --> 00:27:46,119
some people it can be sure. For other people, it

565
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:46,839
can be dangerous.

566
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 3: But for me, poker gave me a place to put

567
00:27:49,759 --> 00:27:52,000
my mind when my mind was destroying me from the

568
00:27:52,079 --> 00:27:54,720
inside out. It gave me structure when my life was empty.

569
00:27:54,799 --> 00:27:57,079
It gave me purpose when I didn't have a purpose.

570
00:27:57,519 --> 00:28:02,119
It gave me people, gave me new friends. I would say,

571
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:05,359
some of the people that I like most in this

572
00:28:05,519 --> 00:28:09,000
world right now are people I'd never met before ever

573
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,759
before my mom died, and I just like them a ton.

574
00:28:14,599 --> 00:28:17,599
I had decided this even kind of happened before my

575
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,279
mom passed, Like I had had a relationship go bad

576
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,480
right before my mom passed, and I'd kind of decided,

577
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,680
you know, I'm not gonna love anybody else, like if

578
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,000
I don't already love you, I'm not adding any new

579
00:28:28,039 --> 00:28:30,079
people that I love. And then when my mom died

580
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:32,160
that was so devastating, I doubled down on it. I'm like,

581
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,359
I'm just not gonna love anybody knew. It's so painful,

582
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:38,680
it's risky, it's hurtful. But poker brought somebody into my

583
00:28:38,839 --> 00:28:45,119
life that I loved again. This person is like now

584
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:47,759
one of the top I don't know what the number is,

585
00:28:47,839 --> 00:28:52,079
top three or four people that I love and care about.

586
00:28:52,279 --> 00:28:57,680
And I would climb mountains and fight bears and do

587
00:28:57,839 --> 00:29:02,240
anything for this person. I met this person through poker.

588
00:29:02,559 --> 00:29:04,880
I would have never gotten to know this person without poker.

589
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:10,079
Like the gifts poker has given me, it's pretty crazy

590
00:29:10,119 --> 00:29:13,160
when I think about it. And of course there's the game,

591
00:29:13,319 --> 00:29:16,079
the game that keeps teaching me, humbling met, challenging me,

592
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,279
rewarding me. You know, when I hear people dismiss poker

593
00:29:19,319 --> 00:29:21,359
as just gambling, you know, I understand why they say it,

594
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,240
But I also know they're missing out on something so

595
00:29:24,359 --> 00:29:27,720
much deeper, right. They're missing out on the discipline, the resilience,

596
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,559
They're missing out on community, they missing out on connections,

597
00:29:31,839 --> 00:29:33,519
They're missing out on the way the game can reveal

598
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:36,680
who you are to yourself, the good and the bad,

599
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,640
and help you fix the bad and improve if you

600
00:29:39,799 --> 00:29:44,880
so choose to. Poker really did save my life. It

601
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,559
was a key component of saving my life. And that's

602
00:29:47,599 --> 00:29:52,480
the reason I recorded this episode. Not strategy, but it

603
00:29:52,559 --> 00:29:54,640
came from a real place. It's something I wanted to

604
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:57,599
say for a very long time. So thank you for

605
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,119
being here, thank you for subscribing, and get me through

606
00:30:01,319 --> 00:30:04,240
seven years or a poker podcast, something I never dreamed

607
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,799
I would ever do ever. I'm so glad that you're

608
00:30:07,839 --> 00:30:09,799
here to share this with me and allow me to

609
00:30:09,839 --> 00:30:14,559
share it with you, and I'll be here with another

610
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:15,359
episode soon.

611
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: In the meantime, remember run good and play better.

612
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 3: If you'd like to receive more than just one episode

613
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:22,279
a month on how to crush low stakes Hold Them,

614
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:25,279
we do an episode every Sunday for fans of the pod.

615
00:30:25,359 --> 00:30:27,680
In exchange for five dollars a month, you get an

616
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,400
episode every single Sunday of the month. You may want

617
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to take advantage of our full blown training package, thousands

618
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of hours of content on how to crush low stakes

619
00:30:36,839 --> 00:30:39,279
hold Them, access to our private discord where we have

620
00:30:39,359 --> 00:30:42,799
a team of light minded motivated individuals who are getting really,

621
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:44,559
really good at the game. So it is one of

622
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the best, if not the best, low stakes poker community

623
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that you'll find anywhere.

624
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Speaker 1: If you want some one on.

625
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 2: One coaching, if you want to take your game to

626
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,720
the next level, I have the most affordable one on

627
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628
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that as well at low limit cagames dot com. I'd

629
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,319
love to help you take your game to the next

630
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level and help you absolutely destroy one, two, one, three

631
00:31:06,319 --> 00:31:08,839
and two five No limit hold them we out here.

632
00:31:09,039 --> 00:31:13,359
Speaker 3: Question taking names, taking chips, get the river of biskins,

633
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:17,720
stacks on flips, got a mouse, snip on tip, running

634
00:31:17,839 --> 00:31:21,599
like God with the low limit cash games Pie