Gambler: The Life of a Professional Poker Player

From 1982 to 1984 I played poker professionally in Las Vegas. In those days there were no multimillion dollar tournaments like there are now, but I made a decent living playing Seven Card Stud and Texas Hold'em. Most tournaments I entered had no more than 300 people in them paying an entry fee of $50 which brought the prize pool to about $14,000 with only 4 people in the money'. The grand prize was about $7,000 with second place being $4,000 and third and fourth place about $2,500 and $500 respectively. In those days it was a lot of money since a new car could be had for $7,000 and that was nicely equipped. Mostly I played in cash games and made about $1,200 a week on the average, which was quite a respectable living at that time.

I stayed in the Airport Inn for $14.95 plus tax a day and would walk to the Strip each day for exercise. The two mile walk each way to the casinos where I played poker were about all the exercise I got since I played on the average of 18 hours a day. I ate one meal a day in the all-you-can-eat $3.95 buffet not counting the coffee that was served free at the tables.

If anyone tells you that a good poker player's life is easy, they have never played poker for a living. There is so much adrenaline pumped into your body that it is hard to eat even one meal a day and near impossible to sleep well. Poker playing is sheer discipline and patience. Frequent bluffing wasn't a percentage play in Seven Card Stud and only a slightly better percentage play in Texas Hold'em. One person would usually call you so you better have the cards tobeat the caller or you will be busted out of the game very quickly. The exception to the frequent bluffing prohibition is no-limit cash games. No limit tournaments fall somewhere in the middle. However, I remain a strong believer that all-in bluffs work all the time until someone calls you. I believe that games shown on TV appear to make this ploy work better than it really does since these games are edited before being shown to increase the viewer's excitement.