I Quit Poker

I decided to give up playing poker.

I was in Leeds with a couple of friends for a PKR community meetup. There had been a lot of drinking on the Friday night, which led to me being pretty tired and hungover from the previous night's reveling, but I forced myself to the casino in order to play a rare omaha tournament which was starting at lunchtime. I enjoyed the tournament for the most part, it had been a lot tougher than I had hoped but I made it to the final table nonetheless. Unfortunately, I lost a flip and bubbled.  

There was just enough time to grab something to eat before the casinos' big monthly tournament started. I don't recall the numbers exactly but it was something like a £30 buy-in, plus rebuys and while there were only enough seats for 150 players, there was literally a queue to the door with players waiting for spots when someone bust.

I got sat down at a pretty chatty and friendly table, lots of players seemed to know each other and play regularly but I was amazed at how fishy some of their poker thinking was. Overall it was a pretty straightforward table, I kept a low profile for the most part and seemed to maintain an average stack without getting involved in any big pots.

6 hours later, I was still there, still average stacked, still a long way from the money. I was tired and desperately in need of some sleep. The atmosphere had grown more serious at the table and I realised that I wasn't having any fun. I had spent the last 12 hours playing poker and had nothing to show for it. What was I doing? I had spent ALL DAY sitting at a poker table, essentially doing nothing, surrounded by strangers. What reason is there to keep doing this over and over again?

I don’t want you to think I was just in a bad mood because things weren't going my way. I had an average stack, I wasn’t on the receiving end of any badbeats, I just wasn't having fun, and not just then and there, but for quite some time. I probably wasn’t in the best of mindsets to be honest but I had toyed with the idea of giving up poker a few times before. It wasn’t like it was causing any trouble in my life, it's not that I was losing a lot of money or anything but sometimes, well quite often, actually most of the time, it's just a bit disappointing. You can play a lot of tournaments, but you rarely win, it's even rarer to win something that actually makes a difference. It must have been months and months since I had won anything of significance. While poker can be fun to play, I just don’t find it fun if I’m not winning. I don’t mean like all the time but I think you need the occasional win, or at least the teasing of a big win every now and then to keep it interesting, and I hadn’t had that for I don’t know how long.

I recalled watching one of those late night poker shows from years earlier, and seeing an amateur who had only been playing for 3 years and yet there he was mixing it up on TV for big money with the pros, I had thought I could do that but instead I was sitting in a random casino, far from home, longing for my bed and for what? I would have been better off working in terms of money and I'd have been better off spending the time with friends for fun, so why was I doing it? I made up my mind at that moment, “I'll let this tournament take it's course, and that's it, done, no point wasting any more time on this hobby of mine, there's a lot more I could be doing with my time.”

Although I’d decided to pack it in, just getting up and leaving seemed a bit weird, and a waste of money, and a waste of the hours and hours I’d already spent grinding away. So while I was resigned to ending my poker playing I thought I should at least carry it on as far as the game would take me. I tried to fight the fatigue and pushed myself to focus a bit more and power through the tiredness. I wasn't really aware of much time passing but suddenly, my table broke and we were down to the last two tables. It had snuck up on me, out of the blue this tournament had was getting interesting, there was thousands up top in prizemoney and only 18 players in my way. Things were looking up!

Play became very tight as we approached the bubble, as I noticed this I attempted to bully my table, raising more often than not. That plan was sort of working, sort of not, I was getting caught out more than I would have liked. My stack was still hovering around average but average was still pretty short, about 10 big blinds, some players had more, some had less, but anyone could have got knocked out at any time.

It was about that point, I got dealt Ace Jack on the button, it folded round to me, and with roughly 10 big blinds, I shoved all in, hoping to pick up the blinds. That didn't happen. The small blind called for all his chips with pocket jacks, and then the big stacked big blind called and turned over aces! My tournament was over.

The board ran out: King, 10, 2... 7... QUEEN!

AMAZING! NUT STRAIGHT ON THE RIVER! The small blind was knocked out, I tripled up and tried to look sorry and humble to the former bigstack as I stacked his chips with a huge grin on my face. I looked up and saw a couple of friends laughing and celebrating on the rail. Things were going my way!

Play continued around the bubble in the cagey manner it had before but now I could cruise through into the money. I ended up losing a fair chunk of my stack being obliged to call some all ins against some shortstack all ins along the way but the bubble burst, and the next step was to aim for the final table.

Alas, it wasn't to be, I once again got it all in bad with a dominated ace but this time there was no miracle on the river and I was eliminated in 13th place for £150. Because everyone was shortstacked, when it got down to the final table of 10, they made a deal to split the money £1000 each. I was just 3 places from £1000!

But do you know what? I was still delighted with that result. I had been so down earlier in the night, to the point where I had decided to give it all up, and then I had gone so deep in the tournament, and got it in SO BAD, that to win anything, let alone over a hundred pounds was just brilliant brilliant fun. I celebrated with my friends into the early hours of the morning, and the very next day, I returned, and started playing poker again.