Going to California

Tomorrow I'm driving to California for an epic late winter of poker tournaments, beginning at the Commerce Casino with the gargantuan LA Poker Classic, moving south near San Diego for the main event at Harrah's Rincon, back to Commerce for the LAPC main event, over to Vegas for the Wynn Classic, and finally the Shooting Star WPT in San Jose.

It's a troubling time for the online poker pro. There is no guarantee that this will be a viable career in a few months. No one really knows. I'm pretty sure I could hack it and make good money as a live pro, but I don't think I really want to. I'm not sure I like the game enough to keep doing this much longer. It's a great game and all, but I get really sad thinking about the old pros and how they must feel about their lives. Even the top pros - I think it's kind of pathetic really to be a lifetime cardplayer.

It's also becoming increasingly apparent to me that I'm not especially talented at the game of poker. This is an enormously depressing, confidence-crushing, life-altering realization, but deep down I've known it for quite a while. I'm pretty damn good at the game; I've got more talent than most pros; but recently I've been talking to and hanging out with some better players and it's become clear to me that they just get it a little better than I do.

Maybe I wouldn't be thinking about this if a couple of pocket aces had stood up in big tournaments. Maybe if a couple of critical hands had gone differently at a number of different junctures, I'd be singing a different tune. In December I almost wrote a blog entry about how good at tournament poker I was getting. Since then it's been a dry desert on the tournament trail, with the exception of a final table the Master and I made in a teams event in Australia that ended in a cruel three out beat in a huge pot.

I think the Bellagio Five Diamond in December took a lot out of me. I'm not sure I've recovered yet. Day after day, going in, scrapping as hard as I could, repeatedly getting deep, three times well into the money, and never getting up on that stage for the final table. It took a lot out of me. It's important to have that 110% drive in every tournament, and I didn't get it back until the Borgata. I'm not as talented as some players, so it's double important for me to play my hardest.

This trip will likely be a litmus test for my future in poker. I'd like to be done as a full-time pro pretty soon, really. If I can win a big one, I think I'm done. Conversely, if things go very poorly, and I lose money, then I might be done as well. Or at least I may curtail the tournament travel and just play online cash games and the occasional big tournament. Of course, the online cash games may disappear in a few months.

Most of my poker friends are going to be in LA. There will be big tournaments every day. It's Southern California. On the surface it looks like it should be an excellent trip. The problem is, right now I'd rather be watching college basketball with my girlfriend than playing poker tournaments.

Last June, Paul and I drove out to Vegas for the World Series of Poker. That drive was wild, fresh, free, and exciting. I'm not really looking forward to this one, but that may all change by the time I hit Utah. I still love the idea of driving out over the Rockies to the West in search of what Indiana Jones called "Fortune and Glory."