World Series of Poker .... you play?

[Ted Harris]

With the WSOP about to crown their 2009 champion with the coveted bracelet and $8+ million dollars, are there any folks in BP nation that like to play poker online (for fun of course)? I have a home game but never played online ... a friend suggested Full Tilt.

[J Scott]

Originally posted by nationwidepi:

Congrats J on your poker success! Did you get any TV time?

I've been on TV twice. The event where I almost won a bracelet (I came in 2nd) was aired on ESPN back in 2005. The guy that beat me was -- at the time -- the youngest player ever to win a WSOP bracelet, and -- also at the time -- it was the largest limit hold'em event in poker history. So, it was a pretty well-covered event from a media standpoint at the time...

The other time was at as WSOP Main Event Feature Table on ESPN (back in 2006). It was early in the tournament, so it wasn't very memorable...

And while it probably doesn't count, I was in one of those Milwaukee's Best Light commercials during the WSOP on ESPN, and made it into one episode of "The Nuts" during a WSOP broadcast.

Originally posted by Ted Harris:

Did you travel throughout (and possibly outside) the US entering tournaments and playing cash games? I've read where playing poker professionally can be quite grueling despite how glamorous it may look on tv after all the editing that is done ....

I did, though I was mostly a high-stakes cash game player for about 10 years, not a tournament player.

I could only do the tournament circuit for about a year and a half, as I was one of the few pros that also held a full-time job; with big events almost every week, it was just too much traveling and too difficult to juggle priorities.

The most appropriate quote I've ever heard about playing poker professionally is, "It's a tough way to make an easy living..."

I think that about sums it up. It's definitely grueling. When you can spend two fourteen hour days playing in a tournament and still got knocked out without winning any money, that's about as frustrating a feeling as I've ever had. Not to mention those events where you pay $10K to enter, and then get unlucky, and get knocked out in about 5 minutes (luckily it's only happened to me once, but I know a lot of well-known pros that routinely don't make it more than an hour into a $10,000 event because they take a lot of chances).

And while people think that it provides a lot of flexibility and freedom, it doesn't (unless you're playing online). Think about it...there are really only a few good places to play in the U.S. (Vegas, L.A., and a couple smaller spots), and if you play the big games, you're limited to when you can find other players available to play or when the games are good, which is generally on the weekends.

Not to mention, most poker players don't exercise, don't eat well, and can spend days at a time sitting in a chair under fluorescent lights. So, for most, it's not very healthy either.

It's also worth mentioning that most poker players aren't very good at managing money. I'm friends with many of the guys you see on TV winning millions of dollars (including the really big name players), and you'd be very surprised at how many of them are completely broke.

It's a tough life to play the tournament circuit or the high stakes circuit, which is why I never even considered quitting my job and doing it full time...and I'd never recommend it to anyone else either, unless I didn't like them... :)