So from the spring of senior year following my tilt cash-out I didn't play poker for almost nine months besides the occasional home game. In the fall I started school at Umass Amherst where I was in probably the most ridiculous dorm on campus- Van Meter. I'll gloss over this area as poker was the furthest thing from my mind.
The only times I would occasionally play poker were when kids would come down my dorm hall and round up interest in home games. Just as I had in New Hampshire I managed to crush these, making 25 bucks or so most nights mostly through just relentless aggression. One memorable game happened downstairs along a long plastic beer-pong style table with me and 8 friends around it playing a cash game. The setting was just unbelievably cliche, long fluorescent lights, that cardboard-like industrial cieling with the mystery black and brown stains all over it, and dorm-staff coming by giving us the evil eye every few minutes. I raised basically every hand preflop all night and just ran hot as the sun, before eventually busting all seven other kids at the table in order, some multiple times, before it was left hu between me and the organizer of the game. He just looked across at me, said "I'm good," and I had the satisfaction of cracking open the plastic pokerchip case and taking a crumpled wad of 5$ and 10$ rebuys adding up to around 100$. Now obviously these kids were pretty clueless, and I was probably slightly less clueless, but I certainly felt very in control at these games in a way I definitely hadn't been in high school. One of the kids at the home game in casual conversation let it drop that he had been to a REAL CASINO, and that you didn't need to be 21. Turning Stone Casino in upstate NY, a 4 hour drive from school along 90 west. I was intrigued.
Looking back on my first trip to Turning Stone, I initially thought that I went with this kid who introduced me to it at the home game. It seems perfectly logical that this should have happened. In fact though, I went alone. This then looks to be the place where my degenerate tendencies diverged from the masses of kids who Moneymaker inspired to fling money to each other while sipping beers every Wednesday night. The beginning part of this memory is admittedly pretty hazy, I think it occurred on an early November Friday night. I set off from Umass prepared for an adventure, I'm not 100% sure how much money I brought with me, I think $300, which was the majority of what remained from previous playing. I did not book a hotel room, I did not know what games they spread, I did not know one shred of live-poker etiquette, and I definitely was not very good at playing poker. I believe my entire preparation was re-reading my one and only poker book Play Poker like the Pros where Phil Helmuth tries to create his own form of Supersystem except the advice begins and ends with playing 10 hands preflop and then descends into self-masturbatory stories where he calls large bets with AA and wins tournaments. I also had recently acquired the Mike Caro book on tells which I actually think is worth reading if you can get beyond the schtick. More on this later.
I-90 is a long windy gloomy stretch of road by night, but beautiful in the daytime. At the time it seemed I was going down a long dark tunnel to nowhere, when finally I saw gleaming to the left of the road, the neon lights of Turning Stone. It's actually pretty striking, cause it just pops up in the middle of this rugged upstate NY farm country, with no accompanying town or infrastructure, this sprawling parking lot, complex, and 20+ story hotel. Having already shelled out $11.00 in tolls, and a tank of gas which was at this point around $20, I knew the parking garage was going to be well out of my price range. I also had time to let the adrenaline seep out of me into the 10 degree New York evening, or to at least convince myself I was shivering and not just twitching.
Turning Stone is shaped like a gaudy small intestine, and after wandering through its various convolutions I found myself in the poker room. I suppose my initial impressions of a casino poker room was one of glamour. After all I had just waded chest-deep through chain smoking mother-in-laws feeding slot machines interspersed with bellowing guidos throwing dice. This was a welcome relief: it had the rich golf degens populating the 30/60 limit hold em game, a smattering of local pros wearing 150$ hoodies, Elks club type fathers with nervous twitches wishing for beers and puffing out their chests, nerdy academic types reciting pot odds mantras under their breath without realizing it, and a giant contingent of 18-30 year old kids in all shapes and sizes from frat boy to emo shuffling around the 1/2 no limit tables. I then had to contend with deciphering what the board was and how to get a seat through these screaming floor people without looking like an idiot. I think I actually asked someone, who was overly nice and baby-fed me a few poker etiquette nuggets. Smallest game was 100$nl, so off I went, 300$ bankroll in tow.
My memories of play are just so hazy of this Fall Turning Stone period. I know I went up there multiple weekends with similar thoughts and experiences but I don't know where to intersperse school between them and cut them up. So here goes. One thing I believe is that its extremely possible for bad or mediocre players to play great. And I'm convinced I played the best live poker of my career that Fall, before I learned how to actually play poker and became acquainted with math or boredom. I was just playing with a mix of instinct, running well, and my magic tell. Back to Mike Caro. This was 2006, before pros were red, and just after ESPN had attempted to deify them, so I didn't know any better. Anyways I read this Mike Caro's Book of Tells a couple times at rest stops, most of it washing through me cause of my intense nervousness, but I held onto a few tells like some kind of talisman. Strong means weak. Ok. Subconscious vs conscious actions. And then its application: If someone flicks their eyes down at their chip stack or your chip stack upon seeing a flop/turn/river immediately and not ostentatiously (subconscious), this often means they are thinking about winning your chips and so have a big hand. So this was my initial live poker strategy, nit it up, and see if they ever look at their chip stack during a hand. First night I profited 50$ and settled in comfortably enough that I knew I was not leaving Turning Stone until I bustoed or had to go back to school Monday morning. Around 6am I decided it was time for some rest, and bankroll nit that I am, I went out into the 20 degree NY morning and pretzeled myself into the backseat of my white Ford Taurus in time for sunrise. I assume the early bird crowd looked at me and made sympathetic and fearful noises, but I was in heaven.
The rest of that weekend I grinded specifically 100nl with 1/2 blinds, building up a 1000$+ stack Saturday night. I don't remember one hand from this session, I just remember exploring the various configurations and architectural wonders I was capable of with 200 red chips. By the end of the night I was drooping in my seat and had positioned my chip stack dead center of my space so I actually could not see the action 80% of the time or see my cards without making some grotesque leaning motion. But I thought this drew attention to the mountain of chips I had, so it made me happy. I lost 300$ on Sunday, played all day and all night again. Finally I dragged myself on the road, found myself weaving 10 minutes out of the box and went to sleep outside a Mcdonald's. I assume I skipped classes a 500$ winner or so.
I continued to become more enthralled with winning money at poker over the course of the Fall. I went to Turning Stone maybe 2-3 more times, not taking one substantial loss the entire Fall. I started to meet some of the regulars who I still degen it up with today, specifically two Cornell area players Jerry and Scott balling hard at 2/5nl. Probably my most hilarious table was 1/2 grinding with this insane Canadian player. He was this squirrel faced, bearded, computer programmer who I believe it came out was an ex-poker pro of some sort and was now working at a start-up. It became clear to me that he was just way better at poker than everyone else at the table, but was essentially giving his money away by limping everything from everywhere and just fcking around (as I would later do). We started talking, and at the time in one of my worst decisions in history I had purchased these retarded aviators in order to hide my subconscious eye flickers which I had been using against my opponents to such devastating effect. He asked "what color are those" in a way I was not completely sure was mocking yet. I tanked and said "sepia". At which point upon entering a pot for the next 8 hours I was serenaded with "sepia man raises, sepia man bets strong" etc etc. This lilting Canadian announcer followed me into every pot all night. I was intent upon being scary in my sepia-shades, moving my chips in and out of pots ever so deliberately and turning my dark gaze on my opponents who I pictured were wilting in fear. I slowly came to realize the duchebaggery I had come to hate so much was exactly what I was turning into. And I never wore sunglasses again, thank god.
I came into finals at Umass a 1200$ or so winner at Turning Stone. During finals I learned that my friend and poker-teacher, Cy, was roommates with a sick-successful poker player online named Danny. He had been making $1000/month playing online from the comfort of his dorm room and had moved up to 1/2 nl. We started talking a bit on AIM and he explained a few things very fast.
1) Poker could be an academic skill, describable by math and logic.
2) Poker tracker exists. Vpip and PFR could be measured.
3) 2p2, and flop turn river exist. Smart people would look at my hand histories for free.
4) There were people my age making a million dollars, and making tens of thousands of dollars. Now I knew one. And my mind was blown....
That winter my family took a vacation to Isla Mujeres, Mexico, for Christmas. There were beautiful beaches all around me, but I shocked and surprised my family by lurking in the sweltering internet cafes downtown for 6 hours a day. I probably read over a thousand threads that week, every sticky, and I began to fill a notebook with opening ranges for every position (keep in mind I haven't played online in almost a year so this is really fcking weird) . Bankroll management goals. 3betting ranges. I may have even dabbled in poker stove, suffice to say I was obsessed. One memorable moment I was reclining on a beach overlooking the lagoon with my Uncle Mike admiring a swimsuit model shoot which was occurring on the beach before our hungry eyes while sipping some margaritas. We started imagining Dom fueled orgies in the back of Ferraris and at that specific moment it all seemed so very real. Walking back towards town I told him I was taking it slow, but I vowed to make 10k gambling in 2008. He chuckled.
January 2007 is when I consider my poker career began....
