“Tommy!” I was carrying some racked chips to the cashier in the Pavilion room at the World Series of Poker. I stopped and turned to see the man coming toward me from three tables away. I knew the face. I knew the voice. But I had no idea who it was. This happens fairly
(Charlie Archie is a fictional character from Painless Poker. This is a conversation we had that is not in the book.) “Where do they come up with these crazy rules for live poker?” said Charlie Archer. “Online is so much better. So much simpler.” “And no one knocks over your drink,” I said. “So, tell
I’ll save you the trouble of asking. They don’t call me Floater because I like to peel the flop in position, although I do. It’s because I drowned and came back to life, and that was all I talked about at the poker table, until I realized nobody gives a rip. So don’t worry.
Even as a big-eared little doofus, I knew there was something wrong with that phrase. “Practice makes perfect!” Sister Mary Malcolm shouted when she cracked my hand with a ruler if one of my fingers hit a white key instead of a black one. I will say. Her aim was perfect. She always hit
My mom used to tell me, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” This is such a profound and righteous philosophy. And I’ve stuck to it. For example, when I eat popcorn, I think it’s worth doing, so I do it well. With the fingertips of one hand, I can pick up a surprisingly
I played poker for ten years before I discovered folding in 1984. That’s when I met Bobby. He had a big belly, a big beard, and a big laugh. Bobby was like Santa Claus, minus the giving. He just kept throwing his hand away, and he didn’t seem to mind. Then he would carry the
Dear reader: Alfonzo and Charlie are characters in my book, Painless Poker. This story is not from the book. It comes after. Alfonzo Calibri threw an aggressive question at Charlie. “What, precisely, is a bad beat?” Charlie replied in his usual non-combative tone. “A bad beat is when you lose with a hand that
(Dear reader: These are the last two pages of Elements of Poker.) During bad times, we get unhappy. Let’s say we wanted to be less unhappy during bad times. We could train ourselves to do it, if we were to use our bad times as opportunities to practice getting better at getting over bad times.
Before anything flows, there must be a difference. Between different elevations, water flows. Between different pressures, air flows. Between different poker players, money flows. What is Reciprocality? What is Reciprocality? In the world of reciprocality, it’s not what you do that matters most, and it’s not what they do. It’s both. Reciprocality is any
