Turn River Kings

We’ve all had the thought. I’ll quit my job and play poker for a living. It will be great. I’ll sleep late, go play some cards and then party all night. Sounds good right? Just remember there are two sides to every story.

The alarm clock goes off. Half hung over you reach over and turn it off. Stumbling out of bed you stub your toe and curse your job. If only you didn’t have to wake up so early and trudge off to work everyday. In the shower you imagine the sweet life, being a professional poker player. You’d be on TV; people would recognize you and most of all you’d be rich. The shower ends and so does your fantasy. Off to work and another Monday morning greeted by traffic and your jerk boss.

Your desk is piled up with nuisance busy work. You start to daydream about poker. You’ve been doing pretty well recently at the low limit tables. You won a nice sized tournament a few weeks ago and added a nice chunk of change to your pocket. Surely you could do just as well at the higher limit tables. You’re as good as any of them and without those fish sucking out on you with their ridiculous calls you’d probably make even more money. Just then your boss interrupts you with an attitude. You’ve had enough and you let him have it. You tell him where to stick his reports and head for the door. This is going to be sweet you think to yourself. You imagine being interviewed by a beautiful girl after having just taken down a big tournament and telling this story. It’ll be great.

You get home and the first thing you do is jump onto an online poker table and move up a few limits. It’s time to play for real. You play aggressive and push the table around. You’re a big dog now. If they want to play with you it’s going to be for their entire stack. Then the most beautiful hand pops up. AsKs. You raise it up and get one caller. The flop comes QsTs3s. What a flop! Your opponent bets and you put him all in. He calls and turns over TcTd. Just two cards to sweat and you’ve almost doubled your online bankroll. The turn and river are no help for him and you almost double up. What a fish you think as you look at your stack. You transfer the balance of your bank account over to your online poker account and move up a few more limits. If there’s still fish at $10/$20 NL then I’ll try $50/$100.

You short buy into the $50/$100 NL table because it’s all you can afford. John D’Agostino is sitting there and you’re excited to be playing with another pro and hope to win a big pot off of him. First hand you look down at AA. You’re ecstatic. You’re first to act and you raise it up. Dags raises you and you re-raise all in for the rest of your stack. John is committed to the pot at this point because of your small stack. He calls you and turns up AKs. You’re so happy, you have total control of the hand. The flop comes 2c7d8c. Yes! You’re about to double up. The turn is a K. Uh oh. You’re a little worried now but come on it’s not going to come KK. The river is another K and you are in denial. You scream “Noooo!” It couldn’t be. You’re now totally broke with no job. The dream is dead. How are you going to pay your rent this month? How are you going to eat?

The next time you find yourself drifting away thinking about the life of a pro poker player just remember it’s a two way street. For every success there are numerous failures. Always play within your means and have fun. Don’t risk anything you can’t afford to lose. Just remember you might be one hand away from turn, river Kings.