Today, one year ago, I was getting annihilated in high rake home games, had consecutive losing months, and was forced to drop down in stakes. If you told me then that I could make 6-figures that year, I would be pretty content. If you told me I could make 6-figures in a month? I wouldn’t have believed you. I barely believed in myself. This past January is the best month I’ve ever had–winning 6-figures, well sort-of. Full transparency–I did sell some pieces of myself in certain games, so I did not bring home the full amount. Regardless, personally pulling in 6-figures profit in a single month is still a milestone for me and something I can always look back at with pride.
This month started off with a bang, finishing second in a large field MTT for $21k just three days into the month. A few days after the win, I made an impromptu trip to Atlantic City where Borgata was hosting a $5k buy-in event with first place being well over a million dollars.
Although I did not play the event, seeing a bunch of top poker pros all huddled in one area was amazing to me. I am a fan of the game first.
While the tournament pros were battling it out in the conference room, I found myself sitting in the biggest cash game running, $25/$50 with the occasional $100 straddle, playing short-handed with Dan Zack, who is the 2022 World Series of Poker Player of the Year, and Chris Brewer, who regularly travels and plays nosebleed Triton Poker events. Coming up, I used to watch both players play on the old Live at The Bike streamed games–regularly battling with some of LA’s best. With both player’s combined lifetime tournament winnings exceeding $9 million dollars and who are used to playing these stakes (and much higher), my resume was clearly unmatched. Despite the tough table, I was fortunate enough to run well and had a great time listening to their journey and experiences on rising to the top.
The next day I got a text from my friend saying he final-tabled the Borgata Championship event and would have a chance to play for the over million dollar first place prize. Although he didn’t end up winning and admitted to torching hundreds of thousands of dollars in expected value at the final table, a 6-figure score for his first live tournament ever played is no joke. He is finally googlable as he says, congrats Chris!
Just ten days into the month, I’m up about $50k and one of my close friends had a sick cash. Nothing could be going better, I thought to myself. However, life has a funny way of humbling us.
The day right after I arrived home from Borgata, I received my first ever hate comment on the blog. Something along the lines of I’m a giant privileged asshole and a waste of oxygen and that I should go kill myself. As typical of a hate message as hate messages can get. Although I do consider myself to have pretty thick skin, this comment still got to me.
My mentor calls it a rite of passage for all people who decide to share their work or thoughts online. We see hate comments everyday on YouTube videos or Twitter threads. It’s much easier for people these days to project negative emotions and attack someone behind a screen. It’s much easier to tear others down to feel better about yourself rather than to build yourself up. However, all I can say to the person behind the screen is that I empathize with you. I can’t say I haven’t been there myself.
I guess the biggest reason the hate comment affected me wasn’t the derogatory terms thrown at me, but rather the concept of being privileged. The idea of being privileged has crossed my mind from time to time and it’s pretty clear I’m quite privileged. I’ve been fortunate to receive an education most kids wouldn’t receive in their lifetime and even though my parents never really gave me any pocket money or supported me financially, I knew deep down that if things went awry I would still have a place back home.
So, yes, I am quite privileged. But at this point in my life, I decided to own it. Life is neither equal nor fair. Life is really just about you.
What do I mean when I say that?
You and your own circumstances are unique to you and only you. Spending time wishing you were like someone else is both a waste of time and a waste of opportunity to live life to your fullest potential.
The truth is, we are largely a byproduct of our environment. I’ll quote an excerpt from my friend’s blog, where he explains how we become “programmed” at a young age:
“We’re expected to pick one field to major in and do a job related to it before you’re 20. We’re expected to work at just one company for a long time to ‘climb the ladder’. We’re expected to learn an instrument and stick with it for many years. We’re expected to solve math equations in one specific way or else we get a bad grade. We’re expected to pick one sport in the beginning. We’re expected to learn about school subjects in a really specific, arbitrary way that is uninspiring. We’re expected to go through middle and high school in a one-size-fits-all manner.”
Growing up in Michigan, there was a high proportion of undergraduate students on the pre-medicine track. After moving to New York, I found that rarely anyone wanted to become a doctor. When you grow up in such a big hustle culture and all you see are people who work on Wall Street, that’s who you decide you want to become.
Throughout highschool and college, I was always an above average student. I would consistently perform good, but not great. No matter how hard I tried (and believe me, I tried hard), I would never get the top mark on an AP biology exam. That achievement was reserved to the same student, who effortlessly yet consistently got the highest grade everytime.
So, what was I good at?
I was fortunate enough to come across poker. A game that rewards both hard work and execution. It doesn’t really matter how theoretically sound you talk about poker, if you aren’t able to execute at the tables there is little room for success. Additionally, being able to consistently handle losses is something I’ve noticed a great deal of poker players struggle with. Losing money for weeks or even months on end can fry someone’s brain like nothing else and having the discipline not to engage in self-destructive habits while consistently performing at a high level is far from easy. Poker has allowed me to change the rules of the game of life where the odds are now in my favor. The game rewarded my talent and skill-sets, which is why I believe I progressed so quickly.
Yet, I always wonder why I chose poker. With so many other careers available in the world, why did I choose to play this card game?
Again, I believe it was largely a byproduct of my upbringing. Growing up in an Asian household where words of love were rarely expressed and instead the utmost priority was getting good grades and going to a good school, my duty as an offspring to Asian parents was to be the perfect kid who goes to a reputable college and to have a lucrative job afterwards.
However, being born without unconditional love (as parenting is quite hard) usually causes the offspring to develop into one of two ways: being anxious (seeking out love/validation from others) or becoming avoidant (you don’t need love since you’ve never had it in the first place).
For me, it was becoming avoidant. I’ve always had the tendency to distance myself from others and had no problem spending hours playing poker alone in my room. For me, it was always easier to push someone away as I was afraid at the thought of not receiving the love/attention I was seeking for. I felt suffocated and used poker as an escape.
Furthermore, in recent months, I’ve found poker itself to be less meaningful in what I believe I can provide to the world. Sure, there is an argument that poker players are providing entertainment value for the recreational players, but we’re not doing anything grandiose. There’s a lot of money to be made in poker, but at the end of the day we are all just gamblers. I find a lot more meaning in being able to share my experiences and struggles as an initial lone-wolf in the poker world.
Anyways, cycling back to the amazing month of January.
After coming home from Borgata, I played New York’s first-ever streamed game, shout out to ComboCity Poker! I then went on to play some high-stakes cash sessions where I ran quite well in both games and finished my last session of the month up 3 buy-ins at $50/$100, bringing my gross profits for the month just over 6-figures. A very jubilating outcome.
However, I believe it’s important to take some time and reflect to ensure I don’t develop a god complex after these big winning streaks. Although it may come as a surprise, this winning month doesn’t make me any happier of an individual than I was in previous months. I’ve seen too many people ruined by greed and lose their souls in the pursuit of money.
In fact, the wealthiest people I know seem to consistently be the unhappiest. Living your life chasing bigger scores and bigger purchases is a pretty unhealthy and unhappy way to go about life. It means you’ll never be content with who you are. It doesn’t matter how many zeros you have in the bank account, taking a shit will always still feel like taking a shit.
For me, the money made this month is just a receipt of the work that I’ve put in. There have been months that I’ve lost money or breakeven and in those months I wasn’t sure what the future was going to entail. The thought of the unknown, the times of tribulation, and both of the highs and lows are where I personally derive meaning from. If you are born knowing exactly how your life is going to play out, living out a script someone else wrote for you, where’s the meaning in that?
As my twenty-third birthday is coming up, I want to remind myself to keep perspective. Be cognizant that there is a sea of grinders out there all trying to achieve similar financial freedom. Don’t forget that there is so much more to this world than just a card game. Remember to keep the real ones around you close and like always, enjoy the ride.