Ikigai

In this post I talk about finding meaning and purpose in my life.

There is no direct translation in English for the Japanese concept ikigai. “Iki” refers to life and “gai” refers to your value or worth. Ikigai is your life purpose or bliss, it’s the reason why you get up in the morning or more poetically, “waking up to joy”. The Westernized version of ikigai can be visualized by a Venn diagram illustrating four qualities: what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. So, why is it important? The Japanese have had the longest lifespans out of any race and attribute their happiness and longevity to a firm belief and adherence to the concept of ikigai. The opposite, the act of giving up and relinquishing the will to live can cause an earlier death, a phenomenon coined psychogenic death. 

I began religiously playing in High Society, the name of the home game filled with international Chinese kids. I would play the game most nights, engaging in playful banter with the other players using a mixture of English and broken Mandarin. Although we were similar in age, these kids were a lot different from me. There were clear cultural differences that shaped the way we grew up. 

There are a lot of positives to be said about Chinese culture. Chinese culture places a big emphasis on the group as opposed to the individual - everything that was done was done as a family. A meal out, a night out drinking, or even traveling would be done in large groups. The apartment was always packed: some guys would be playing poker with their girlfriends sitting behind them watching, others would be playing Mahjong or other card games in different rooms. High Society wasn’t just a game of poker, in many ways the game was a second home to these kids.

However, there are some less notable aspects of Chinese culture. Money can mean everything to the Chinese and many are known to have a full blown obsession towards it. There is a great emphasis on social status and many believe that having money and buying signature items will make them look impressive to those who don’t have them. Surveys have shown that the Chinese may be the most materialistic culture in the world as overall success is often equated by the things they own. Chinese shoppers are the world’s biggest purchasers of luxury items and often, the better marriage candidate is the one who has more money. Loving money has been institutionalized by the Chinese as kids are indoctrinated into a money-oriented society at a young age.

It’s also no secret that the Chinese are among the biggest gamblers in the world - it’s in our blood. There is a strong belief in luck, fate, or fortune which drives this force. Many casinos in Las Vegas will aggressively cater to Asian gamblers, offering Asian entertainers, ethnic food, and even dealers who speak Asian languages. Macau, known as the gambling capital of the world, attracts some of Asia’s biggest high-rollers.

Playing a game of poker with international Chinese kids was a totally different experience than any other poker game I played. Gambling was an acceptable form of socialization and as most of them were born into money, gambling for large amounts of dollars was perfectly normal and acceptable.

However, there were troubling behaviors that emerged from kids who seemingly had it all. 

Ordinary activities didn’t interest these wealthy kids. Experiences had to be unique and potent to account for their lower dopamine levels.

A meal out had to be a new fine dining restaurant that was never tried before. Big purchases were to be spent on the latest designer trends.

Some developed a sense of entitlement from being born into wealth.

One guy didn’t attend a single class of college and instead paid someone to attend and complete his college courses for him. Another was paralyzed for life after resorting to drugs to enhance his human experiences. A third purchased a girlfriend for a month.

Initially, playing at High Society was exhilarating. Many of the kids were undaunted by the thought of losing large sums of money as oftentimes, a reload was just a phone call away.

There was one kid that I became acquainted with - Jay. Jay seemed to have an infinite bankroll and would dump large amounts of money each night. Whether he was down a couple thousand or tens of thousands of dollars, Jay’s style was that he would show up the next day with bricks of cash stuffed in his hoodie pockets to pay his losses. 

One night after the game broke, Jay was stuck over 5-figures. He asked me if I wanted to give him blackjack action to give him a chance to become unstuck. Despite knowing that many poker players have lost their bankroll playing table games, I still decided to give him action. We were playing for a small amount and I knew as the bank I would have a slight edge. Poker players love to take edges when we can get them. 

I lost $500 banking Jay that night, nothing too damaging. Or atleast, that’s what I thought.

Days continued on as usual. After playing at High Society for some time, I realized how little the correlation between wealth and emotional control was. Despite having infinite dollars at their disposal, bad beats and unlucky runouts still caused bursts of anger and profanity. But still, it was a fresh experience. I finally found a group of kids who were just like me, fearless and unafraid of risking it all on the line. 

One day, a new character emerged, Freddy. Freddy just arrived in New York for his freshman year of college and similar to Jay, he seemed to have endless pockets. But Freddy didn’t come to the game to play poker, he was looking for blackjack action. 

Jay and I decided to team up and bank Freddy together. We were happy to split Freddy’s action as he seemed totally reckless. At the time, I thought banking blackjack was just a way I could make quick money. 

Freddy lost $10k that night. After the loss, he casually handed Jay his bank account asking Jay to transfer the money for him. His bank account showed the number one followed by six zeros, not a penny more or less. He had just received a million dollar wire from family after moving to the states and wasn’t sure how to operate English applications, so he let Jay transfer the money for him. 

It was pretty astonishing noticing how careless Freddy was in casually giving Jay a bank account that contained a million dollars in it. But it made sense. Freddy never understood the importance of a dollar and had everything handed to him at a young age. To him, the money was just a number on a screen, and one that he had plenty of.

It didn’t feel right making money off someone in blackjack, but at that time all I cared about was making money, believing that the act of acquiring money would make me feel fulfilled and liberated. 

Over the next couple of weeks, I stopped playing poker and instead went to the home game each night looking for blackjack action. In blackjack, the swings were bigger and quicker, and all I had to do was deal cards while collecting money. An easy life.

On my twenty-second birthday, instead of going out for a nice dinner or getting together with friends, I decided that a better use of my time was to deal blackjack to international students. I won $10k banking blackjack on my birthday, which I thought was a birthday well spent.

But nothing was that easy in life and I quickly paid the price. One night, Freddy wanted to play as big as possible, $500 a hand with a maximum of 6 bets. Swings for a game like this would be very large, so Jay and I got together with six other people to bank Freddy together, with Jay and I taking the biggest percent of Freddy’s action. 

Freddy went on a crazy blackjack heater that I’d never seen before. Doubling down on fourteens and standing on twelves, all the while inhaling canisters of nitrous oxide and giggling. It was all fun and games for him, but ended up being costly for us.

The bank lost $50k that day, with Jay and I taking the biggest blow. After the loss, Jay didn’t want to call it a night. As a gambler, you never want to finish the night in the red.

Jay proposed that we go to Parx, the closest casino to New York, to get unstuck. In my previous interactions with Jay he mentioned that he was on a heater playing baccarat, the only form of gambling he took seriously. 

Baccarat is the table game of choice amongst the Chinese due to its simplicity, fast style and only a slight edge in favor of the house. It’s easy to play and strictly a game of chance, there’s no strategy involved.

I told Jay that I would accompany him, but wouldn’t play. I never met any crazy gambler like Jay before and watching him play was pure entertainment, it was mind-blowing how much money was being traded back and forth. 

Jay and I booked a ZipCar and left New York that night at around 1 in the morning. However, we only had a few hours of play for Jay to have a chance at becoming unstuck. Parx was a 4-hour round trip and Jay had to be back home before his girlfriend woke up.

Once we arrived at Parx, Jay, in his entire element, walked up to the casino floor with bricks of cash in his hoodie pockets. There were a multitude of baccarat tables to choose from, but Jay chose one of the few empty tables and began his baccarat session. 

The bets started off small—initially. A few hundred on banker, a few hundred on player, with Jay slowly peeling each card, making sure to check how many sides the cards had before flipping them over. The Chinese are very superstitious, sometimes Jay would blow on the cards or knock on the table depending on what card he was hoping for.

Jay never got unstuck. Within half an hour, he had lost $10k and started increasing his bet sizes. It was a crazy gambling spree with Jay repeatedly betting thousands of dollars a hand. 

Within the next few hours, a large group of people crowded around our baccarat table just to watch Jay gamble. As he was betting the largest by far, he would always get the priority in peeling cards. Jay would shout, blow, and knock on the table to try and twist the fortunes in his favor, but eventually to no avail. He put his last $10k on banker, but the dealer dealt a natural 9 to the player, ending Jay’s spree. 

I drove Jay back to New York in silence. We were both in the red and felt completely defeated. 

When we got back to New York, Jay asked if I wanted to go back to Parx and run it back. It was 10 in the morning and neither of us had slept that night. I’ll never forget the look on Jay’s face, convoluted with rage and heavy creases that made him look like he endured years of hardships despite his youth. My initial reaction was: this guy is nuts, he just lost a teacher’s salary overnight and wants to go back for more?

But, in a twisted way, I empathized with how Jay was feeling. He was experiencing extreme gambling tilt and it gave me flashbacks of when I lost significant amounts of money playing poker. When you’re stuck piles, all you see is red. 

I told Jay that I was out, we were both stuck a bunch and I couldn’t stomach the thought of losing more. Jay soon after booked another ZipCar and headed back to Parx. That morning was the last I ever saw of Jay.

In the next few months, hosts from nearby states would send limousine services to pick up Jay from New York and drive him to their casinos. It was also within those next few months that Jay, like many compulsive gamblers, went busto. The kid who laughed when he was stuck five-figures assuring me it was a small amount for him, the kid who seemed to have endless pockets was gone. Gambling had totally ruined him.

After grinding the home game scene for a few months, it was impossible not to notice how miserable the average poker player is. Some poker players didn’t have a personality outside of poker as most weekend nights were spent playing a game of poker. For many players, choosing to play a game of poker was an easy out from handling other responsibilities.

Due to the zero-sum nature of the game, for every winner in poker there has to be a loser. The percentage of poker players who win money over the course of their lifetime is estimated to be only 10%, meaning that nine out of ten players lose money long-term. Additionally, factoring in the rake, the percentage of winners diminishes even more. 

One model medical student confided to me that he deeply regretted his decision to go to medical school and instead of focusing on classes, he would be up all night grinding home games.

Another guy with a job at a top consulting firm, told me he wished he never found out about poker as weekend nights would be spent playing poker instead of socializing. He became distant to close friends, blew through his paychecks, and was secretly taking loans out behind his parents back. 

Poker is an ever-changing landscape and in recent years, making money in poker is becoming less and less about how good of a player you are. High-stakes games are quickly becoming privatized and closed off to the public. Furthermore, there is a little incentive for the guys at the top to share their secrets; knowledge is money.

Many poker players have shifted from trying to play the game professionally to instead try and cultivate rake professionally. Private games allow for game-runners to pick and choose who they let into their games, either so they can create a soft environment for themselves or so they can generate as much rake as possible. Whenever there’s a way to gain an edge over someone, there will be someone who takes it.

However, game-runners, who come from all walks of life, don’t have it easy. The private game scene is a rat-race, with game-runners trampling on each other to try and gain an edge over the small player pool. Game-runners will obsess over how to cultivate the perfect lineups to rake the most efficiently and generate as much money as possible. Many were blinded with greed and had lost perspective on what was truly important.  

For every honest home game, there will be ten dishonest games. Over-raking, trading action, hidden staking/backing deals, and even using RFID tech to cheat players plague the private game ecosystem.

During the months I would grind home games, each day there would be multiple different game-runners hitting me up to go play at their game. Some games wouldn’t invite me back after it became clear that I knew what I was doing.

Poker is unique as it's a game which combines luck and strategy and can be played for staggering sums of money. The game attracts some of the most brilliant minds in the world, but will also attract the biggest cynical scumbags who will do anything to perpetuate their own self-interest, and everyone in-between. Financial disputes were recurrent and almost every poker player I know has been cheated or stiffed out of money, the question soon becomes how big is your number? One character in the home game scene was even associated with a murder for hire, which was used to solve a financial dispute. 

What have I got myself into?

I came to New York as an eager kid with endless ambition to make it in the card game I loved. However, in the year I spent in New York, I had seen more negativity and pain than I had in the past two decades of being alive on this Earth. Stories of players busting 7-figure rolls and others who accumulated 6-figures in debt and swindled friends and family emerged. Between expenses, being cheated, and losses in table games, I had blown through a significant portion of my roll. I wasn’t broke, but I was crippled and a shell of my former self.

When I first told people around me that I wanted to try and take poker seriously, many of them were in disapproval, telling me it was impossible. My own brother thought I went crazy and made a reddit post asking strangers on the internet to convince me otherwise. 

The weeks after my appearance on the Hustler Casino Live Stream, the conversation towards me shifted drastically. Strangers would come up to me at the home game with small praises, letting me know how cool it was that they saw me playing on T.V. Some guys who I hadn’t talked to in years messaged me with positive affirmations. One guy even messaged me saying I inspired him to quit his day-time job and that he wanted to try and make it as a poker player and dealer. 

Yet, I didn’t feel all that great. For the majority of my time in poker, I wasn’t proud of telling people I played poker. Having a large part of my identity being tied to a card game was something I was pretty embarrassed about, no matter how lucrative it became.

Although I was finally getting praised and recognized for my skills at the game I worked so hard at, I was no role model. I felt an internal dichotomy. Humans can be simple minded at times. We believe what we want to see. Those who praised me only saw one highlight, but they didn’t see me lose a large percentage of my roll in table game degeneracy weeks prior to the show. They didn’t see the endless sleepless nights I endured and the weeks I would spend in hibernation unable to fathom the amount of money I lost in a poker session. 

During my time in New York, it was easy to lose perspective. I was surrounded by über rich kids with endless pockets and often compared myself to them. 

Why didn’t I grow up with fancy sports cars or hundred thousand dollar watches?

In this digital age, it’s almost second nature to compare ourselves with others. Guys will flex their latest big purchases on social media and girls will spend hours photoshopping their photos. People want to showcase that they are living a better existence than others. It’s human nature. We crave and feel validated by attention. Yet, I believe that the only person you should compare yourself to is the different realities that you could have taken. The only person living your life is you.

My decision to move to New York was impetuous. I didn’t have all the answers and didn’t have a Plan B if things went sour. All I had was an unwavering self-commitment and belief in myself to make things work out. I was either going to figure out the answers to my questions or die trying. 

For me, it was never just about poker itself. It was about being deeply unhappy with who I was as a person and getting my life in order. Poker is a game that rewards consistent performance - lucidity and overall well-being are essential for long-term success. Through poker, I was slowly able to get my life in order and realize what truly mattered to me. 

So, my response to those who want to make it in poker or any other venture is to stop listening to the noise. Live each day with conviction. 

Figure out what makes you wake up each day with a riveting sense of purpose and a reason for being. Find your ikigai. If you are truly committed and hell-bent on finding a way, you will make it happen. Who’s to tell you otherwise?