Poker After Dark

In this post I talk about how I started to build a respectable roll and got introduced to New York City.

It’s 2 A.M. and I just came back from a stroll. These nightly strolls have become a ritual for me, allowing me to take some time out of my day to reflect on whatever it is I may be thinking about. Today I started the stroll off frustrated, full of anger and pain that comes with losing money in poker. This past week I’ve lost approximately 20,000 U.S. dollars playing online poker, and although it isn’t necessarily anything out of the norm, the pain of losing money will never leave. I am human after all. As I kept walking, I felt the cold air brush against my skin, signaling the arrival of fall. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, smiling to myself. It wasn’t that long ago when I was a small stakes grinder with big aspirations, going on the same nightly strolls, wondering what it would be like to play high stakes.

After busting my roll, I was forced to put my attention back on school. I was pursuing a pre-med track after being fed the idea that spending years of my life studying in school would all be worth it once I got my white coat. 

Going down the pre-med track felt reminiscent of high school once again. Competition among pre-med students was cutthroat. Students would constantly compare grades and extracurriculars. Many students had mental breakdowns, unable to deal with the stress of it all. 

It is unsurprising that over 50% of freshmen who declare themselves as pre-med drop out and that medical students are more likely to be depressed and three times as more likely to die by suicide as their same-age peers according to AAMC. So, why does society push us so hard to become prized-doctors when the journey is long, tedious, and unhealthy?

I can’t comment for others, but I can comment for myself. I was despondent, spending most of my day studying for exams or preparing presentations with little time to do much else. I became distant to many friends, only interacting with fellow premed students. Life continued on like this for a while, until March of 2020.

COVID-19 spread across America like a wildfire, forcing businesses, workplaces, schools and restaurants to shut down.

With nothing else to do, online gambling skyrocketed. Poker games were the softest they were since Black Friday. My gambling itch quickly returned and I couldn’t help but join in on all the action.

A classmate of mine mentioned a soft home game that he was playing in. He added me to a Facebook group chat titled Poker After Dark.

I vividly remember having exactly one thousand dollars in my bank account left to play with. This money was recently given to me by relatives and family friends during Chinese New Year. 

Poker After Dark was filled with college students from New York. I didn’t know any of these New Yorkers and they didn’t know me, but we all shared the same young degeneracy and love for playing cards. Every day we would play online home games which started in the afternoon and could last all the way until the early morning. Our days were spent attempting to stack each other while talking trash in the group chat, none of us had anything better to do with our time anyway.

It was an exhilarating few months, and it took my mind off my misery in school. To anyone from Poker After Dark that is reading this, despite our quarrels and toxicity that emerged from young kids gambling with case money, I’m appreciative of all you guys and will miss our nightly chatters and endless Venmo transactions. 

I must have been the biggest winner on Poker After Dark. I watched my roll grow from a thousand dollars all the way up to thirty thousand dollars over the course of a few months. I ended up getting close to a lot of the regulars that played and we would often talk about the differences that came with growing up in the suburbs of Michigan compared to a big city like New York. I was intrigued in learning about how they lived their life and the freedom they had in such a big city.

One night after finishing up a game, a player named Steven asked me if I wanted to come visit New York. Steven just graduated college and was working in the city as an Investment Banker. He was your typical finance bro, spending most of his days working, but partying hard when he wasn’t. He was living his best life and we quickly took a liking to each other. 

Steven offered to show me around the city and let me crash at his crib. I couldn’t have said yes faster. I was finally going to see what the city life was all about, where Alicia Keys claims dreams are made of. 

I was headed to none other than New York City.