sea change

well, as most people who would be reading this probably know, i've made a pretty big decision in the last couple days, one that became the impetus for starting this "blog" thing (the culture surrounding which, btw, i have little to no knowledge of, so do help me along, kids, eh?). that's right, ladies and gentlemen, checkymcfold, jamie, however you might know me, has withdrawn from graduate school to begin a life of smoke-filled casinos, ringing slot machines, and everything else that comes along with a lifestyle most often perceived as somewhat degenerate by the general public. i, to put it in more direct terms, have chosen to become a poker player.

and thus, our hero enters the blogosphere.

without really knowing how one properly begins these sorts of endeavors, i will use this first, relatively lengthy entry to talk a bit about who i am, where i've come from, and where i plan to go:

i'm 25 years old, grew up in the mountains of southwest virginia, and moved to iowa to complete a BA in physics and philosophy at grinnell college. i remained in grinnell for one year after college, taking a philosophy seminar while bartending and figuring out (trying to figure out?) what the hell i wanted to do with my life. i thought i came to an adequate conclusion when introduced to mcmaster university's religious studies graduate program, one which allowed me to address "religious" (whatever that means) questions, but from a standpoint strictly philosophical in nature. although i wasn't sure that i wanted to be an academic, i had always done well in school and it seemed to be a logical extension of my past pursuits, which had strayed distinctly from my mathematical aptitude and toward that life of the mind thing you've heard about. i wasn't sure that i wanted to be an academic, but enrolling in an MA at mcmaster seemed to be a good way to figure out if that was my ultimate direction in life.

whoops.

to be honest, i think i made a mistake there, because what i've come to realize over the last two years is that graduate school is NOT the time to figure out WHETHER one wants to be a lifelong academic. indeed, i've realized that one really should have that decision made pretty strongly before setting out to do graduate study in the manner it's meant to be done. graduate school is a stressful place and time, to say the least, and without a firm desire for the PhD goal (or whatever aim one might have that requires the experience of grad school), it's pretty much unbearable. of course, i'm speaking entirely personally, here. some may have the constitution to bear the onslaught of deadlines, schedules, theses, etc. without that desire, and more power to them. i simply did not, and after two years of coursework and 7 months of 8-10 hour days spent working on a thesis that ran into obstacle after obstacle, i simply crapped out. i don't quite know the reasons precisely, but i can pinpoint the moment exactly. i was packing for a conference in italy that i was to attend and present during, i received an email from my department telling me that one of my colleagues had passed away suddenly. i did not know this woman very well on any personal level, but i knew her well enough for this to affect me. those reading this who remember the 2nd semester of 2002-2003 at grinnell will indeed identify with this sort of experience.

my first reaction to this email, in very stark contrast to what i and many others went through at grinnell, was one of complete dismissal. i had two days to prepare my paper for presentation. i had two days to finish packing for my trip to italy, and i simply didn't have the time to attend a funeral, go to department services, etc. but then, a moment of self-realization. was that really the type of person that the stress of graduate school had made me? so determined by deadlines and obligations that i could gloss over the death of someone so easily? and in all honesty, the fact that graduate school had indeed made me such a calloused and unyielding person would become my impetus for withdrawing from the conference, and in turn, from graduate school. i've never been that kind of person, and i hated even the possibility that two years of grad school might have changed me so profoundly that i could react to somewhat similar situations so differently. some of you will know what i mean by this, some of you will have no clue what i'm referring to here, but suffice it to say that i decided over one sleepless night to tender my resignation from a place that played such a great role in changing my relation to the people around me.

ok, we're getting too introspective for the internet here. what to do? well, as many of you know, i was playing poker to pay my way through grad school since i wasn't allowed to get a job outside of school while in canada. i had gotten serious about the game out of necessity--i simply couldn't eat without winning at it--and had spent about 10-20 hours a week playing cards throughout my 2 years in canada. and more importantly, i loved the game. i remember telling my parents at one point last year that i had had intimations of the same feeling i used to have playing baseball in elementary school: that if, somehow, i could really play this GAME, which was SO FUN, for a living, then i'd really never really need anything else from life. and so when i needed an answer to that "what now?" question about 5 days ago, i had an answer pretty much set out for me.

so now, a bit about my poker background:

i made a pretty good amount of money from poker last year, and long story short, i finished 2005 by playing 25/50 LHE on the ongame network to the tune of 2.13BB/100 (for those outside the poker world, that functionally means a little under 100 dollars an hour), and 5/10 PLO8 on ultimate bet for a pretty good clip as well. i was riding high, winning more than 10 tournaments outright for the year, highlighted by winning a 300+20 for just over 15,000 dollars. i felt invincible, but with 2006 and the stress of the impending thesis, my 10-20 hours of poker a week became much less, and i was living off of my bankroll while school was in my head and making me play much more poorly than i thought possible. 2.13BB/100 became worse than -1BB/100, and about 4 months, 10,000 hands, and 3 limits down later, i was sitting with a 700 dollar bankroll, no confidence, and bills to pay around the middle of may. after paying off all my debt in 2005, i was again living off a credit card while using my teaching paycheck to pay my rent.

time to suck it up and do some poker-related soulsearching right alongside its life-related counterpart. and suck it up i did, going back to the 5 dollar all-in-fests and getting my head in gear enough to go on a pretty good run of tournament play which saw me final table 3 in a row at one point and win 2 outright in the same day at another. sometimes in spurts, sometimes grinding it out at 1/2 through 3/6, june saw me claw back from 700 dollars to my goal of 3k and 5/10 again just in time to go to italy for that conference.

oh, wait, there was another option, too. during the downswing from hell (which, i now freely admit, was largely due to a problem with my mindset and confidence), i got an email from one of the other winning 25/50 players saying that he wanted to "take advantage of my bankroll problems" and stake me in a couple of smaller world series of poker events this year. at the time, i had to turn him down because of the conference in italy, but after my decision to withdraw, i shot him an email asking if his offer was still good. it was, indeed, and i'm headed to vegas for 3 1500 dollar events and those amazingly juicy side games in a couple of weeks.

so this, gentle readers, is where i stand right now: i'm stuck in canada for another month at least, forced to play nothing but poker on a 3k bankroll (which, i know, is not a responsible way to begin a professional career, but i have no choice), and gearing up for 2 weeks of vegas before my move to chicago at the end of august. i might have to get a "real job" when i get there in the beginning, i might not, we'll see.

but enough about me. now the blog has officially begun, so i'll say a bit about what i envision it to be:

i'm both a philosopher (yes, still) and a poker player, so you'll probably find entries related to both, sometimes concurrently, sometimes not. regardless, i will try to make at least one entry every other day or so, about whatever happens to be on my mind, poker-related or otherwise. it should be a good way to keep me analyzing both my game and my life, so it's probably good practice for me to make myself get on some sort of schedule with this thing. as with all things, we'll see how that goes.

and a final note which i hope ties this long first entry together:

in all honesty, i view my coming life of poker as an avenue of retaining--or regaining, perhaps--the benevolence that i always admire in others, and aspire to myself. i've always believed that with financial stability (and sometimes, excess) came a sort of test: would one hoard one's wealth or use it for good? and in times where this question is pertinent, i've always done my best to emulate the words of andrew carnegie, which i'll now recount:

“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community /the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”

as i understand them, these words place upon one who has the ability to do good in the world the profound duty to do so to the best of one's ability. i hope that i should find this duty placed upon me in the coming years, and also that i fulfill that duty as best i can. i hope, also, that poker allows me to do so in a way that academia could not.