SPIDER: Shooting Pool & Playing Poker for a Living

Dear Dreamer's Son followers and those who would have followed,

This is one of the weekly Stupendously Pimped-out Industriously Delineated Extensively Reinvigorated Re-releases. It gets confusing to remember what SPIDER stands for, so I'll just make it up as I go along. This one is about my two dream jobs. If I ever make as much scratch doing either of these things, I'll kindly give up my day (night) job.

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Nov 19, 2009

Before I started college, I had said to some teachers and friends that if I could shoot pool and play poker for a living, I would in a heartbeat. It was in a joking manner, but I meant it. Thankfully before I bought a ticket to Vegas, all the years of Asian guilt started hurtling back to the present. You can't ever escape your past. Here's a bit of the litany of Viet Catholic woes:

'If you don't become a doctor (an M.D. doctor, not those other 'doctors'; D.O. doesn't count either), then I will disown you.'

'If you don't marry a Vietnamese Catholic girl, I will disown you.'

'If you don't have lots of grand kids, I will disown you.'

'If you don't let me live in your house when I'm old and wrinkled, I will disown you.'

'If you even think about playing poker or shooting pool for a living, I will disown you.'

'If you don't play blackjack and baccarat (WTF is poker?), you are a traitor to your gambling heritage.'

And so on. I guess I've been disowned. Oh well, that's life I suppose. Things fall apart. At least I didn't kill myself; then God would have disowned me, which would be the ultimate disowning.

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Melodramatics aside, I did think about shooting pool and playing Texas Hold'em for a living. But there were some issues with that career path:

Firstly, you can't make money shooting pool anymore. Big tournaments only pay out 25k to the winner, and these guys make me look 150,000,000 times worse than I make you all look. If you've seen me shoot pool, you may think I play pretty well, but compared to money and tournament players, I pretty much suck. After the fundamentals of pool (stroke, bridge, balance, etc), there comes the strategic side (cue ball control, table position, defense), then the mental side which I think of as being able to win when you should win. Finesse (the name of my pool cue) and I have been at this for quite awhile, but we're still nowhere being near the caliber of people who make money from this game. Plus, people don't let themselves get hustled anymore.

Now with Texas Hold'em, the only things that kept me from it was the bankroll and my age. Over 21, check; one roadblock unblocked. A bankroll is the money you set aside to fund your poker ventures. Inevitably, you're going to lose in more than a few sessions (sittings at a poker table), but in the long run, your bankroll should increase, allowing you to move up to higher limit games.

The concept of a 'bankroll' was invented, in my opinion, to allow players to track their winnings and losings and to play games within their means.

The problem with chronic gambling at regular casino table games is that you're going to lose in the long run, even with perfect basic strategy in blackjack (the casino game with the lowest house advantage). You can't bankroll that because your bankroll would always decrease. That's why people (of the Viet persuasion) who plop down hundred dollar bills at the baccarat tables are idiots--you can't win in the long run.

The beauty of poker is that you're playing other people. And the better player will win in the long run. Yes, the river is going to burn you a few times and you may lose with pocket rockets and big slick, but if you get your money in when the cards are in your favor, eventually you'll make money (hopefully).

Once I pay off my student loans, I'll start to build my bankroll to fund my second job. What am I going to do in the meantime? Read books on poker theory and start to develop some catch phrases.

My favorite one so far is from my uncle Scotty Nguyen:*

'You caw, it gon be aw over, baby!'

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Platinum-limited, invitation-only to purchase, super-exclusive commentary:

Last week, I got to hang out with the guy who single-handedly got me through pharmacy school by waking me up for the sort of important tidbits, the stuff where if you mess up, the state board of pharmacy will send you a mean, threatening letter and then change your ‘Prior Disciplinary Order(s)’ to ‘Yes’. It’s as bad as your mother pulling down your pants and spanking you in public. You might also kill someone, but that’s not nearly as important as avoiding becoming the laughing stock of your pharmacist friends.

So we had lunch and played a few games of pool in which I thoroughly excel amongst my friends. He surprisingly won a game by sinking the 8, and another by my sinking the 8 before its time (which I refer to as 'committing statutory’). The side pocket ‘t*tty f*cked’ a couple of my balls, performed ‘rim jobs’ on a couple of others, and disappointingly ‘spit’ out a masterful bank [shot], but on the whole, the table was pretty accepting to my gentle, finesse-imbued touch, which was a little surprising given my lack of recent practice.

As soon as I get a table of my own, I might actually try to pursue playing in tournaments and such. The potential is there; just the work and dedication (and resources) are lacking.

In the meantime, I’ll have to learn some trick shots, because for whatever reason, women seem to like the grandiosely impractical (where the hell are you going to perform a trick shot in an actual game) over the masterly fundamental (Tim Duncan-like boringness).

*not really my uncle, in case you were wondering.