How teenage poker prodigy Steven Silverman won, and lost, millions

This comment brings back memories. I was pretty serious for a decade or so, and I remember how long the losing streaks can be ("Oh my God. This is my first set in a week and you just cracked it with a one-outer on the river.")

I had a girlfriend for most of that time who went pro. She was pretty good, too, but she had that lack of respect for money in spades (heh). She'd spend a whole day grinding out $3000 in the $40-80 game and then lose $20,000 in an hour at the Pai Gow table.

One day she decided to skip the Pai Gow and went to the mall instead. Bought all kinds of designer clothes and perfumes and electronic gadgets. She practically filled up the car. When she came home there was this shocked look on her face. I asked her what the problem was and she said "Look at all the stuff you can buy for only $5000! I'm so used to using money as ammunition I forgot you can trade it for stuff."

Such a great post.

I have played live medium stakes poker in Vegas for 14 years now. Have witnessed the boom firsthand. Before the poker tv "boom" it used to be sort of embarrassing when family and friends from back home would ask about poker and what not because it always had a negative mystique about it. During the boom everyone was all of a sudden interested and wanted to listen about how exciting it must be. But the boom completely skewed reality and perspectives unlike anything I have ever seen, even compared to the housing boom.

I can't count how many times in past 7 years I'd be at table full of early 20 somethings claiming they are or am thinking about going "pro" (quiting job/college for poker FT). For every Tom Dwan type of story there are probably 1000x the stories similar or WORSE to the Washington Post article. It was never my business so I never made it my biz, but I used to be sad seeing so many talented/bright and charismatic kids be so lost and throwing away years chasing the rush and shot at being famous. Gambling, in any form, takes a very special tough minded character to do in long run since, like matt says, the losing streaks will come. I have told my wife one thing I wish I could erase from my mind would be poker. And I am a long-term winner! It just wears you down and matt mentioning how most can't fathom the emotional swings is true. It becomes worse the more early success one has because the resulting crash will be harder.

The smoke and mirrors of poker created by TV is FAR from real. Away from the lights and camera while they hype most of these guys up is mostly a collection of low lives grinding 60hrs a week on their asses just to pay the bills. Many of the big names the world has come to know have also gone broke at times. Not always because of poker but it just harbors other bad habits.

Anyway, enough of that. I do want to say Matt that during it time I was an avid follower of your blog. I could always tell you were one of the more grounded and mature young players that was having success and always knew you wouldn't let your head get too big. Sorry it took a tragedy of that magnitude to get you out but in the end it was probably best.

I know, I hate my life. 6 years ago I had 2 degrees and so much enthusiasm for poker, life, and the future... Now I wonder how a resume with nothing on it is gonna look in a job market I know nothing about... The habits of this oft toxic lifestyle will be harder to break than many of the good parts of my routine were to establish... Plus, for me at least, 17k months and 5k days have never translated to actual wealth... On the otherhand, my 'job' has cost me relationships and years (plus two inches of hairline) I will never have back...

Yeah, I quit playing professionally after finally deciding that my human/lizard brain was just not wired correctly to deal with the swings. Which is too bad, because the game is so interesting! And the fantasy--of making money with your mind, on your own schedule--is very seductive.

I think that a very, very small percentage of the population can happily play poker for a living; but for everyone else, I think long-term exposure to poker will almost literally melt your brain. The sheer amount of stress I used to experience during high-variance poker sessions was just absurd--I sincerely hope there's nothing else like it.

The way the poker economy works among the high stakes regulars is generally such that if you go 'busto', you'll inevitably be able to get staked from buddies if you are legitimately good. This results in players playing with extremely aggressive bankroll management.

In addition, there's no real visualization of the value of what you're playing for. It's just numbers on a computer screen. By far the most legendary story of a young player who's completely detached from the money is the Isildur1 phenomenon. [1]

I played high stakes online at a young age and felt the same sort of detachment- the appeal of "getting to the top" was too much to pass up to grind steadily at lower stakes. One of the problems is that over the past ten years, the dynamics of online games have changed considerably. Even an 18 month difference shows a dramatic development in the style of play you see- I'd contend that poker training sites like cardrunners play a large part in this. So a lot of players go on a tear for nine months, then have a big downswing as a result of moving up stakes too fast and failing to adjust their game.

One thing you see sometimes is tournament players like Zugwat trying to play high stakes cash games. It's well understood that in poker, the deeper the chip stacks are (defined by the number of big blinds players have) the more technically demanding the game will be. As tournament poker tends to be played with stacks of 10-50 big blinds, and cash games with 100-500 big blinds, the former requires less decision making. This is for a few reasons, but the main one is that on average you'll have fewer decisions to make with a smaller chip stack since you will be all in earlier in the hand.

Tournament players who are admittedly great at what they do often try to dabble in cash games because they've made enough to bankroll themselves for it. I remember watching Zugwat play Tom Dwan (who goes by the alias 'durrrr', [2] and talking to a few of the other high stakes regulars who had played him previously. The consensus was that he was pretty solid (which is saying something- many cash game players have a somewhat condescending attitude towards tournament players because of the supposed simplicity of tournament poker) but he had bit off much more than he could chew and would inevitably lose a good chunk of his bankroll before realizing it. I think he played four or five tables of 200/400 ($40,000 buyin per table) and lost about a quarter million that session. To his credit he was surprisingly mature in the chat box, something that can be hit or miss after large losses.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isildur1 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrrr