This isn’t a completely new state for me. I play online poker… a lot. It would be classed as a problem if I didn’t make money from it on a regular basis. This, however, is a new addiction a new habit. I’m online trading for the first time; I’m hooked and sadly where as at the virtual poker table I’m a maestro here I’m a newbie flapping about like a moron and losing money very quickly as a result.

There’s a big cross over between poker and trading. It attracts people with a similar mindset and those that are successful share similar traits. I’ve always thought if I got bored of poker I could retrain myself and trade for a living – hey anything to make money at home in my big chair in my pants.

I wouldn’t be the first big poker names have bridged the two worlds. 8 time WSOP bracelet winner Erik Seidel moved from wall street when he lost his job in a recession to take on poker at the highest level. Years later online superstar Cliff Josephy (known as ‘Johnny Bax’ online) let a broking career to take up poker. Kirsty Gazes has made the move in the opposite direction, giving up playing cards regularly to concentrate on options trading. So what are attractions of trading online and why is there such a big cross over from one to the other and what do poker and trading share in common?

There was only one way to find out I need to try my hand at some online trading. After all thousands of hours of virtual poker must have prepared me for something in life?! I’d almost certainly be a natural; all I had to do was show up and the money would roll in right?

I’d be spending 5 days playing…sorry trading… on a website called BetsForTraders.com

. The site lets you bet on the movement of stocks, stock indexes and currencies. One of the problems with starting trading is that it can be very complex however bets for traders gets round all this by enabling you to bet directly on the real time prices and indices. So you don’t need any technical knowledge to jump right in…which was good because I had none.

Starting trading was similar to the first time I played poker. No idea what was going on but enough fragments of knowledge and a big enough ego to think I was going to win. Let me put it this way when you find yourself saying to your computer … ‘come onnnn beginners luck!!’ … it isn’t a good sign. I was going to play with a £500 pound bank roll. Immediately my years of experience playing cash games kicked in and I broke it down in to 10 fifty pound trades. I decided not to over think things and made my first trade. I bet that in 30 minutes the dollar will get weaker and be above 2.067 to the pound – its current price.

With 8 minutes to go it’s at 2.066 and I’m shouting at the screen. When playing poker I shout at the other players. Actually I quietly swear at them and it’s a good release. Here I’ve no idea what I’m shouting at; the traders in New York? The computer programme? Actual paper dollars?
It starts falling… really quite quickly.
With 2 minutes to go it’s nowhere near the level I need and my £50 bet can now be sold back for £2.57; that’s really not a good sign. Moments later I’m put out of my misery and £50 in the hole… and I’m hooked.

Perhaps the most obvious thing in common between poker players and traders is their attitude to risk. Before you all agree I don’t mean their ability to take risks I mean their understanding of it. A lot of the public view betting thousands on the turn of a digital card or on the tenth of a cent fluctuations in the price of a dollar as ‘too risky’. This is to mis-understand what traders and poker players are doing. All they’re doing is looking for profitable situations and investing in them; situations which have an expected up side.

This leads on to something else which really separates both groups from the general public; an ability to accept losses. Every good trader or poker player knows that not all of their bets will be successful however they know that if they keep making good decisions where the balance of probabilities is in their favour they’ll make money in the long run. The only way this becomes ‘risky’ in the conventional understanding of things is if they put themselves in a position to go broke because of the volatility involved in what they do. For a poker player this is playing at too high a stakes for his bankroll; for a trader this is risking too much on one trade or being too exposed on one position.

Knowledge is everything in both worlds. The more clearly you can identify a positive expectation situation the more often you’ll end up ahead. In both worlds despite the outside world lauding the glamorous flash exponents of the trading or poker playing arts it is the geek that’s king. Knowledge is everything and I have absolutely none. Using guess, hunches and trends I have managed to on 6 of my first 7 trades. Half my initial bankroll is gone in two days. You could use me to make huge money; just wait til I predict which way an index is going to move and put your house on the opposite!

It’s sick I mean most of these are almost fifty fifty shots!! I have to win some don’t I? Where’s this beginners luck I hear tell of, plenty of people have it when they take up poker against me. Clearly the markets are rigged against me – all those smug traders with their detached mansions in Hertfordshire and beautiful wives they never see because they’re too busy making the dollar go down when I’ve bet it’ll go up.

‘Don’t get emotional about stock’ Hollywood’s favourite trader Gordon Gecko once advised and I have. Every poker player knows what it’s like to go on tilt and have your ability to make logical decisions clouded by anger and frustration it’s the same for a trader. Chase your losses in either pursuit and what should have been a small loss can turn into a disaster. Trading; like poker, demands discipline and clear thinking at all times.
It’s amazing how often emotion can enter into decision making. When playing poker online I’ve trained myself to make as clear a decision I can based on my equity in any given hand. While trading I don’t have the knowledge I need to do that and I’m reduced to gut feelings and hunches – suddenly I’m a gambler… it feels dangerous, wrong… and far too much fun!

It’s my last day trading in this mini challenge and I’ve bumped along for a couple of days after my initial disasters. I need to break a cardinal rule and do something drastic.
I cling to one tiny bit of knowledge like a man whose just found out the odds of making a flush if you flop two of your suit. Apparently some U.S. economic data about their GDP or some such has come out today and it’s stronger than expected. My pygmy sized trading brain tells me the dollar must go up today. That’s it – lump on – I’m all in. I bet the dollar will be up against the pound at the end of trading in New York.

I’ve got three hours to sweat through and things start badly. It inches down a little after I make my trade. Come on Americans can’t you get anything right? Is your currency so rubbish it can’t even move up an eensy teeny bit?? Suddenly I realise I’ve been a fool, this same bet let me down yesterday and now I’m chasing my losses. As my self hate begins to grow slowly and the time ticks away …miraculously the dollar begins to rise. With twenty minutes to go it’s above the threshold and it doesn’t go back – I’m resisting the temptation to sing ‘I’m a Yankie Doodle Dandy’.

Somehow I’ve got myself out of a whole and I’m in a small profit for my trading. Now my ego starts to tell me I’m god of trading, I sit down push buttons and money flows to me, I’m like the anti-Nick Leeson.
When I calm down I know it would need a lot more work, knowledge and talent to show a profit from the market in a long run despite my exciting introduction. There is no doubting the similarities with poker in terms of the skills you need to succeed and the buzz you can get from backing your judgment and being right.

Now if you’ll excuse me the foreign exchanges are still open and my unfailing traders instinct tells me the Yen is in for a beating.

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“There isn’t a six handed game I wouldn’t sit in.” You don’t have to talk to Brian Townsend long before you experience the confidence and competitive drive that has catapulted him to the top of poker. On first meeting he can appear unassuming even a little shy but there’s no doubting his all consuming desire to be the best at what he does.

Like most ‘overnight’ successes his apparent rise to the top masks continual and unending hard work. His well documented rise through the ranks from .25/.50 player just 2 years ago to a fixture in the highest games in the world is remarkable. He puts his success down to “a combination of innate ability and hard work”. The hard work consists of bouts of intensive play sometimes up to 12 or 14 hours a day and over 50,000 hands a month, but equally importantly periods of study and learning. Not only does he have a habit of carefully analysing his sessions but also of absorbing everything he can about the game, anything that can improve his play. He claims luck has little to do with poker and he doesn’t have any superstitions until I remind him about his dog avatar on one of the sites which always has to be smiling. “Well yeah my dog Maybe is always happy so the avatar has to be smiling too!” Though clearly important it’s doubtful whether this has been the key element in his ascent to the top. Just as Tiger Woods practises harder than anyone else and then is described as a great natural talent you suspect Townsend simply out worked the competition.

It wasn’t Brian’s plan to be a professional poker player. He comes from a good family, is well educated and enjoys the outdoors and being physically active; not the normal combination that leads to a career in poker. He was at college studying to become an engineer when he was first bitten by the bug. The game quickly became a fixation as he built his bankroll playing limit. On completing his degree trying to make it as a poker player for a living wasn’t so much a difficult decision as the only logical thing to do, so immersed had he become in the game.

His passion for the game has been there since day one and it’s refreshing to meet a top player who still has so much enthusiasm for it, “when I was playing 2/4 no limit it wasn’t because I wanted to play 200/400 with Phil Ivey it was because it was a great time.”

Obviously he has a natural aptitude for the game to go along with the focus and hard work. In fact it may be in the blood, “my grandfather actually played with Doyle Brunson. He was someone who played in big games – in the second tier games just below the biggest around.”

Furthermore his father is a successful financier – and there’s a lot of cross over in terms of risk management and making good decisions between the money markets and poker. Perhaps poker was always his destiny – whatever the level of his natural ability it’s his commitment to applying it that really impresses. This application has brought him millions of dollars and a lifestyle in Santa Barbara most of us would envy.

Despite this he insists moving through the limits wasn’t a cake walk. He encountered losing runs like every other player and on several occasions had to drop down limits and work out his game. He has salutatory advice for others, “losing is a part of poker and so is dropping down limits when you have to.” Clearly this understanding and absence of ego in his bankroll management have been part of his success. However he’s not without weakness and used to tilt a little too often for comfort – one occasion sticks in the memory, “playing 2/4 no limit I was tilting and somehow got it all in playing the board on the river; I thought he was to and I could bluff him off it.” It’s nice to hear he’s human and not a poker robot from the future that’s come to crush us all without weakness or compromise. Though of course he’s worked on the tilting problem too and puts it down to playing tired and unfocussed. Now tilting is a very rare thing eliminated by playing rested, shorter sessions and living right.

Once he’d reached the top Brian encountered a new set of problems with complacency setting in. Having beaten the biggest games he admits to thinking he could beat them almost on auto pilot and suffered a big downswing. Now in his world big isn’t quite the same as in ours – here big means almost 4 million dollars. Not enough to approach threatening his participation in the biggest games but enough to make him think about his approach. His response has been typically focussed and he’s dropped down to work on his heads up game committing to playing 100 thousand hands at lower limits. Not only that in a symbolic act of this fresh start he got a new laptop and began a new database of results. He’s also made sure his internal game is right committing to “playing my best every time I play”. Certainly his hunger is undiminished “I want to beat them out of every dollar they have.” Despite the downswing in the middle of the year he’s still one of the biggest winners online in 2007 – there seems little doubt he’s here to stay. His confidence in his ability to sit with anyone is undiminished and – unlike some – he’ll put his money on the line to back it up as Tony G found out in a recent TV cash game when he tried to get under Brian’s skin and was met with an invitation to a million dollar heads up freeze out; for once poker’s biggest mouth was remarkably quiet.

Having a downswing is one thing – having it play out in public is quite another. Thanks to his participation in the online community and willingness to be frank about his results in his blog his losses are as documented as his wins. During his latest downswing there were no shortage of posters willing to write him off as a flash in a pan. This was something he struggled with at first, “I remember when I was coming up I saw a comment in a thread that said sarcastically ‘yeah wait til you start running good’ which upset me. I’ve come to realise people can be small and petty about things.” Certainly the critics haven’t deterred him from maintaining pretty warts and all blog though posting results involving other players can be a land mine. This summer he was asked by another high stakes pro to remove some from his blog and he acknowledges that anonymity is part of the high stakes world. The player pool available to play at the highest stakes is very small so making losing players feel good is essential; “there are players that are rich enough to play in the games, and probably know they don’t have an edge but don’t want to see their losses discussed in public…. datamining kills me!”

This small player pool means he needs to be flexible about the games he plays. Pot limit Omaha has become his favourite game and he’s learning Omaha high low. Recently he was seen playing in a 1k/2k limit game “because the game was really good”. It also involves making some sacrifices such as playing live in Vegas every World Series – not a place he cares for. However when games come together like the ½ Holdem ½ Omaha game with 1k/2k blinds and a 4k straddle that was played this year he can’t be anywhere else. In this game winning or losing a million was incredibly easy. He experienced both sides of that equation – on his best winning day he made $1.8 million (though he denies rolling around in it on his hotel bed I’ve encouraged him to do so next time).

Playing at these limits was always going to make him a public figure in the poker world. Brian probably isn’t a natural for the media spotlight and he seems to detest some of the artificiality that goes with playing the media game. However his position in poker means he’s doing more and more of it; “to be honest most of it – especially the TV stuff – is for Cardrunners.”

Which brings us on to his latest passion the educational website Cardrunners.com for whom he the main ‘face’. So with enough money to set him up for life and having beaten the biggest games in the world why is he spending his time working on an educational site? “Cardrunners and the community really helped me grow as a player and I wanted to give something back.” He owns a part of the site now and seems as focussed and passionate about building the site as he was about moving through the levels; “honestly I’d like to help everyone who wants to become a good player.” He puts part of his success down to his discovery of the site when playing the lower limits and says watching the videos it was “like a light bulb turning on in my head.”

He has strong opinions on the other educational material available to players, “to be honest almost every poker book on the market is bad”. His main criticism is that the people writing the books aren’t necessarily playing in and beating the games they’re writing about (for those that are interested he cites “Winning in tough Holdem games” as an exception). He also sees this phenomenon online with some players posting advice about games they either don’t play in or don’t beat. He seems genuinely passionate about people getting good advice and it being from players that really know what they’re talking about. To that end Cardrunners is busy putting together a team of the best online players in the world and with his commitment and focus on it look for big things from them in the future.

The more Townsend talks the more you realise how much he loves poker and how invested he is in its future. He describes himself as ‘shocked’ when the game was legislated against in the US. But he’s as shocked at the poker industry as he is at the law makers; “I just can’t believe the industry didn’t protect itself.” However he is positive that the future is bright, “some say the sky is falling but people will always want to gamble.” He also believes high stakes cash games will always be around despite the threat of increasing numbers of high buy in tournaments. His optimism with the industry is particularly evident when talking about poker in the UK. When I spent time with him he was in town for the WSOPE and to promote Cardrunners in the UK where he sees huge potential for the future, ‘it looks like the UK is where the US was 6 or 7 years ago which means there’s huge potential.”

So he sees a bright future here and for the industry at large but what of his own future? Right now it seems like he’s having a great time growing the business and still playing the game; “everyday I still get up and think – now I get to go play poker. Some players I meet seem to see playing as a grind but if I wake up tomorrow and didn’t want to play I wouldn’t.”

His message for those of you that would like to be where he is straight forward and uplifting, “If you work hard and aim high you’ll have more success than you’d ever imagined. I would never have believed 2 years ago I’d be here in London playing in a £10,000 buy in event. Set your sights high and apply yourself. You may not end up the best but I promise you you’ll end up better than you ever imagined.”

There are still some who think top online players are inferior to the best live players and still some who think he’s run hot for two years. You can make your own mind up how much evidence you need but nothing Townsend has achieved in his poker career is by accident and talking to him its clear the only thing that can remove him from the top of the game is if his desire lessens.  Frankly the game is lucky to have him.

Brian shares his Poker Wisdom

Lower limits key skill: Using position

“It’s vital to exploit the weaker players you find at these limits. You do this by isolating them and punishing their weak play.

Let’s look at an example. Playing a 6-max cash game we hold 98s on the button.

A player limps in middle position which is a weak play you should never limp in as the first player in the pot in a 6 max game.

We use our position and raise the pot to take the lead in the hand, drive out the blinds and pressure the limper.

He calls and the flop comes Ah 4s 2c.

He checks to us and we make a continuation bet. He folds – probably a better hand – and we take down the pot.”

Middle limits key skill: The power of aggression

“Again we hold 98s on the button. This time a tight aggressive player raises from the cut off. We know he’ll do this with a reasonably wide range so we elect to 3 bet him.

This gives us a lot of good possibilities; most of the time we’ll win the pot immediately but if called we will have the lead after the flop and can represent a good hand or we could out flop our opponent.

He calls and the flop comes K103

He checks to us – this is a flop which would help a lot of our legitimate strong pre flop hands so we bet, he thinks and folds.”

Higher limits key skills

“At the higher limits most of the players are experienced and have a lot of knowledge of the game and are capable of playing any two cards any way. These are a few of the vital skills you need to succeed at these limits:-

Reading the player. You need to know your opponents, their tendencies and how to exploit them. You also need to know how they’re playing that session and how they’re reacting to their wins and losses.

Hand reading. It’s vital to be bale to read hands and hand ranges extremely well. Not only do you have to piece together your opponents hands but also understand how they’re viewing your hand in order to make money.

Calling down. Your opponents will be playing very aggressively and making all kinds of moves. Therefore you have to be prepared to call down with some marginal hands when the situation and the opponent are right.

Value bets. As players know you will be playing aggressively they will call you down more. In order to exploit this you need to be able to judge when you can make a thin value bet with a marginal hand.

Self discipline. As the level of play is so good you can’t afford to be at anything less than your best. This means being in good physical condition, playing short focussed sessions and keeping emotional control”

Originally published in Poker Player magazine.

It was a grey late spring morning when the man came to take my car away. As he drove the shiny black vehicle into the distance it wasn’t all I would be losing. I was losing a lifestyle and an identity and it was all my choice. In the last month I’d turned down a promotion, left my job and given notice on my flat. For the next two years my only source of income would be poker…. interesting decision.

Until then I was a clean cut middle class boy with a lucrative job and a limited history of odd behaviour so what on earth was I doing?

The first thing I have to confess, and there are many, is that I’ve always thought poker was glamorous; I still do. It started of as an idea for me – almost a fantasy. I first visited Vegas over 10 years ago before the most recent boom and before poker had really taken off. I’d wanted to go since I’d first heard of the place as a kid and when I finally went it didn’t disappoint – it blew me away. It was Disneyland for adults and poker was the secretive, impenetrable world within it. Back then all the clichés were true it was a game played in the back of a few casinos by grizzled men some actually in big cowboy hats who had stares that could turn your insides to jam. For a lot of that first trip I just stood and watched them. I didn’t really understand the rules but I understood one thing deep in my bones… I wanted to play.

Soon after returning I made a friend who knew how to play organise a home game – I won some money, mainly by horribly outdrawing him, and I was hooked. The next few years saw me increasingly obsessed by the game. I bought every book available and mail ordered the world series of poker from the U.S. Playing opportunities were limited – this was before internet poker remember – but I played in home games and casinos and slowly got good.

My decision to give up my job in the City seemed to others like a big decision to me it wasn’t even really a choice. Despite the fact that my early life – school and university – had steered me to that point I never felt comfortable. By the end I hated and resented dribbling my life away in an office in a job that gave me no pleasure. I needed to feel alive and – to paraphrase Rounders - the only time I felt really alive was at a poker table. At 27 years old I needed to wake up every day with a purpose, I needed to feel like I was putting myself out there – I needed to be in Vegas playing cards.

The thing you have to understand about playing poker for a living is that it’s hard. Most jobs – certainly the ones I used to do – really aren’t that difficult. They can be stressful at times but there are long periods where you go through the motions. Playing poker isn’t like that.

A poker player operates on a very small margin of error. If a professional had a 10% edge in a game he’d do internal cartwheels (they don’t let you do real ones in the casino) and play all night. The problem is it doesn’t take very much for that edge to disappear. If you play tired or angry or unfocussed suddenly you’re a losing player.

It’s the only job you can do where you work your butt off for hours – playing perfectly – and still finish having paid for the privilege of working. There are only a few people who can deal with the emotional pressure that brings. Try convincing yourself you’re a good player after your 5^th losing session in a row with no other source of income… like I said – hard.

In my time as a working player I made most of my money in limit games in Vegas and some cash games in the U.K. My bread and butter was the 10/20 limit at the Mirage and the 15/30 at the Bellagio. Looking back I know now they were some of the toughest limit games to be found anywhere and I’m proud I was able to beat them. Things were different then – if I was doing it again I’d be playing No Limit cash games. They’re everywhere and the edge is so big for a strong player over a beered up Yank who thinks the WPT is cool.

I was living an unreal life spending days by the pool and nights in the casino.

It became hard to keep perspective or connection with the real world. I was regularly putting the equivalent of a TV or holiday on the turn of a card. I saw games where players were sitting down with 100k in cash in front of them. They were betting more than people earn in a year on 55/45 shot. One day I woke up with 50 dollars in cash and went to bed with almost 4000 in hundreds stuffed into my wallet. In that kind of atmosphere it was hard to worry about grocery bills and credit card debt.

I know now I was dancing on the edge of doom (which I believe is located near Slough). My bankroll was fine but it was never as big enough to play as high as I wanted, to give myself the lifestyle I wanted. A bad run could have obliterated me.

Losing runs are scary – like a horrible nightmare where nothing works and you can’t remember the last draw you made or pot you won. I can still remember my red stinging eyes and the ferocity of the midday sun as I walked back to my apartment from the Mirage one day. I’d forced myself to walk as punishment for tilting off a thousand dollars or so. It had started with a few bad beats and then descended into internal madness as I’d called and called refusing to believe the money I ‘deserved’ would come.

It is a kind of madness having you’re livelihood and your future career determined by the turn of a card. I was helped through the madness by several people who gave me advice along the way. For a while a guy called David – a working player for over 30 years from New York – took me under his wing. I learnt more in over one dinner from him than I did from ten text books. It’s a piece of advice I’d give anyone looking to play this game seriously – find someone that’s really good at it and ask them nicely… or force them violently… to tell you how they do it.

Playing poker has taught me more about life than anything else I’ve experienced. Doing it for a living taught me self-discipline and self belief. I also saw every day what stops most people achieving what they could in life. At the poker table players will blame everything when things go wrong except themselves. They’ll ask for a change of luck, a change of dealer, a change of seat, a change of deck and a change of wife. Everything rather than changing the way they play or their reaction to a bad beat. In all the time I’ve played I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard a player say ‘I messed that up’. The same is true in life.

In the end I stopped playing poker for a living. There were three main reasons. First my bankroll was never big enough to allow me to earn the salary I wanted – I’m greedy like that! Second just trying to take other people’s money each day is seriously bad karma. And finally there were other ambitions I wanted to pursue. But I’ll never stop playing and I’ll never want the company car and neck tie back.

Originally published in Poker Player magazine.

To keep things simple I’m going to count the costs of the trip as my hotel and airfare (hey I’d have to eat at home too). The direct flight cost me £340 and my weeks stay at Bally’s would come in at £425. So my target winnings for the week are £765 – or in local money roughly $1450 or just over 200 dollars a day. Could I do it? It was gonna to be fun finding out.

When I landed at McCarran International it was the first time I’d set foot in Vegas for over four years. The last time I hadn’t planned on leaving. My brilliant “I’ll spend a few days in Canada then pop back in and start another 3 month stay” plan having been foiled by an immigration woman who looked like her quest for a single moment of joy or first orgasm would go a lifetime unfulfilled.

In that time things have changed a bit – they keep building hotels, there’s now uncut pornography in the hotel rooms (it used to be that version of porn with the talking and kissing and none of the good stuff… my mate told me) …oh and it’s turned into poker paradise with more poker rooms and games than you could dream of.

Of course all that had to wait on my first night. As I’d been working flat out up to the trip with little sleep then failed to doze off for a second on the flight it was time to get an early night and be fresh for the games tomorrow. Was it bollocks. I’d waited four years to be back here and cards were going to be in my hands immediately – strange bleeding in the white bits of my eyes or no strange bleeding in the white bits of my eyes.

I must have looked like an addict in withdrawal as I twitched and shuffled my way through the registration process. ‘Look woman I don’t care if I’m in the broom cupboard just give me somewhere to throw my badly packed bags’. I wish I could report that when I got in the room I didn’t throw my bags in the corner, bounce several times on the oversized bed (a Vegas tradition) and run to the elevator but dear reader I cannot tell you a lie.

Twelve hours later and it was 3am local time ridiculousam Nick’s body clock time and I managed to crawl to bed. The Vegas Gods had welcomed me back with open arms and despite playing in smaller games than normal (my only concession to my all consuming fatigue) I’d made several hundred dollars. Happily I can report I did the decent thing and threw the ‘c notes’ on the bed and rolled round naked in them.

I woke about 5 hours later with no idea of the time, living somewhere between sleep and waking – where I’d spend the next 7 days. I pulled open the heavy light excluding curtains to reveal the world’s ultimate playground glistening in the desert. The phone moved almost unconsciously into my hand and I heard myself ordering a stack of blueberry pancakes, orange juice and coffee….ahhh Vegas. It was clear my biggest problem of the week would be where to play. I’d decided to play almost exclusively cash games – hey it’s what I do – and I’d figured that there was so much tournament poker on TV that plenty of bad play would have seeped into the cash games.

The first thing you realise when you sit down in a Vegas cash game is the variety of people and standards you’ll encounter. At most tables you’ll see everything from tourists looking to have fun, to working pros, red necked biker freaks and poker player writers. Your mission is to categorise these people as quickly and accurately as possible and it’s not always straightforward. A quick tip is people tend to be very chatty at the tables in Vegas. When you first sit down try chumming up with the person next to you – they’ll probably fill you in on everyone they’ve been playing with.

The first three days were a poker heaven. I’d drag myself out of bed sit bleary eyed at the table and watch the nice man in the white shirt push me piles of chips. It was one of those glorious runs where poker is an easy game and everything I touched turned to gold. I also had a huge amount of success over betting my strong hands – if this isn’t already part of your cash game play add it to your arsenal.

At the end of the third day I was sitting in a 2-5 NL game with a very weak player with a penchant for neat jack daniels. He’d been playing every hand and hitting every flop and was sitting with a big stack in front of him. It was really late and I hate to admit it but he’s the reason I’m still up. It’s mercenary I know but everyone else is there for him too – like hyenas circling a lame zebra waiting to see who gets to make the kill. I ended up in a dream scenario – making quads on the river, with three sixes on board, to his very obvious full house. I made the big over bet moving all in and he announced – well slurred ‘I don’t believe you’ and called. I felt bad about busting him, for 8 seconds, but he seemed fairly happy with life as he staggered into the casino despite giving me over 600 dollars in one hand.

I went to bed that night I’d spent three solid days playing no higher than 2/5 and I was $1680 up. I knew I was running good – but that was the holiday paid for, mission accomplished time to retire to a Jacuzzi for four days.

If only I had for as next day my run abruptly ended – the good hands became scarce and good situations disappeared. Finally I have proof of Karma – I took down the nice drunk man and look at me now. However if you’re going to have a losing run have it in Vegas – there are compensations. Amazing food, the bright lights, the not so bright women and the poker celebrities. In fact spending time in Vegas poker rooms will turn anyone in a poker groupie. Every night in their goldfish bowl glass enclosure of Bobby’s room (Vegas has a rule that all games must be visible so this is the rather funny compromise) you can see some of the world’s best.

Sometimes they’re even closer to home. I sat down in the Mirage 2-5NL, took my chips out their rack and stacked them up – posted my blind and looked up at Mason Malmuth. Yup him that writes all the books, the clever one who looks like he’s never been outside. Anyway I can confirm he plays tight – and he sits on lots of cushions to make his already not inconsiderable frame even more imposing… no really! (you’ll find that Advanced Holdem just after semi-bluffing).

Out of no where I was on a poker celebrities roll and the next one coincided with one of the low points of the trip. I was playing in a 5-10NL in the Bellagio – not the ideal choice when you’re running badly but I still liked my edge in the game. I’d made friends a female pro from L.A. and we were having fun discussing the hands and players. Slightly ahead in the game I found KK in early position and to cut a horrendous, already giving me flash backs story short, ended up losing a significant pot with my opponent in the hand made a flush on the turn. The chips – my chips – were being pushed to the young pro across the table I looked up to see the unmistakeable be-hatted figure of one of the world’s leading tournament players Kenna James talking to my lady pro friend. Never one to miss an opportunity to learn – or be humiliated publicly – I stood up and asked for his feedback on how I played the hand. It turns out Kenna would have checked the turn then, based on his read and the opponent, he would have either check raised, called or folded. Well what does he know? All he’s won is almost 3 million in tournaments. My solace was my new found lady pro who jumped to my defence and said she would have bet the turn to and suddenly we were into one of those glorious poker debating sessions.

One thing I will remember the hand for, apart from the cowboy hat based play correction, is that it illustrated the theme of my play on this trip position. If you play No Limit Holdem drill this into your brain – position is everything. In position you can play without cards, make fancy moves to take pots away and so on. Out of position – even with a strong hand and one of the world’s best looking on – you’re often just guessing. This capped two losing days which cost me $625. After my five days my running total was at $1055. Playing these limits no limit my trip could still go either way.

It was time to refuel and re-energise. And in Vegas feeling better is only a visit to the hotel spa and a massive buffet away. I also had an appointment to keep as I was meeting one the biggest poker Celebs of them all. I’d done a TV show with Johnny Chan in the UK and I was delivering a copy of it to the great man. Though he spends a lot of his time on media projects and his own products, at the moment he’s building his website Chan poker, he’s still one of the most feared players in the biggest games in town. I wouldn’t be seeing Johnny across the table any time soon but as we went to our very different games I was hoping a little oriental, orange based magic would have rubbed off.

I needed to stop my little losing streak and I managed to do it thanks to a very lose Saturday night game at the MGM. The star of which was a model from LA who appeared to be high on life (please note I’ve used the word life for legal reasons) and kept pulling out 500 dollar units like she had to get rid of it. Often her ability to call all in with second pair saw her mission accomplished. She was throwing a party for everyone at the table and, though I didn’t get as rich as some, she stopped my losing streak.

The last night in Vegas arrived far too quickly and with it the last ritual, to squeeze out every last drop. I was sitting on a nice profit for the trip – up $1350 – but still just short of my $1450 objective, it would all come down to tonight’s session.

When you arrive in Vegas tired you leave tired, you don’t catch up. Now I’ve read in several books and articles (some of which I’ve written) that you shouldn’t play tired…. They may have a point.

But this was my last night and you’d be amazed at what a shower and a newly purchased tracksuit can do for you. 14 hours later I was finishing my trip in the ideal way – with a stack in front of me that had doubled in size, a good atmosphere at the table and a couple of new poker buddies and a plate of stake eggs and hash browns. Leaving the table was almost impossible but the knowledge that I’d accomplished my mission made it a little easier. I was $465 up for the night.

Back in my hotel room I had just enough energy to tally up the week. Total profit $1805 – a little over 900 quid. I’d broken my target and managed to pay for the trip…sweet. There’s no question I ran good for most of the week, though is some of my good hands had happened in the bigger games it could have been even better. If I can do, it so can you – a free holiday playing poker is within your grasp. And hey, if you end up losing there’s no better city in the world to lose in.

After two hours sleep – hey I owed it to myself – I was standing at McCarran waiting to leave. In the departure lounge you have a perfect view of the strip from the side so it fills the entire panorama. It’s a special last minute torture, or the best bit of repeat business marketing in history. The English voices telling each other stories about ‘tourist Vegas’ which I don’t see anymore slipped away as I moved closer to the window.

As the sun moves low in the sky in Vegas the glass tinted windows of the monolith hotel towers start to glow. The Wynn’s dull rust colour shines nearly orange and Mandalay bay glows bright gold. I’ve been told it’s gaudy and over the top, I’ve been told there other places you can visit; thanks – I’ll take Vegas.

Vegas Playing Tips

Categorise your opponents… based on how they play as quickly as possible. Remember appearances can be deceptive – the intimidating young kid with the headphones way have watched too much WPT and just taken up the game where as the pensioner hells angel reject

Rake… The bane of all live play depending on your limits this can have a real effect on your profits. In Vegas its 10% up to 4 dollars. At 5/10 no limit this isn’t such a problem but it can make a 1/2 game without many big pots almost impossible to beat.

Tipping… the dealer is customary in Vegas. It’s not an obligation but it’ll help you’re Karma if you do! It’s normal to tip a dollar every time you take a reasonable pot. As with the rake remember it’s money out of your winnings and if you’re playing seriously at the lower limits it can affect your profits. Ah the age old good guy vs. rich guy moral dilemma.

Verbal… If you haven’t played much live poker before, or if Vegas is a new environment announce everything to the dealer before you do it. The dealers in town are usually excellent and they will protect you if you’ve made it clear what you’re doing.

Drinking… Is complimentary at the tables. You can ask for almost anything – in fact at the fancier hotels trying to get elaborate drinks for free is a fun game to liven up the table. It carries a massive health warning of course – that free drink can end up costing you several hundred dollars in a no limit game.

Cocktail Waitress Flirting… is actively encouraged. I recommend the line ‘how about I buy you a drink this time’ … no?

Originally published in Poker Player magazine.

You recently said you thought the UIGEA (the legislation banning internet poker in America) would be overturned in 6 months – is that still the situation?

When I said that, there was pressure on Congress to act because of the threat of WTO sanctions. However both cases against the US have now been settled so that pressure no longer exists. We still have a lot of congress behind us on the issue, however it’s a question of perception and none of our politicians want to risk losing votes by being seen as ‘for gambling’, so it’ll probably be pushed back until after the November election

You were quite vocal in the recent spat between online and live players at the recent PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. So you still think you can hold your own against the best new young players?

Definitely.  The young online players are definitely in bad shape against me in a live tournament. Some online players say I’m over the hill – well I might be but I’m still better than they are. They don’t understand live play and give away too many tells. Some of them say that tells aren’t important but that’s because they don’t know what to look for when they themselves are tell boxes. They always let me know what they’re thinking because they don’t know how to disguise it. And this applies to the top players. Some of them will go on to adapt well to live poker, but at the moment I’ve got some bad news – there aren’t any 19-year old tournament players that play better than I do.

A lot of knowledge is shared online – do you find online players play in a similar way?

Well they all bet their hands well. But they also play as if all their opponents are the same person. When you’re multi-tabling online you fall into that way of thinking. Also online players think that if something is +EV it’s also right. Well all poker plays should be +EV – if you put money in the middle you expect it to come back with interest – but that doesn’t make them right. For example, moving in with Aces is +EV but it isn’t always the best play. The bigger your edge in play over your opponents, the more hands you want to play and usually the smaller you want to make the pots preflop.

Do the younger players have the edge in stamina?

I think the WSOP should include an Iron Man event where the players have to play straight through for several days. These young players are wimps - they complain about long days when they only play for 2 hours then have a break. I’m used to playing  sessions for days on end. That event would be great for commercial sponsorship – especially deodorants

We’ve seen you on High stakes poker – how was that experience?

Well often the games are different on TV. We don’t usually play a no-limit Hold’em cash game without a cap, but there’s generally so much bad play on the show that you can make money just playing fundamentally. That doesn’t make great TV though so if you want to stay on you need to make some plays.

In Season Two I got stuck early so I played very tight short-stacked to show how to play when you’re behind. Limiting losses is the key to being a successful poker player

When I do that my opponents still know I can make a big move so I still got action when I had a hand. This is an old trick I’ve used since I was 20 – I’d play solidly when behind or short and still get action because of my image.

How did you find the game with the 500k buy in?

The 500k buy in was great for TV but only Guy [Laliberte] could really afford it. Most of us were playing outside our bankroll and our comfort zone. You could tell Guy could afford it as he was the only one ‘playing up’ and the rest of us were playing much tighter than normal. I’d say it was a good experiment for TV but it stopped some of the players from playing their natural game.

Did you find yourself playing differently on TV?

Against the field on high stakes poker it’s definitely possible to make money playing good fundamental poker however it doesn’t make for good TV. I’ve definitely made one or two big bluffs I might not have made if it wasn’t on TV. Also in the 500k game there was a hand where I held AJ and raise; Sammy called and Patrick made a reraised. I thought he was probably making a play against me – not a squeeze play but a play against me – but if I continued in the hand it would have gone to TV and it was a marginal situation so I folded. Actually Sammy ended up calling down Patrick with a very marginal hand so it did go TV and it turned out Patrick was making a play with 9-7

You play a lot more tournaments than you used to. Do you enjoy them and do you still enjoy poker?

I never played poker for enjoyment, it’s always been a job, . There is some enjoyment in tournament poker as there is an end point to work towards. If it wasn’t for the poker boom I wouldn’t need to play to earn money any more but the boom cost me because the big side games where I used to make all my money have dried up so now I have to play more tournaments. . Unfortunately this has meant I can’t give away all the money I make in tournaments like I used to because they make up so much more of my playing time

Dan Harrington has said it’s almost impossible to make a living from large live tournaments because of expenses and the juice – is it possible?

Well I can. I have enough of an edge over the field to make a living from them. I have started  playing in some of the $25/50 and $50/100 cash games they have at the events. I used to think they were too small for me but now they help pay my expenses.

Originally published in Poker Player magazine.