Thanks for sharing, Dave! I, too, am a long time poker fan/player who is beginning to take it more seriously. As with any skill, practice and repetition has been key for me. A lot of poker rooms offer smaller, weekly tournaments with buy-ins for around $100. I find it's a much less cost-prohibitive way to get in a lot of good, real-world practice. Next time you're in Las Vegas, most of the big casinos have tournaments going on constantly, so when you get knocked out of one, you can hop over to the next and keep going. A lot of fun and a good way to work on your game. Good luck, and I look forward to hearing more about your poker adventures in the future!
I really love this piece -- despite following you on pretty every channel and listening to the Filmcast every time I see the featured flick, I was totally unaware of this new part of your life and I'm excited to learn more about it. I only really know poker from in the movies -- this sounds more The Card Counter than Rounders in terms of vibes, but your writing is lively and fun as ever!
Great article! I'll have to visit the Wynn poker room next time I'm there. I'm usually grinding it out over at dingey-er spots (albeit with lower stakes) like Golden Nugget. I saved the part of your article about separating the quality of decision-making from the result: that's true in poker and in life, I've found.
You want to be as prepared as possible, stacking up your good decisions to get you the best possible outcomes. However, there is always the aspect of things you cannot control making things harder and unfairly taking away something you worked hard on. In poker, you can play expertly well for the majority of a tournament, and lose your whole stack to somebody chasing a flush who catches it on the River. The lesson is to not take these setbacks too harshly, and also don't assume that your hard work will ALWAYS net you positive results. There's ebb and flow to the process.
I don't know David outside of years of listening to the Filmcast and his other podcast pursuits, so I found this to be an incredibly fun surprise. For whatever reason, competitive poker is way outside the scope of the David Chen persona I've "known" and I always enjoy these little peeks behind the curtain. I always enjoy these newsletters.
I loved the Harrington on Hold'em books too. I also devoured Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen, in which he recounts almost every hand of his playing (and winning) the Aussie Millions. Fun to then watch each episode of the tournament and see Gus stepping away often to record each hand in his voice recorder.
Congrats on playing, hope to see you playing a final table next time.
As a long time poker player and a long time Filmcast listener, my worlds are colliding!
I don't get to play tournaments too much, and still find them really exciting to play. Besides the obvious that no limit hold'em is a great game, I additionally really like the tournament format, where the intensity just ramps up continually the longer you last, while the competition gets tougher.
Great post! I play cash games every week at a local casino. I played smaller buy-in tournaments pre-pandemic, but haven't played any in quite some time. I've also never played in Vegas. Your experience has me wanting to do both.
You say that you are learning to separate the quality of decisionmaking from the result. So let me ask the natural question: Did you make the right play? Or was your last all-in a learning experience?
Interesting that you mention the stigma surrounding poker. I thought that started to lessen back in the early-mid 2000s with the beginning of big WPT/WSP televised events in a post-Rounders world. Perhaps it depends a lot on your community, family, and upbringing.
You may have discussed this on your Patreon but out of curiosity, since you mention bringing extra masks, was that allowed during the games, or was it considered bad form to hide your face? Not that I'm about to start playing poker, but it all sounded pretty fun until the whole "bring trapped in a room for 12 hours with a bunch of people" thing!
Thanks for sharing, Dave! I, too, am a long time poker fan/player who is beginning to take it more seriously. As with any skill, practice and repetition has been key for me. A lot of poker rooms offer smaller, weekly tournaments with buy-ins for around $100. I find it's a much less cost-prohibitive way to get in a lot of good, real-world practice. Next time you're in Las Vegas, most of the big casinos have tournaments going on constantly, so when you get knocked out of one, you can hop over to the next and keep going. A lot of fun and a good way to work on your game. Good luck, and I look forward to hearing more about your poker adventures in the future!
great write up of your experience and congrats for making it so far on your first try!
I really love this piece -- despite following you on pretty every channel and listening to the Filmcast every time I see the featured flick, I was totally unaware of this new part of your life and I'm excited to learn more about it. I only really know poker from in the movies -- this sounds more The Card Counter than Rounders in terms of vibes, but your writing is lively and fun as ever!
Great article! I'll have to visit the Wynn poker room next time I'm there. I'm usually grinding it out over at dingey-er spots (albeit with lower stakes) like Golden Nugget. I saved the part of your article about separating the quality of decision-making from the result: that's true in poker and in life, I've found.
You want to be as prepared as possible, stacking up your good decisions to get you the best possible outcomes. However, there is always the aspect of things you cannot control making things harder and unfairly taking away something you worked hard on. In poker, you can play expertly well for the majority of a tournament, and lose your whole stack to somebody chasing a flush who catches it on the River. The lesson is to not take these setbacks too harshly, and also don't assume that your hard work will ALWAYS net you positive results. There's ebb and flow to the process.
I don't know David outside of years of listening to the Filmcast and his other podcast pursuits, so I found this to be an incredibly fun surprise. For whatever reason, competitive poker is way outside the scope of the David Chen persona I've "known" and I always enjoy these little peeks behind the curtain. I always enjoy these newsletters.
I loved the Harrington on Hold'em books too. I also devoured Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen, in which he recounts almost every hand of his playing (and winning) the Aussie Millions. Fun to then watch each episode of the tournament and see Gus stepping away often to record each hand in his voice recorder.
Congrats on playing, hope to see you playing a final table next time.
As a long time poker player and a long time Filmcast listener, my worlds are colliding!
I don't get to play tournaments too much, and still find them really exciting to play. Besides the obvious that no limit hold'em is a great game, I additionally really like the tournament format, where the intensity just ramps up continually the longer you last, while the competition gets tougher.
Great post! I play cash games every week at a local casino. I played smaller buy-in tournaments pre-pandemic, but haven't played any in quite some time. I've also never played in Vegas. Your experience has me wanting to do both.
You say that you are learning to separate the quality of decisionmaking from the result. So let me ask the natural question: Did you make the right play? Or was your last all-in a learning experience?
Interesting that you mention the stigma surrounding poker. I thought that started to lessen back in the early-mid 2000s with the beginning of big WPT/WSP televised events in a post-Rounders world. Perhaps it depends a lot on your community, family, and upbringing.
Fascinating! And congrats for doing so well!
You may have discussed this on your Patreon but out of curiosity, since you mention bringing extra masks, was that allowed during the games, or was it considered bad form to hide your face? Not that I'm about to start playing poker, but it all sounded pretty fun until the whole "bring trapped in a room for 12 hours with a bunch of people" thing!