I just got some lunch, and have decided to write this blog out. Most of you will be reading this from a note from Facebook, as I will be tagging anyone I have on my list that I would need to concern myself with these things.
There are certain times that things enter your life that may appear, on the onset, and even near the end of their tenure in life, appear innocent, or even minute compared to other problems you may face. However, they end up becoming the problem, and become a bigger stranglehold on your life than you could possibly imagine.
For me, poker has been one of them. When I first learned how to play poker from my Grandpa when I was kid, I did not realize what it would become in my life. And when I started watching the WSOP in 2003, I did not realize how deep into this I would get.
What started off as a pipe dream of winning a WSOP bracelet, and being financially solid turned into the reality of downswings, small glimpses of variance giving me my due, and the anger and frustration of good play oft going unrewarded. What started off as a simple game I learned when I was seven years old turned into an obsession to the point where I was not satisfied with anything less than perfect play. Therefore, I was frequently left unsatisfied, as well as emotionally and physically hurting over it.
What started off as an obsession with cards became a stumbling block in every aspect of my life. First I infrequently went to church, then not at all, then began drinking (which I swore I would never do. I will, however, point out, that the one year in which I have drank, I have only been drunk twice. Even still, I had let my moral compass slide further from the line I had drawn.), began frequenting strip clubs, heavy use of pornography, and the like.
There's a scripture that says that you can't serve two masters. It's an irrefutable nugget of wisdom whether you believe in God or not. God was my master, but poker quickly became a second one. And allure of money and the praise of my peers for being good at a stupid game won out over God. And very quickly, the dreams of doing God's work became replaced with the dreams of Vegas, doing well in tournaments, having towers of chips in cash games, and the fast lifestyle that comes with the formers.
I understood this several months ago, but sometimes it takes things a while to really sink in. A long while.
Things had turned around for me. I was back in church, I was feeling better about myself, I was truly starting to feel alive again. The kind of feeling of life you get when you're not all-in with a flush draw or just trying to push some guy off a hand. I was preparing to go into a mission program. I was talking with my friends. I was working on a music CD as well as poetry CD.
Then, it went back downhill.
I don't even have a good reason why this recent chain of events occurred. I could name off reasons, but I can't single out one thing as the cause of this downfall. All I know is that in January, I saw on on Full Tilt's website that they were hosting a Razz event in the FTOPS in February. Instantly, I began entertaining the thought of playing. That entertainment turned into a desire to play. And that desire turned into the thoughts of, "I'm going to play this tournament."
And there you have it; with that I was in contact with my backer into the major tournaments for yet another stake into yet another Razz major. I made myself the following pact: I cash or I quit. And there you have it, in that tournament, I finished 27th out of over 500 players, to cash.
I was back, baby. Add to that the fact that one of my friends offered up, when Full Tilt began running a weekly $75 buy-in Razz tournament, an opportunity to play every one of these tournaments possible, and, depending on my results in these, him buying me into the WSOP Razz this year. How could I refuse that?
The first $75 Razz I play (the first week it was ran), I final table, and finish in 4th place, thus firmly puffing my chest out again, claiming myself to be one of the best Razz players online.
And then watching myself bubble tournaments again, and again, and again, followed by losing session after losing session after cash games.
I was undeterred that I was going to forge through this, and return to glory. So much so that I sacrificed, yet again, everything I could in order to follow this. My attitude at work suffered, my attitude with my friends suffered, my interaction at ALL with my friends suffered. All for this stupid game. And nothing was working. I was still on a mass downswing, and couldn't fight my way out of it.
When you get depressed, it's hard to convince yourself that anything for the betterment of yourself is a good idea. There were days that all I could do was sleep. I would set my alarm for 8 hours, sleep good those 8 hours, then wake up, sit in my chair, and fall back asleep until it was time to go to work. In total, there were days I would sleep 15 hours.
To top everything else out, while I won't go into detail, there have been more problems with my family to completely blow out any kind of normalcy in my life. So, with stress coming at me from every direction, my only self-defense mechanism left was to sleep.
And then play poker. Which wound up making me doubly irate over things I should never have been irate over in the first place.
You see, my personality winds up making me take so much stuff seriously. That's something I've got to work on in myself, but within poker, it's one thing to take the game seriously, but it's another, more dangerous, thing to take every individual hand seriously. I did the latter, and would quickly self-destruct over some stupid hand, and it would spill over into my own life.
So, fast forward to Tuesday, where I was playing the $75 Razz tournament, this time, in on my own, as my backer was unreachable for whatever reason. After an hour of good play, I bust, and am furious. I then go onto FCP, and see some things said about me, and done towards me, that set me off even further.
I sat with my head in my hands at my desk, crying. I had talked to my mom that afternoon, and told her everything was fine. Everything wasn't fine, and I knew that when I told her that it was. I felt like dying, and I didn't care what anyone thought of it.
My cats had been crying for so long that day over nothing. I had fed them, I had watered them. What more did they want?! As I sat there, crying into my hands, one of my cats began talking to me alongside my chair. I kept telling her to go away, to which she finally started scratching at my leg.
I wound up grabbing her violently, screaming, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" the throwing her across the living room. I then grabbed the other one, who was asleep on my computer monitor, and tossed her down the hall. I then slumped back over into my chair.
This wasn't the first time such an incident happened. After a -20 Bet session in 2-4 Razz in '06, I wound up going on a swearing tirade in Indianapolis where I managed to tell off the entire house. So there is part of the truth behind why I'm no longer living there.
As I thought about how reckless my life had become yet again, I just saw no way out anymore. I didn't want to live anymore. And I wasn't going to.
I was scared to death as I did this. I went into my bathroom, and grabbed every pill bottle in the medicine cabinet, and set them on my desk. I stared at them, and set my AIM away message showing my phone number and saying "Call me if you care, otherwise, you can call my mom and tell her it wasn't her fault. You have 30 minutes."
I sat there sobbing, and praying that the phone would ring. "God, if you really care, and you're real, and you truly want me to do Your will, then that phone will ring." And that's all I could think.
5 minutes, nothing. 10 minutes, nothing. 15, 20. Time was almost up.
I popped open a bottle of 800mg Ibuprofen, 25 minutes passed. And the phone rang.
"Who is this?"
"It's Napa, bro. What's wrong?"
There I spent like 20-30 minutes, maybe more, unloading on Herman like my life depended on it, because in all honesty, it did.
When we got off the phone, it was like a moment of clarity finally hit me. It was like God himself had reached down and told me, "If you really needed any clarification as to whether I exist or I care, you have it right now. So, are you going to listen to me now?"
I know a lot of people that will read this might have a small belief in God, some, not at all. But I know what I said to that: Yes.
And knowing how poker turns me into a person that God would never want me to be, in order to say yes, I have to give it up. And by give it up, I do not mean that I'm done, but I might be back. This move is permanent.
I don't really even want the temptation there anymore. I know other people have said that they quit poker and could still post in FCP Off-Topic. For me, that's something I can't do. I'm giving up poker forums altogether.
I'm also requesting the following, whether you agree with my reasons for quitting the game or not, please respect the fact that I have quit, and help me to stay out of the game.
- Do not offer me stakes.
- Do not ask me for stakes.
- Do not stake me if I ask for it.
- Do not transfer money for me.
- Do not ask me to even play a play money game with you.
- Do not send me hand histories.
- Do not send me bad beat rants.
- Do not tell me about who's a donkey in Razz, or any other game for that matter.
- Do not link me to threads on poker forums.
- Do not ask me strategy questions.
- Do not ask me to rail you. You can tell me you're going deep, or if you've won a tournament, and I'll congratulate you, but I am not going to rail you.
As soon as I figure out IPTables on Linux, I'm blocking the sites I've frequented, and any client's site from my viewing. I'm also uninstalling my clients, as soon as I get my money off Stars.
I wouldn't expect Razzercise to be written. I'm highly doubtful that I can write this book without thinking so much about the game that I feel the need to play. If it is written, I will not collect any profits from the book, and the proceeds will go to a worthwhile charity, ministry, or organization.
Meanwhile, I plan on going back into my music, and writing, as well as get back on the road to getting into the mission program I was looking into, or something along the same lines if I am unable to get that specific program.
Regardless, I've made my choices and have decided to burn this bridge in the hopes that the new ones I cross lead me to better places.
If you guys still want to stay in touch with me, most of you know how to reach me.
God bless guys.
