Poker & The value of money
I have mentioned the value of money in one of my previous blogs. I got a lot of great comments of other poker players and they wanted to hear more about this. So I'll dedicate this blog to my struggle with the value of money over the years. When I started playing poker I was about 19 years old. With friends we started playing for small amounts of money. It took me about a year to find online poker. I remember feeling massively tilted when I would lose 50$ and I'd lose more money trying to chase my losses. This happened 3 or 4 times (slow learner) before I realized I had to emotially detach from money to prevent this from happening again. This took me a while te master by reading books, reading on forums, talking with other pokerplayers, bakroll management and more. When you start playing poker it can be a very emotional game, you are not used to playing for money and everytime you move up in stakes you have to get used to winning and losing bigger amounts of money. When I lost a big pot I always had to vent to get control of my thoughts and emotions. I had to call friends and talk to them how unlucky I was or what an idiot some guy is who just won my money. So I would like to thank all my friends who had to listen to the countless of badbeat stories I was dealing with at that time. It definitely helped me in my process to get where I am today. I remember the first time I lost a 1k pot. I felt like the floor dropped under me, and I fell in a deep ocean trying to gasp for air. Or the first time I won a small tournament I felt like I was Phil Ivey and I would crush the nosebleeds in no time. I've experienced emotional high's and lows playing this game, emotions I would probably never feel if I didn't play poker.
When I became a professional at 23 years old I was making quite a bit of money. It felt like it was raining money and all I had to do was try and find the biggest bucket I can and try and catch it. It never occurred to me that one day, it might stop raining. Try to imagine you are young, you are making lots of money and it feels like this will never end. What would you do? Most of the money I made in my first years went right out buying shit I didn't need. Eating out 4 times a week, bottles in clubs, expensive clothes etc. I was buying and doing everything I dreamed of doing in the years before but couldn't do because of lack of money. It was like I was playing catch up with my teenage self. In this period money had zero value to me. Every winning month I was already thinking of ways to spend that money. In my wallet I would always have atleast 1k and if I spended that in a day, I wouldn't even remember what I had spend it on. Fulfilling these young adult dreams wasn't very satisfying, but it was a blast. I don't consider it as a period where I wasted money, I just had to get it out of my system before I could move on.
In the years after I slowly regained my sense about money. I realized it's good to be able to do what you want, but if I always want to have that luxury I need to think about my future. When I was backpacking in Asia I wasn't playing any poker. I gave myself a low monthly budget and forced myself to make choices. I would sleep in crappy hostels for 6$ per night or eat streetfood for 1$ per meal. I remember in Thailand I saw somebody selling cookies, I asked for the price and he said it cost 1$. I remember thinking to myself “I want this cookie, but for 1$ I get a meal here, so it's not worth it”. So i suppressed my urge to get a cookie and moved on. In Asia I got to see beautiful places, meet great people and experience new things all on a very small budget. It opened my eyes that so much is possible with very little money if you have the freedom & opportunity to do it. I had more fun sleeping in a dorm and walking to a supermarket to buy the cheapest beer, then I had spending it on a bottle of champagne in an expensive club. I realized that the money I would spend on one “good” night in Vegas could also buy me 2 great weeks in Asia. That was a life changer for me.
I'm not saying that from that point I only lived in dorms and eat streetfood where ever I am. I live in a nice apartment that I share with 2 other pokerplayers. We have a chef that makes our lunch and diner. Sometimes I buy myself something nice. But I am definitely not wasting money anymore. Having a chef saves us a lot of time. We don't have to think about getting grocery's, we don't need find a restaurant and waste 2 hours going there. We have great quality food right at home. I think we save a lot of hours on worrying about what to eat, going to grocery store, cooking or eating out. The time we save with a chef will make us money if we spend it productivly on poker. Our apartment is nice, but we could have gone way more luxurious then this. Obvioulsy we go out in the weekends and we have a great time going to shady bars and drinking beers. I make choices in the luxury I want and that will improve my ability to play poker. Chef: Yes. Champagne: No. Travel: Yes. Hotels: No. With my current lifestyle I spend approx 30% of what I was spending when I just started as a professional. If you compare my life now with my life back then that seems impossible. I am investing money for my future and I will probably travel around for a couple of years more. I already realized that money does not make me happy, but it gives me the freedom to do what I want, and that definitely makes me happy.
John Lennon said: Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. I think money I enjoy wasting, was not wasted.
