How I Made My First Million From Poker is all over the map. It’s a memoir, it’s a strategy book, it’s a poker lifestyle book. This jack of all trades is a master of none, though readers who can get past Tri Nguyen’s off-putting persona are likely to find enough helpful advice to warrant a modest sticker price of $47 for paperback or e-book. All in all it’s a 6/10.

You can read the full review here. If you read the book, please let me know what you think. By the way, using my affiliate link will save you 10%, so be sure to do that if you buy it!

Busted third to last hand of the night, been going back and forth a lot for the last half hour about whether I like my call, but we´ll get to that in a second. Table draw was OK but my seat was rough, had the only two truly good players at the table both on my immediate left. One of them busted the other, which I was happy about until that seat was filled by Scott Seiver. Even in position, that guy is tough to play against.

I played what I think was a very good TAG game for most of the day and hovered between 90-120% of the average. With about half an hour to go, my table broke and I moved to a much softer table which unfortunately was next on the break order.

Third table was tougher than the second but softer than the first, though again my seat wasn´t great. To my left was a kid who exuded competence and was sitting on more than twice the average. I could tell from the way the table was responding to him and talking about him that he´d been very difficult to play against.

Blinds 250/500/50, I raise to 1250 with KJo UTG+2, Rousso calls, BB who does not seem very good calls. Flop AQ8r, BB checks, I bet 2600, they both call. Turn 6 completes the rainbow and this seems like a good spot to barrel, as I think it´s very tough for anyone to call with less than two pair. I bet 8800 leaving about pot behind in my stack. Rousso tanks and calls, BB folds. River K and I check not because I think I´m good but because I think she made her commitment decision on the turn and isn´t folding. She says, ¨Please don´t have Ace-King¨ as though I´d check that.

“AQ is good,¨ I tell her.

She shakes her head and looks nervous, so even though I´m sure I´m beat I show. She has 86o, so essentially she hit a 5-outer on the turn.

Next hand I have KJo again and raise to 1250 again. I think choosing to make a marginal raise immediately after a frustrating loss was probably the biggest mistake I made in this hand. Tough player on my left calls, someone else calls, BB calls. Flop Kc Qh 6c, I check, guy on my left bets like 2/3 pot, the other two fold, I call. Turn 4h, I check planning to check-raise all-in but he makes a suspicious face and checks behind. I put him on a straight or flush draw.

River 9h completes JT and backdoor hearts, which aren´t entirely impossible for him if he has like Ah Th. I don´t think he bluffs much if I check, so my options are either check-fold or bet. I bet 4500, which was less than half-pot. I had it in the back of my head that this might be a better way to induce a bluff than checking, but I wish I´d thought more about what I would do if raised before I bet.

Villain thought for a bit and shoved, it was about 13K more for me to call to win like 33K. Obviously JT got there so the question is how often he shoves busted draws. Like I said before, I had the impression that the whole table was intimidated by him, which leads me to think that he would bluff pretty often vs. a blocking bet. The guy on my right actually called the clock on me, which I don´t know where that came from because we were playing a fixed number of hands before stopping for the night anyway so it really didn´t affect him at all for me to take my time. Anyway I obviously ended up calling and was shown Jc Tc, so I´m still not sure what to think about that one.

I´ll post more of a trip report soon, but wanted to get the results up there now. Thanks to everyone who was following along and especially those of you who bought action, sorry I couldn´t bring you a better result.

The very first essay is a reflection on the author’s experiences as a junior tennis great in downstate Illinois. In that part of the country, wind was a huge factor in the game, and Wallace attributes much of his success to his ability to deal with the concomitant frustrations more coolly than his better-prepared opponents could:

I, who was affectionately known as Slug because I was such a lazy turd in practice, located my biggest tennis asset in a weird robotic detachment from whatever unfairnesses of wind and weather I couldn’t plan for. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many tournament matches I won between the ages of twelve and fifteen against bigger, faster, more coordinated, and better-coached opponents simply by hitting balls unimaginatively back down the middle of the court in schizophrenic gales, letting the other kid play with more verve and panache, waiting for enough of his ambitious balls aimed near the lines to curve or slide via wind outside the green court and white stripe into the raw red territory that won me yet another ugly point. It wasn’t pretty or fun to watch, and even with the Illinois wind I never could have won whole matches this way had the opponent not eventually had his small nervous breakdown, buckling under the obvious injustice of losing to a shallow-chested “pusher” because of the shitty rural courts and rotten wind that rewarded cautious automatism instead of verve and panache. I was an unpopular player, with good reason. But to say that I did not use verve or imagination was untrue. Acceptance is its own verve, and it takes imagination for a player to like wind, and I liked wind.

I don’t know how I missed it the first time around, but I think the parallels to tilt in poker are clear.

After that I just quit. When you’ve been playing badly, I think it’s important to recognize and learn from your mistakes but also to find something that you did well and take pride in that, so that you don’t get too down on yourself. So, I took pride in quitting well. (Thanks, Tommy Angelo).

Usually I try to leave my frustrations at the table when I quit, but tonight I couldn’t (still can’t, really, which is part of why I’m writing this). I paced around my apartment for a while, complained to my girlfriend, and then went for a walk.

It’s cold, windy, and snowy in Boston right now, but once you get past the unpleasantness of that, it’s actually quite pretty as well. We live in a picturesque neighborhood, and the streetlights shining on snowy brownstones is lovely.

As I started walking, this crazy thought went through my head: “I hope nobody tries to mug me tonight, because I’m really in the mood to punch somebody, and I don’t think that would end well for me.” I don’t know why that occurred to me; despite the weather, plenty of people were out on a Friday night in Boston, and I wasn’t wandering through dark alleys or anything. Plus I probably wouldn’t have done it anyway, but I was feeling a little bit crazy.

Troubled by that thought, I decided to turn it into something positive instead, so the next crazy thought that occurred to me was that I should go make somebody’s night by dropping $20 on the first panhandler I saw. I was mulling over whether I should actually do this when as if on cue a guy asked me for change. I paused, started to reach into my pocket, and then realized I only had a couple of ones on me.

“I’ll get you on the way back,” I told him, which I think tilted the shit out of him because he started calling after me, “I’m looking for work, too! I’m a certified electrician!” He said some other stuff that I couldn’t hear. There was an ATM on the corner, so I got some cash, folded up a $20, and dropped it in his cup. I could tell he was a talker and I really wasn’t in the mood for conversation, so I tried to just keep walking, but he must have checked immediately to see what I gave him because he started shouting “Thank you!” at my back.

There’s a coffee shop right across the street that has really good-looking baked goods I’ve been wanting to try, so I stopped in to buy a cookie but all they had left were some dry looking scones. Could I run any worse? So I left there and walked a few more blocks to the Whole Foods, but they didn’t have much of a selection either. I wasn’t particularly proud of myself for wanting to drown my sorrows in food, so I bought a muffin that I didn’t think I’d like, ate a few bites, and threw the rest away.

Then I walked home, still feeling frustrated, and so here we are.

Cliff’s Notes: I ran bad and played bad but at least I quit well. Then I went for a walk and tilted a panhandler but made it up to him. Then I bought a muffin but didn’t eat it. Cool story, bro.