Folding Pocket Aces

This post is a bit more about personal life then poker really but it’s about a missed opportunity concerning poker.

Back in from about 1999 to about 2004 I played a lot of Quake3Arena. I was a relatively good player. Meaning that I played with/versus professional caliber players but never played professionally myself. There was a huge player community site named xsreality.com (now esreality.com) which made it easy to know about all the different players in the world. In general, team play (TDM: Team Death Match) was dominated by Euro teams while 1v1 play was dominated by US players. I was mainly a TDM player myself but played a bit of 1v1. Since my primary game was TDM, I followed the Euro teams very closely.

Around 2002 one of my favorite players decided he was going to start playing poker instead of Q3A. At the time I thought it was a stupid idea, I didn’t believe that there was much money in poker. It had crossed my mind at the time that MAYBE, just MAYBE I was being a bit quick on judging his choice and that I should probably looking into this “online poker” thing and see what it’s all about. Needless to say I was stupid enough not to and just kept playing Q3A.

Looking back at the time in my life I’m kicking myself in the ass. I had very little responsibilities at that time; I played Q3A for about 3 to 10 hours a day depending on my plans at that time. I had a good paying job which would have provided me with a bit more flexibility of re-buying since I didn’t have as many bills as I do now. I just think were I would be 6~7 years later if I would have just been a bit more open-minded at that time. I know I certainly wouldn’t be killing myself trying to build my miniature bankroll to get from 5NL~10NL to 25NL.

All that to say, always be open-minded about opportunities that might come your way. Either it be in poker, career or life in general. You never know where it might lead you.