I have two "bucket" lists that I maintain. One of them being of the more familiar variety, such as diving in the Great Barrier Reef, hiking Mount Kilimanjaro or maybe even bungee jumping off the rim of a volcano and windsurfing category 5 hurricanes! My other list, which is equally important to me, contains my most cherished career aspirations. And with poker having a more glamorous nature relative to the majority of other professions, I feel it deserves its own separate bucket list of sorts, as opposed to the less interesting reference "career goals." High on my poker bucket list (which I call my "poke-it" list - silly I know) you'll find the final table of the Sunday Million on PokerStars. And Sunday night, I made that a reality.
There wasn't a flashing neon sign alerting me that this was going to be the day it happened. There wasn't an excessive heater to start the tournament or an extraordinary amount of flopping of the nuts throughout. My experience was nothing short of the norm, it was the proverbial rollercoaster ride known as tournament poker, only this time it was of the 11 hour variety. Perhaps my JJ was flipping slightly better than usual, and I was certainly playing some of the best tournament poker of my career, but ultimately I was still in near disbelief that it landed me in 7th place with earnings over $27K, a return on investment of over 12,000%! But there's more to it than that, just as there is more to life than just money. This isn't a story about getting 7th in a tournament, this is a story about setting out to achieve something you had nearly given up on.
Let's quickly rewind a few months back to May 2012 when I considered giving up on my dream of final tabling this great tournament. In all honesty, I deleted it completely from my poke-it list. Why had I done such a thing? I had a very unpleasant experience in this year's SCOOP tournaments, busting every single high stakes MTT played, losing many thousands of dollars in the process. I know it wasn't due to a total lack of skill and was mostly the result of running excessively bad. Nevertheless, it shook my confidence. Being a cash game specialist, my tournament confidence, though not low, is very susceptible to my unforgiving scrutiny. And consequently I felt compelled to lay down nearly all of my tournament play after SCOOP. I wanted to believe it was still there warming on the back burner of my poker kitchen and not banished for eternity, but I honestly wasn't sure. Regardless, I decided to solely focus on my specialty, CAP games.
Then I realized that only grinding my cash games is the equivalent of someone going through the motions in their profession. By that I mean someone going to a desk job and playing it safe, rather than seeking promotions and taking risks to accomplish goals. That's not me. After this epiphany I was eager to fire up a screen full of every Sunday tournament I could get my mouse on. But instead of hastefully hopping back on the tournament horse, I took on a more patient approach, one I used while moving up the ranks in cash games. It had proven quite successful for me over the years, and I felt it would be the perfect answer to the tournament riddle as well. I decided to shadow the masters of their craft. Why reinvent the wheel, right? Sure it's great to develop your own winning style, but if your vehicle isn't even capable of rolling forward, learn how to create the wheel first, and only then can you attempt to make it more efficient.
I have spent hours studying some of the greatest tournament players, with Shane "Shaniac" Schleger and Andrew "Foucault" Brokos being at the top of my list. I have focused on mirroring their play, trying to understand the reasoning behind every decision they make. This isn't a chore, this is fun! I feel like Sherlock Holmes solving a great mystery, but without the consequence of being stabbed or taking a bullet to the chest from a murder suspect, unless of course Shaniac decides to seek revenge. In my analysis I label questionable hands and ruminate on them as long as it takes to understand the decision behind them, even if it requires coming back to a particular hand multiple times, even days later. And this is exactly what I began to do over these past months. Slowly I began reintroducing the Sunday Majors back into my weekly grind as my understanding of tournament poker grew. And we all know what happened soon after! But was my final table the direct result of hard work and skill alone? Of course not. Every great poker player knows you have to get lucky in a tournament as well. But it wasn't just a coincidence either, seeing as we make more of our luck than we give ourselves credit for. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Sunday I had entered the final table 4th in chips, but within the first few hands my suited AK ran into AA all-in preflop. This devastated my stack, and I wasn't able to make much of a recovery and soon after busted the tournament completely. Was I upset? Being completely honest (some of you will doubt me still), not even a little bit! That exact scenario could have happened hours earlier landing me far outside the final table, as it has many times in the past. But it didn't this time, it happened after I had already achieved great success. I was proud.
There are some things equally, if not more important than just how much money you can make in your career. The money will always be spent, but the achievements will last you a lifetime. Make yourself a poker bucket list, set your aspirations high, yet still attainable. Focus on variety within accomplishments, such as the length of their required commitment (achieving Supernova-Elite versus final tabling a major tournament), to variations in the rewards themselves, as not all items on the list need to be monetarily oriented. Add more items to your list as you progress through your career, creating greater challenges along the way.
And whatever you do, no matter how unattainable some items may appear over time, do not erase them from your list. Never give up on your aspirations in life, ever. Because when you're consistent and persistent in your pursuit for success you will create the necessary spark, that thing we call luck, needed to final table your Sunday Million.