Follow up to the Christianity, poker, and gambling issues

Since I have posted my biography, I have heard many opinions about poker and gambling issues. I have come to a conclusion that poker can be gambling and at times, it has to be gambling. I know that some players play poker in order to gamble, this makes some of their decisions more of an impulse decision instead of a correct calculation. These players will have a hard time making money in the long run because they rely a lot more on getting lucky. I forgot to mention in my bio how much math is actually involved in poker. Pot odds are a huge part of the game whether it is calling an all in from the big blind, chasing a flush, as well as many other scenarios. There are some points in a tourney that a player is forced to do a little gambling. Sometimes a player is shortstacked and must push all in with a marginal hand. He is gambling on him having a better hand than the people yet to act. He may also not have the best hand, but the aggression of raising may force a better hand to fold. This is all part of the strategy of poker though. Say I have KK and I call an all in preflop of someone who has 77, I am "gambling" on the fact that my opponent does not have the unlikely AA and have me dominated and force me to have to get really lucky. I am also "gambling" that 80% favorite hand, KK, will hold up against the 77. I feel that if a player continues to put my money in or "gamble" with the better hand, he or she will not lose money in the long run. My goal, as well as every good poker player's goal, is whenever I am all in in a tourney, I want to make the other person have to get lucky. So one may say that poker is gambling in a way. I am open to the suggestion that poker IS gambling now, though I try to gamble as little as possible when I am playing.

It has also been brought to my attention that there is no specific verse in the Bible that says that gambling is wrong. If you find a good verse please let me know. I definitely should have sited Bible passages to support my beliefs instead of just going on what people tell me is in the Bible. Anyway, the subject of how the love of money can lead to sinfulness is definitely mentioned in the Bible (1 Timothy 6:10 and Matthew 6:24). As I mentioned in my bio, money is of very little value to me and money does not come close to buying happiness. I feel that money is a way of keeping score in poker. After talking to my well respected RA who is a future pastor, I have come to the conclusion that being on tilt is sinful as well as having an urging desire to play poker that you can not overcome. That urge of "I have to get my money back" or "I'm going to skip class because I cannot leave this table." These situations can lead to going bust or not realizing that there are more important things in the world than poker. When I first started playing poker as I mentioned in my bio, I would play any chance I had. I would play if I had 10 minutes in between classes. Now, poker is more of something I do when I have nothing else going on. The fact is, I would much rather be playing basketball or hanging out with friends. I have yet to skip a class or church this school year because of poker.

I still do struggle with the issue that while I am making money, someone else is losing it. I hate to see people who do not know how to manage a bankroll go over their heads and play a game that they can not afford to play. Bankroll management is something that I feel I have done really well with. I have never and will never put myself into a situation where I am in danger of going bust. My RA gave me a great analogy about how a person pays say $30 to attend a football game for entertainment. A poker player may put down that same $30 to play poker for entertainment instead of going to the football game. The only difference is that the poker player has a chance of making that money back plus maybe more. This terrific analogy has helped me come to conclude that playing poker for entertainment purposes is totally acceptable. But now I have to figure out if playing for a living is acceptable. I also heard some great news today: I HAVE TWO AND A HALF MORE YEARS TO DECIDE IF BEING A POKER PLAYER IS REALLY WHAT I WANT TO DO. I am only a sophomore in college who has played poker for less than a year. I feel that I have rushed a huge decision. I now can take a lot of time and listen to many people before making my career decision.

These are some of my defenses that I am starting to put together and legitimize the game of poker. I love hearing new logical suggestions and I promise to listen to them with an open heart. Please continue to comment. Thanks.

Biography

My name is Alex Michel. I am from Billings, Montana, but currently attend Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska. My major is secondary education with a PE/Health endorsement. I am also a sophomore on the Concordia Bulldogs basketball team. We are an NAIA II team who took 2nd in the country in 2004-2005, my freshmen year. I was pretty much just along for the ride, as I saw minimal playing time all season. I have a love and passion for basketball and mainly competition.

Last year, as a freshman, one of my teammates introduced me to poker. He is very successful and is a student of the game. He had decided to become a professional poker player. When he told me this, I could not believe that anyone, especially someone that I knew, could ever make a career out of playing poker. I then started watching him play multi table tournaments (multis) on party poker every once in a while. I watched him and told him that I would never put that much money on the line playing this game which seemed like so much luck was involved.

All of a sudden, I caught myself over at his house watching him play every night. I mainly just sat there and watched while he explained why he made some of the plays that he did. I became more and more intrigued with this game. I started to realize that this game does not involve that much luck. So I became more and more tempted to start playing.

I returned from Christmas break that year and I asked my friend to transfer me $50 on party poker. He recommended that I start at $.50/$1 ring games (full, 10 person tables) and move up using the 200-300 times the big blind theory. So there I was grinding it out playing $.50/$1. After 2 days, I got up to $100. I then transferred $50 back to my friend. I just could not leave my computer because it was such a thrill to me. I would play if I had 10 minutes in between classes. I just fell in love with the game. But then I started to lose...

I remember losing $20 in a day and I was absolutely devastated. I could not fall asleep because I am so tight with my money and I could not handle losing $5 much less $20. My bankroll got down to $8 and I was feeling down. I just could not take getting rivered or bad beat again. I then remembered that my friend had told me to expect to go broke. He went broke 3 or 4 times. So I called up my friend and told him to be ready to transfer me again cause I was about to go play with my last $8.

I sat down at my computer and started to grind. I went on a rush that day making it back up to $60. By the end of the next day, I was up to over $100 and I was feeling good. I was at $.50/$1 for over 3 weeks. It was a lot of ups and downs. I then moved up to $1/$2 and $2/4 as my roll kept building. I was never cashing out and only played with my winnings. Playing with my winnings is the reason why my parents were fine with me playing. They said as long as you just keep it for fun, then they had no problem with it. I have always cared what my parents think and I have always wanted to make them proud. I love them so much and I can not thank them enough for how they raised my siblings and I.

Back in January, when I just started playing, I was watching my friend trying to qualify for the party poker million cruise. The top 4 in his multi got to go on the cruise. It got down to 20 people and I remember the adrenaline start to pick up. I could not imagine what my friend was feeling. There was ONLY a $10K buy in and a cruise on the line. It got down to 5 and my friend was still no sure thing of qualifying. Then all of a sudden, one guy got eliminated and immediately my friend jumps up off the couch and starts screaming and running around the house. I was so excited for him. I just loved the adrenaline rush that occurred that night and then the success on top of that. It was an amazing night. My friend then decides that he is going to take his mom, a poker friend of his, and ME on the cruise. Of all of his friends, he chooses this little freshman who he's known for only 5 months. I was so excited.

So 2 months into playing, I'm still grinding out the $2/$4 game on party poker. My friend, who is also a member of the men's basketball team at Concordia, and I head to the National Tournament for basketball. We enjoy our 2nd place finish in the entire nation at the NAIA II level. But to be honest, the cruise was in the back of our minds the whole time. We got out of the vans after arriving back in Seward after nationals and my friend and I headed to the airport. We boarded the ship in San Diego and took off down the coast of Mexico for a week of paradise, win or lose.

My friend ended up cashing in the Party Poker Million IV tournament and made $10K. I was so excited for him. I feel that he deserved to cash in that tourney the way he was so focused and how smart he played. I ended up playing $2/$4 the whole time and ended up down about $200 which, at the time, was a huge portion of my roll. I was not a happy poker player even though the cruise was an awesome experience. It turns out that I made a close friend from the cruise in a student from Auburn that was playing $2/$4 with me. We probably talk on AIM, while we watch each other play, 5 or 6 days out of every week since then.

I made the jump up to $5/$10 in April and was stuck at that for 2 months. I then went home to Montana for the summer with no mentor there giving me advice on plays. After seemingly hitting a rock, I decided to give No Limit a shot. I started playing $20 and $30 late night multis on party and in my first 2 weeks of playing, I made 3 final tables in like 10 tourneys. To be honest, I got lucky and put some horrible beats on people in these tourneys. I started to fall in love with No Limit and pretty much quit limit cash games for the time being.

By the end of June, my bankroll was at about $2K. I then went back to Seward to help work basketball camps and my friend introduced me to short handed limit. He also had me transfer some money over to Pacific Poker, because he says they are worse players. I definitely agree with this statement. My friend taught me this strategy that seemed reckless and unprofitable until I started watching him play $30/$60. I watched him play and asked questions for a few sessions. Then I decided to use his strategy and give it a shot. I sat at the $5/$10 tables that night and i made $1200 in like 2 hours. It was just an unbelievable rush. I was playing 5 handed for most of it. It seemed like every time I had a hand, I was getting paid off (I hardly ever missed a value bet), and every time I did not have a hand, the other players would fold. It was one of those nights where my friend and I were saying, "This games eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaassy." It was at that moment that I found a new love, shorthanded limit hold 'em. I was at this for less than a week before I made the jump to $10/$20 and then not much longer to $15/$30. My bankroll was starting to grow exponentially. I owe my friend SO much for taking the time to teach me about this great game of poker.

Every once and a while, I would play just No Limit multis for sessions at a time, but then go back to limit cash games. I continue to improve and still have A LOT to learn. I am by no means “good” yet. I can only improve so the future looks bright. I have made it far in many tourneys including probably 10-15 final tables, but I have only hit it fairly big once so far. That was a 5th in the $40K guaranteed for a payout of $2400. It is hard to play those multis and look at the money aspect. I mean $2400 is just two hot days at the $15/$30 tables. But I still play the multis because of that chance of hitting even bigger someday and because fame comes from the NL tourneys, as we all know. Tourneys are also a lot more of a competition to me and I love the thrill and challenge of competing. All this success started to make me think that I might actually be able to do this for a living, even though I still thought I would never do it.

As I started my sophomore year at Concordia, I started second guessing my decision to become a teacher. I was thinking about it and I just do not think that I would enjoy getting up at 7 in the morning and going to work until 4, EVERYDAY. Another downside to teaching is that I will have a boss telling me that I have to dress a certain way or he may not like the way I teach.

I just do not think I could enjoy a job that has a set schedule and some one telling me what to do, even though I would not mind being around high school students. Ever since I was a kid, I have never known what I want to be. It has been expected of me to attend college and I will eventually decide my career. I guess teaching became my one and only option since there was nothing else, until now…

Here is the main point of my biography and why I am taking the time to write out my thoughts. I find myself as well as others asking these questions: Is poker gambling? Is God against poker? Is it possible to be pleasing God and playing poker at the same time? Is it immoral for a Christian to be seen in a casino or with his computer playing poker?

I realize my answers to these questions are not going to be understood by someone who does not understand the game of poker. Many Christians, including many of my family members, will not understand these either. But I want to put my thoughts down in writing in hope that someday they will understand. I pray with all my heart that someday they will understand where I am coming from and not think I am a failure.

I believe the Bible is completely true, front to back. God says in the Bible that gambling is a sin. Therefore, I believe that gambling is a sin. However, I do not feel that poker, especially the way that I play it, is a form of gambling. A professional poker player, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson says, "On any given hand, poker can be 99% luck. But if you look at it over the course of a year, it may than be 90% skill and 10% luck." Poker is a game of patience, position, and practice. A player must be patience to wait for the right hand and position. The player must also practice and be willing to learn. Just like any sport, practice is the key to success. Practice and good decisions equals making money. If any player continues to make smart and logical decisions, there is NO way he or she could ever lose money playing poker in the long run. Now the best players will make a lot more money than just the smart decision makers, but the smart decision makers will never lose money in the long run.

I know for a fact that Christians, including my family, put money in the stock market. God says to use your money to make more money and that is what I feel that I am doing when I play poker. Though, I feel I have even better odds playing poker than I do playing the stock market.

The fact is that I have no desire to gamble my money; I still hate putting $5 into a slot machine or playing craps. There is no way I can control anything that goes on in those games and I will eventually lose my money. These games are not fun to me because they are undoubtedly gambling. Therefore, when I play poker, I am not a gambler.

So is God against poker? I feel that God has no problem with poker because it is not gambling. Then I get the question, "Can you really be pleasing God while you are playing poker?" My answer to that is, "heck yeah." My online poker name is Coloss_3_17, abbreviated for the Bible verse, Colossians 3:17, which says, in short, "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord." I feel that I can witness my faith to the players at my table. In fact, many players on the internet have commented on my name and how they like that verse. This in turn, brings the other players to pull out their Bibles and look it up. This shows that I am a Christian and am proud of it. I feel that by letting people know that I am a Christian, I am then able to use my actions or non-actions (humbleness) to witness my faith. I may also get into a discussion about God with the people sitting next to me at my table. There are many ways to witness my faith and I intend to take full advantage of them.

After many prayers, that continue today, I have decided that I am going to be a professional poker player. All my life, people have told me that I can be anything I want to be and that I have to enjoy my job in order for my life to be happy. Well, I love to play poker and having this for a job will give me so many opportunities. I will be able to travel the world playing in tournaments. I will be able to work my own hours so that when I have a family, I will be able to give them the time and care that they deserve. I will have more time to volunteer in the church. I also will make quite a bit of money doing this even though I do not care about the money. If poker does not end up working out, I will have a teaching degree to fall back on. As long as I make enough to support my family after tithing, I will be satisfied and happy. Money is of very little value to me and there are so many other things in life that are more important. NO MATTER WHAT, God is number 1 in my life followed by my family. I feel God can use everyone in various ways, and I feel it is my calling to witness my faith to the poker world.