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As to the "who is this upstart" part...
Made me think of a favorite line from a Roger Zelazny book, Sign of the Unicorn,
where the hero, Corwin of Amber, is facing two demon beasts,
one of which addresses him and asks: "Mortal man?"
Corwin's answer: "Come find out."
-- Andy Glazer
Andy Glazer wrote the above early in his career as a poker tournament reporter (and not too many people knew who he was). It
immediately became one of my favorite lines. Two demon beasts wonder if the unknown adversary they are confronting is merely a mortal
man. Corwin's "come find out" is such a wonderful line, the demon beasts had to at least swallow hard, if not flee in fear.
For the rest of my life I'll owe something to Andy for passing along that line. It is one of the best statements about a proper poker
table presence (or "game face") that I have ever come across, as well as just being a clever image.
Most of what I write about poker involves intangible things. You can't literally put your finger on a huge part of what is involved in
playing poker (successfully anyway). You can touch cards, chips and even opponents. But you can't touch your self-control. You can't
touch your read on an opponent. You can't touch your mental sharpness or fatigue. In short, you can't touch the mental parts of the game
that could be called "attitude". But these are the things that really matter in the game, in terms of eventual success or failure.
The fact of the matter is many players, despite some considerable talents, should never play poker. Poker is a game with many highs
and lows. This is especially the case in tournament poker. There is a tremendous high in winning, but being eliminated is almost
always quite a low. Every once in awhile you might have one chip left and be elated to somehow manage to make it from sixth to fourth
place before being eliminated. But for most people, they feel more of a low than a high whenever they are eliminated. Some ring game
players are even incapable of playing tournaments at all because they can only function as a player when they win two-thirds of the
time. On the flip side, some tournament specialists
can't play ring games well because there is never a "crunch
time" where they excel. They simply play poorly when every hand is equal.
If you can't handle swinging between high and low, either learn, or don't play. If you can't accept that you must lose in order to win,
don't play. Handling the highs and lows is a big part of what the game is about. And it has nothing to do with being dealt a pair of jacks
second under the gun, or checkraising a flush draw.
Andy got mad at me a few years ago when he (and everyone else) was reporting the casino's "party line" rather than the actual results
of tournament deals that were made. The funny thing
about this is that in our subsequent exchanges he agreed with what I said, and soon afterwards he stopped going along with the skewed
reporting some casinos wanted. But he stayed mad. I helped him get a book job and recommended him for other jobs, but he continued to
be mad about the other thing. To this day I'm not sure why. I've never had anyone mad at me for agreeing with them before! (Perhaps he
thought I should never have publicly said anything about his role in the issue, even though I've written about this inaccurate/no-deals-mentioned
reporting many, many times before. Or perhaps it just came down to the fact I was the messenger who reminded him he was doing things that he didn't want to do.)
Andy was something of a hypochondriac. So was my grandmother. I suppose when you spend a chunk of your teenage years living with a
person like that, you end up less tolerant. So Andy's depression over small things was something I'd ignore. Pretending along with
someone is not helping.
Not counting victims of tragedy or something like that, on a mundane day in and day out basis, Andy was perhaps the unhappiest person
I've ever known. He had great talent that we will now all be deprived of, but he wasn't suited for the job or business he was in. He
wanted other things, but didn't manage to get them. And he eventually gave up. The only other person I know who took his own life was
another poker player, Brandon King. I'll be mad at Brandon till the day I die for leaving as he did, if only because of what a shock
it was. Andy's passing was surely no shock to anyone who knew him well.
When I started this article I thought I had a good poker strategy point to be made. Maybe it won't seem that way in this context, but
I'll just say that poker is a business designed to give humans major highs and lows. If you are the sort of person who has difficulty
handling such swings, either devote yourself to learning to handle it all well, or spend your time on other pursuits. Life is too
precious to indulge in something that causes you pain.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In the first days after I put this article up, there were a few unsavory comments made. Some of these come from people who just make
it their business to make mean comments and saw this article as a convenient opening. Other comments perhaps though came from people
previously unaware of the true nature of the widely known
"open secret" about Andy's death. I know many people
will feel renewed sadness at finding out the actual circumstances surrounding Andy's death, so I want to make two things as clear as I
can. First, none of this is meant as a criticism or attack on Andy. I can't imagine anyone genuinely seeing this that way, but I want
to reiterate the point anyway. Second, I want to repeat the basic three points of the article: that I owe Andy a debt of gratitude;
that I am of course disappointed by Andy's self-destructive act; and I encourage those prone to depression or otherwise not suited for
the natural highs and lows of a poker career (as a player or a writer or an executive or whatever) to instead find a more
suitable-to-them way to spend their life. Poker was surely not the key element in Andy's choice, don't jump to that conclusion, but
Andy's life is a cautionary tale that some people don't want to hear, and it is a tale that should be told truthfully. Andy deserves the
truth, and those who
need to hear it should hear it before it is too late. |
