He’d made it past 165 other contenders to make the final table, the last man standing save one. This is the most famous poker match in the nonpoker world, in which Seidel’s set of queens falls to Chan’s straight, after the older player sets an expert trap for his less experienced victim.Īt the time, Chan was the reigning world champion and Seidel was at his first-ever major tournament. It’s the 1988 World Series of Poker final table showdown, between a young Seidel and Johnny Chan, the “master,” as Chan is repeatedly described by the commentators. In several scenes, a real-life poker match plays in the background. I was watching Rounders, the 1998 Matt Damon movie about a brilliant law student who pays his way through school with his poker prowess, and in the end quits law altogether to play full-time.

I've uninstalled the program from my computer and at the moment have no desire to reinstall it.I first encountered Erik Seidel the way many poker newbies do. So it'd be unlikely for me to lose it all, at least anytime soon, but I also know it's not impossible and if it were to happen I'd need a longer break than a couple of weeks, and so if I lose a significant portion over a short time, which this past week has been about 2.5x my starting BR, I'll take smaller breaks to compensate and try to get back into the right mindframe to start building again from where I am now versus from scratch As has mostly sticking to small buy ins where the tournament's that were once nearly 10% of my starting BR are now less than 1% of my current one, which I know is nitty but I'd rather be nitty with my bankroll than at the tables especially when it's primarily for entertainment and to challenge myself. I think discipline is really the most important thing and recognizing when to cut myself off and commit to it probably saved my bankroll at multiple points. I've lost about $120 since then which is only a little more than 5% but my ITM percentage went down so much over this past week that at this point i feel more comfortable taking a break until the weekend or longer and put in some time studying and refreshing rather than create a larger defecit for myself when I'm not feeling like I'm playing my best or even that well.

I've taken a couple small breaks since then and as of a week ago had built my BR up to just over $2k. Deposited $50 into pokerstars in July just to play micros and as a way of keeping myself occupied during the continued quarantine, and my plan from the start was to be disciplined and if I lost it all id wait a while before depositing again. I take breaks just when I lose a significant percentage of my BR.

Poker pros who went broke