An interesting phenomena is occurring in the state of Texas in which poker clubs are operating in cities that do not traditionally have any legal gambling venues. Whereas others in the past have tried to argue for the legality of poker by claiming that it is not gambling due to its strategical and mathematical nature, the clubs in Texas are taking an alternative route that takes advantage of a loophole in the state's gambling laws. To put it simply, Texas law states venues are not allowed to profit from the game itself nor are they allowed to take money off of the table that is being used in play. These rooms are therefore charging their players a membership or hourly fee, or some combination of both. Other amenities within their facilities are available to patrons that enable them to generate revenue such as the holding of special events, food and drink. While we have seen a model similar to this employed in Asia, this is rather new in the States, at least on a legal level. But these clubs operate in the open and proudly proclaim their legality. This begs the question of whether or not such offers a better model going forward in how live poker rooms should operate. As the pricing is completely different there are many points of comparison that can help us in answering this very question.

As a means of quick review, poker rooms generate revenue by taking a collection from each pot on the table, generally known as a rake or commission. While the rates vary around the world in how much is collected per hand, tables in Las Vegas offer a simple model by which we can compare with this new one. Typically Vegas rooms charge 10% of the total pot capped at $4 or $5 for games of $1-$2, $1-$3 and $2-$5 blinds. For games of $5-$10 and above, a timed rake is taken by which players pay a flat fee every 30 minutes. But it is the former structure taken per pot that will concern us for the sake of this discussion. As I have covered in previous blog posts, a typical $1-$2 or $1-$3 game will generally rake a bit over $100 per hour and each player, assuming it is a full table, will contribute about $11-$13 per hour, depending on the speed of the dealers and whether or not the game is maxed out at 9 or 10 players. A regular player, or grinder, who plays at least 40 hours per week will pay north of $20,000 per year in rake alone as the price of admission in a $1-$2 or $1-$3 game. Players at $2-$5 are charged the same rate in every Vegas poker room. And while pots are bigger in these games and will generate a higher total rake, the consistency in the structure presents a better value for players as the money available to win on the table is also larger. In other words, players in Sin City are rewarded the higher they play.

On the surface, the structure used in Texas poker clubs appear completely different. Instead of taking a certain percentage of every pot from the table, they instead charge players by the hour and usually also a general membership fee. The latter is almost negligible as at a standard rate of $200 to $300 per year amounts to less than $1 per day for a regular player. The hourly fee varies a bit from club to club but the standard rate seems to be $10 to $12 per hour. In this way the fees are very comparable to what a Vegas room would charge and thus offers no real significant advantage. But the number of these clubs have boomed in the past few years and with that comes competition. I saw a promotion on the website of one of these clubs advertising a daily rate of $10 instead of the usual hourly charge. I cannot speak to how sustainable such a rate is and it seems hardly possible that they would do this for every single day year round. But if promotions such as this are offered at enough times throughout the year it could pose a significant savings from what one would normally have to pay in games of $1-2 to $2-$5. This presents an opportunity for these venues to offer for players a greater amount of flexibility in how they are charged to play. One might argue that traditional casino poker rooms can enact similar measures in the way of rake reductions. But in truth such are rarely done on a full table and are only offered at later hours when the game is short handed and near breaking. And even in such situations they hardly offer a discount to the player as with less players the dealers will get out more hands. The room will still meet their hourly quota of $100+, but now with each player contributing a higher amount per hour.

The big question that remains is whether or not these new venues can be significantly profitable using this structure. Every interview that I saw from local TV stations with the owners of these clubs all claimed that they were turning a healthy profit. Much of this depends on how much of a "culture" they can create in the club and get players to spend time within their walls before and after they have played. The other amenities offered will go a long way towards accomplishing this end as if players stay to have dinner, watch the big game or generally hang around to speak with friends and other players the room should generate enough revenue to remain in the black. As I mentioned these clubs have existed in Asia for quite some time, myself having managed one a few years back. We did just about everything to create this sort of culture from offering food and drink, discounted hotel rooms and even an in house massage facility. We were successful for the most part but with the creation of this atmosphere comes another issue that is prevalent in these sorts of clubs. Poker is traditionally offered in casinos where it is a small part of a much larger enterprise. Other games and amenities are offered throughout the casino and people from these other sectors will often populate the poker table. Whether it be the sports bettor waiting for his game to start, the husband waiting for his wife to finish playing slots or those just killing time because they have nothing to do in their hotel room the poker table in a casino is often filled with such players. And with this influx of casual and recreational players, action is created and usually makes for a good game. In contrast, when poker is the sole focus and purpose of your enterprise then you will attract a different clientele. In the end those that are going to be interested in a poker club are going to be those that play the game more seriously than the average punter who stumbles into a casino poker room. The challenge of these venues in Texas will be to provide for their clientele an air of exclusivity and premier membership, while at the same time attracting casual players and keeping the games good enough for those that are there trying to win money.

These clubs appear to be successful by all accounts and have grown in number over the past 3 years in the state of Texas. I can easily see this branching out into different states where similar gambling laws exist, where they would employ the same arguments for their legality. I do not believe though they would ever challenge in states that have a strong casino presence such as Nevada where Vegas reigns supreme. In the end, one cannot beat the foot traffic of a casino and the games are often much better than what you would find in a private or social club. But even if one were to argue that the games are better or can be, the casino lobby is simply too strong in states like Nevada. Poker players are already familiar with how much power corporations such as Caesar's Entertainment or even individuals such as Sheldon Adelson hold in their fight against the legality of online poker in America. While social clubs may not stand a chance in certain regions of the country, it would be interesting to see if they could make a stand in a state like California. The sunshine state does have a gambling lobby, but not one nearly as strong as Nevada. And while poker is popular there as evidenced by venues such as Commerce Casino, state laws are also rigged to structure the rake in such a way that games below $5-$5 are basically unbeatable. California by law takes a flat rake, which means that at least $5 is coming out of every pot no matter how big or small. This essentially makes nearly every game that does not take a time rake unbeatable. They have turned the game of poker into a house game of sorts, where only the they profit. The model of the poker club would be an interesting challenge to such an enterprise and offer real and meaningful competition in a regions that desperately needs it.

Although I currently live in Asia, this development fascinates me not only as someone who formerly played in the States but also because of the possibilities of how this model can be adopted here. As I mentioned earlier I have managed similar clubs here in Asia, but never did we employ such a model like the membership one. I do not believe that casinos here will ever adopt such a model, nor should they. Traditional venues of this nature offer enough amenities and access that a standard rake system is completely justified and still very much beatable. And while a few clubs here in Asia have operated for several years, I have also seen many more come and go by the wayside. The central issue involved with the closure of some rooms has been the one of rake and how much they try to extract from the player base. And while a handful of rooms in Asia can boast that they have been running for years successfully using the traditional rake system, can we say the same for the players that populate their table? How many are truly making a living in these games and while the room marches on, how many players have returned home nearly broke without turning a significant profit. It might behoove everyone to think outside of the box and consider non traditional modes of operation. I ran one such club in previous years as I mentioned earlier and while there were some similarities with the Texas clubs, we too employed the traditional rake system. But if I were to ever venture into this industry again, I would strongly consider a membership model as it may offer the best balance of profit between the players and the very rooms they help to keep open.

Perhaps there is no more influential book in the world of poker than Doyle Brunson's Super System. Many players, both young and old, swear by the book as it continues to shape the game today. But back when it was first published in 1979 the poker landscape was far different than what it is today and few, even Texas Dolly himself, could predict where the game was headed. In retrospect Brunson has expressed some amount of regret in writing the book often stating that it has probably cost him more money on the tables than what he was paid to write it. In addition, he has said in more than a few interviews that he has had to change his playing style due to the fact that so many players have read his book. Modern coaches and authors are in quite the different context than Bruson as the game has exploded many times over throughout the world. Given that an icon such as Doyle Brunson has already admitted that his book has worsened the poker ecology for both himself and other players, it has to be asked why current coaches offer insight into a game where there is a limited supply of equity to go around?

Although I have never been a coach nor do I ever hope to put myself in the same league as Doyle, I found myself in a similar situation a few years back when running a poker room in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I had a local player base that can largely be considered recreational, with money to spare that did not mind giving a lot of action. Foreign players would sometimes find the game through various online forums, but it was not a widely known phenomenon in the grand scope of the poker world. Ask a random player in any Western country and I doubt that most would have known that one of the best $5-$10 PLO games existed in this humble third world country. But the room was getting on in years and had started to decline. Thus the job that the room's owner charged me with was to grow the player base and increase it's revenue. Towards this end I started a social media campaign unlike any before and while the room had always had a Facebook page, I started an advertising blitz that would ensure that many more eyes would come to see the room. With discounted hotel rooms and free meals also being offered, word quickly got around and we were able to draw players from neighboring countries and beyond. My boss was certainly pleased with the results, but I would come to discover that not everyone was happy with my efforts. Many of the foreign players who had occupied our tables for years would have preferred to keep the room a secret and did not want to face tougher competition in the form of players from Western nations that were very familiar with the game.

Although I fought it at the time, in retrospect I have to admit that the reasoning was sound. Given the nature of my advertising and the fact that I am a foreigner myself, it was not as if I was growing the local player base. The number of local and recreational players I had mentioned previously was largely stagnant, while the base from abroad was growing. Thus it could be interpreted that a larger group of players were now fighting over a smaller amount of resources. My answer to this at the time was simple; not all players are winning ones and in fact the majority are not. Therefore it can be argued that I was bringing in just as many losing players as winning ones, if not more. In essence the advertising efforts were creating a new equity source from which the remaining winning players can draw from. It could be that current poker coaches and authors have a similar mentality, namely that in the end their efforts will not worsen the poker ecology as there will always be more losing players than winning ones and that their coaching will not affect this to any considerable degree. If this is indeed their thought process, there are several issues that need to be addressed. Firstly, given the claims of most coaching sites in terms of how they can help the average poker player, there is then a dissonance between what they are selling and what they know to be the most likely result. But on the flip side if any coaching site is successful and can back up their claims of creating winning poker players, they are then worsening the ecosystem of the game and further reducing the resources available for it to grow. I recently saw a YouTube video from such a site where they were reviewing hands using various Artificial Intelligence (AI) software and solvers to analyze different strategies. It is very unlikely that such videos would be appealing to the general public and in fact can have the opposite effect. Poker is a shrinking game and we have long since passed the days of the boom. These sites and books reach out to a very niche audience within the existing player base and if successful worsen the game while not attracting any new players at the same time.

Of course another possibility is that these sites are basically a complete scam, that they cannot in any way back up their claims of creating winning players and are largely run by those who either never won in the game or at the very least cannot continue to do so. I remember a post on the 2+2 forums several years back critiquing one such coach, who was offering training packages starting at over $1,000. But with some research the forum community was able to discover that he had not been a winning player online for the past 4 years, although he did have some notoriety in the years prior. Poker is a shrinking game and if a player such as myself can read the writing on the wall it stands to reason so can these players that tout themselves as coaches. We have all heard the phrase, those who can do and those who cannot teach. One can readily see how this sort of thinking applies not only in poker but also in closely related fields such as sports betting. Social media is littered with those who tout themselves as sports betting gurus, who promise their clients untold riches if one can simply pay for their picks and consulting services. There is an exhaustive list of why all of these gurus are complete scammers, too many to delve into in this short article. But for those who speak truthfully on this topic they all reiterate the same point; why would anyone who consistently wins give away their secrets when it adversely and directly affects their own livelihood for the worse. The same can be said for coaching in poker as resources in the form of losing players' money is not an unlimited one. Simply put, to coach players to become winners creates competition and makes no logical sense if this game were truly their sole source of income.

All of this is before we even address the issue of cost. In my previous analogy of sports betting, the cost comes in the form of what is known as vigorish (or vig). The truth is that even your average sports fan can come close to having 50% winning results. But what prevents them from being actual winners is the vig, the commission that the sports book takes from the bettor for placing the bet. So in reality to make a wager to win $100 one would have to make it for $110 ($100 + 10% vig) and that is the difference that makes most bettors losers. The vig in the world of poker coaches comes in the form of the cost of procuring such advice and insights into the game. As I see it there are two basic models at work in this industry, the first using charging a monthly subscription that seeks to cast a wide net and the other a more personal approach in which the coach only accepts a handful of applicants but charges much more. In the former model one could argue that price is not a significant issue as it does not appear to be prohibitive. But one has to wonder about the quality of such material when it is so mass produced to attract as big of an audience as possible. In the end it may very well be true that you get what you pay for. The latter model may be more attractive to many as it takes a more personal approach and one can receive training from the actual coach and not just a series of videos from partners and associates. But in these cases the prices are much higher, often ranging well into the thousands. As poker coaching can be somewhat of an ongoing process that does not end with one lesson, the costs can quickly add up. The fact is that poker players already have a vig in the form of rake that most regulars pay into the tens of thousands each year. To have to add to this total the cost of coaching does not make much sense in that the most likely outcome would not overcome the total cost.

I do not mean to denigrate all coaching sites as I personally know those who are sincere in their motivations and actually helpful when it comes to their students. But I find a general contradiction in reasoning and philosophy when it comes to the issue of coaching that most have not been able to address. In the worst case scenario a coach may just be a complete scammer. But even in the minority that is the best case scenario, affective coaches are worsening the poker ecology for both themselves and every one else. One model that I have seen employed that comes the closest to addressing every issue is the staking model. In this practice coaches take on a handful of students to go through the entire course material, but in the end will take the few best ones and stake them into real cash games to split the profits at a predetermined ratio. In this way everyone gets a chance to pay for and review the material once, but then those who will benefit from it the most can continue the relationship and mutually profit from it along with their instructor. In this manner cost is no longer an issue as what the student pays is derived from his winnings. And while this in of itself can be considered a cost, it can be considered offset by the fact that the client's buy-ins are provided by the instructor. For the coach this method can provide verification for prospective clients that they are still keeping up with the game, demonstrating real world results if not from themselves then from those that they mentor. It also demonstrates that the coach's primary income is still derived from the felt and not the instruction itself.

In its conclusion the issue of poker coaching creates too many philosophical issues that cannot stand to sound reasoning. The old adage of "if it's too good to be true it probably is" applies here as so many poker coaches cannot possibly do for their students what they claim. And in the best case scenarios where they actually are helping, they end up making the poker world a worst place. But philosophical issues are often impossible to solve and thus the point of this article should be to address the consumer side of things as there will always be a market for this service as long as poker is still a thing. To those coaches who are of good intent and repute I would advise to follow a model of complete transparency. Those that code may already be familiar with Github, a repository where one can share their programming code for the community to view and even edit. I do not see why the poker coaching world could not follow a similar model by providing the results of their students in order to provide for the community real world demonstrations of their service. In this way coaches can limit the number of students, thus minimizing their impact on the ecology, and avoid the boiler room type of coaching videos that have a limited impact even at their best. And even if some players were to choose not to employ these types of services, such can at least provide real proof and inspiration that it is at least possible that one can improve their game and become winners in poker. In the end, the results will often be what makes for the best marketing tool for those in the coaching world.

I used to manage an internet cafe where teenagers would come and play PC games on the many terminals that we had set up. They would spend so much time there that it became a de facto day care center for the parents who would drop off their kids daily. They spent so much time there, the parents would often ask me to drive them home after we closed and even give me gas money. Eventually they asked me if I could just keep the place open late just for them so that they would not go wandering elsewhere in the middle of the night. So many nights we would all just sit there, each of us with a computer terminal playing our favorite PC game. And back then there was only one game that we played, Counter Strike. It was a first person shooter game and we could literally sit there for hours clicking away at our mouses and shooting each other in our virtual heads. But one night I suppose the kids tired of the game and asked me if I wanted to play no limit Texas hold’em. I told them that I did not know how to play but they said they would show me and so we played $0.05-$0.10 no limit. This was back in 2003 just after Chris Moneymaker had won the main event of the World Series of Poker and the game has held me captive since.
We began to play poker more and more. After that first game we would play a couple of times per week. Then it became three nights, then four and eventually we were playing every night. In the beginning we would pull the desks out from the kiosks that were built for the computer terminals to make an ad hoc poker table. But as we would do this starting at midnight, people would look in through the front glass of the internet cafe and wonder what the hell a grown man was doing with a bunch of teenagers late into the morning. So we moved the game up to the attic of the business and continued to play without interruption. We did not have any tables upstairs so a group of us would sit on the floor in a circle and take turns dealing. Eventually there would be four such circles nightly, all playing a game of hold’em huddled around and hunched over a decks of cards. Obviously everyone started to complain about the playing conditions so I struck a deal with everyone. If I were to buy the tables and chairs to make the experience a bit more comfortable, then they would all have to be fine with me collecting a rake. Aside from two kids, everyone else agreed and thus was born my first poker game.
Seeing as how we were in an internet cafe, it did not take long before we started to play online as well. I had most of my money back then in Party Poker and I would play everything from limit, no limit and even games like seven card stud. The kids who were not eighteen years of age yet somehow all had accounts. Regulations were a lot more relaxed back then or they would just get their older siblings to open accounts for them. During the summer they would all come in by opening at 10:00 AM and spend about the first seven hours or so playing Counter Strike. But after dinner, they would all come back and open up their online poker accounts and play cards. And as soon as we closed at midnight, we would all congregate upstairs where the game eventually got as high as $1-$2 NLH. I remember one particular night a new kid showed up to play and he got involved in a hand that still stands out in my memory to this day. A player opened in early position, he 3-bet with AJ suited and then the other player shoved. Considering that this was a game full of teenagers, that was a call nearly every player would have made in that game. But this kid tanked for a long time then folded the hand face up. I remember pulling him aside later on in the evening and telling him that I knew he would be a great player one day. I will not reveal the players name, but I ran into him years later when we were both living in Vegas. He had just turned twenty one years old but had been playing for a couple of years at the Venetian with a fake ID. A few years after that, he would finish second in the World Series of Poker Player of the Year ranking. He played his very first live hand in my game when he was all of fifteen years old.
This went on for months, but as I was paying little attention to the actual business of the internet cafe it went under. So I had no place to run the game anymore and I ended up giving my players list to a friend who wanted to start his own game in his apartment. But that game stopped after a while as well and after having done nothing but just playing poker at the Bike for a few months, I decided to restart my game. This time I got some friends together to pool our money and rented a warehouse on the north side of Los Angeles. We had a twelve month lease as a party planning company. I figured that was a good cover for why we had so many poker tables around as I had told the leasing agent that we specialized in casino night events. So I had six custom made poker tables built, bought some sixty chairs, cards and the rest and off we went. I remember on one particular night I had my partners and the staff we had hired stay all night in the warehouse putting stickers on the chips we had purchased. I remember the name of the club vividly as I called it Chesterfield West. It was an homage to the movie Rounders as the name of a club they played in was called the Chesterfield. In the scene where they all run into each other at the same table in Atlantic City, one of the players remarks “Welcome to the Chesterfield South” as a joke that they had just transplanted their entire game southward.
I initially thought that the game would just run from where we left off when I ran it in the internet cafe. But such was not the case as some of the players had moved away or lost too much money to continue playing. I had spent about $15,000 to get this game off the ground so I had to do something and so I took a huge risk. There was no Facebook back then as MySpace was still the most popular social media platform. So I did a search for people in my area who had listed poker as an interest and sent out a mass invite to all of them. Over the next four days I received several messages from people wanting to play and thus the game was born again. We would play $1-$2 on most nights, sometimes playing $2-$5 and it was a good game. I had the dealers trained very well and had them running the games efficiently. Word got around town and soon we were running multiple tables and having new faces show up nightly. The staff, my partners and I would gather nightly at 6:00 PM at a local Chinese restaurant to have dinner then slowly make our way to the warehouse around 8:00 PM to start the game. The games were going so late that I would basically sleep at the warehouse on a couch that we had put in the lounge. I would have to go to my friend’s house in the afternoon just to take a shower.
We were taking some huge risks back then and the biggest one was perhaps continuing to allow underage kids to play. We certainly had plenty of them wanting to play as they could not play in the casinos. On one particular weekend, one of these teenagers came in and lost about $2,000 on a Friday night. He had told his older brother about it, who happened to be a lawyer. What happened next I cannot be completely sure about, but I soon got some visitors in blue who would basically order us to stop the game. When everything was said and done, we got off fairly light. Our landlords were told about what was going on of course but they still would not let us out of our lease. So we could not run the game anymore but still had to sit on that warehouse and pay the rent for another six months. I still slept in the warehouse as I figured I should get some use out of it. So I moved out of my apartment so I would not have to pay double rent and spent most days and nights in the warehouse either playing poker online or watching movies in the lounge that we had built.
When the lease to the warehouse was finally over, I decided to look for a new apartment with some friends. After a few days of not finding anything we liked, I remember a couple of us sitting in my car and concluding that we should move close to a casino since we all loved playing poker so much. But then in a moment of clarity, we looked at each other and all said at the same time, “We should just move to Vegas!” From that moment we began to make plans to move to Sin City. Nothing was really holding us in Los Angeles anymore as I was not working, did not have an apartment and my would be roommates had just graduated from college. About a week after we had agreed to move, we took a tester trip out to Vegas to see what the apartment market was like. There were plenty of apartments available in the city that were much cheaper than what we were used to in Los Angeles. So on the second day of our trip we signed a sixteen month lease on a three bedroom apartment in a suburb of Vegas called Henderson for $1,100 per month. After a few nights of poker and some ill advised blackjack, we headed back to Los Angeles to pack up our belongings and make the move to Las Vegas.

I was originally born in Seoul, South Korea but our family immigrated to the United States when I was 6 years old in 1981. It was a bit of a culture shock to say the least when we first arrived as none of us really knew how to speak English and we were nearly broke. The first few years were very tough as we struggled financially, emotionally and even physically. The person that held us all together during this most difficult time was my father, who's unrelenting work ethic kept us all fed and led us to greener pastures. And while our current relationship is less than ideal, he remains the paradigm of how I conduct myself as an adult as our lives have eerily mirrored each other in more ways than either of us would like to admit.

As I only spent the first few years of my life in South Korea there is not much about it that I remember. I recall that we had a nice house, a nanny, chauffer and did not lack for anything. My father worked very hard as I hardly ever saw him and would come home many nights in the AM, drunk and carried home by his employees. I would come to learn later in life that my father attended Seoul University and had graduated with a law degree. Instead of becoming a lawyer though, he married my mother and started to work at a bank. He would eventually open his own construction company and built that to a successful enterprise. But sometime around my 5th year of life things started to change. We moved out of our house into a condominium complex and all of a sudden my father was home all the time. I remembered enjoying this time of my life a great deal as my father and I were able to enjoy much quality time together, something I sorely missed in earlier years. We did not spend too many months in that complex though as I was told that we would soon be moving to the United States. My grandparents on my mother's side resided in America and had sponsored us to come. But as they were only able to do so for a limited number of people we would have to leave our grandmother on my father's side behind. On our final day in South Korea, we all gathered in a room and made our tearful goodbyes as my parents, brother and I headed out to our new lives.

My grandmother whom we left behind played an integral role in the survival of our family. Both her and my father are actually from North Korea and lived through the war. My father was only 3 years old at the time and I have heard the story of how they both escaped countless times. The only way to escape from where my family was living in the North was via a train. But as there was limited space not everyone could board and there was a general understanding that only women and children would be allowed to board and escape. My father once told me that only cowardly men would try to board the train, but that his father refused and stayed behind as his wife and children were sent to safety. Once in South Korea my father had to assume the role as man of the house at the tender age of 3, both for my grandmother and his younger brother. He would never see his father again and had to become an adult entirely on his own. From these humble beginnings he worked as hard as one could and studied his way into the top university in the country.

While my father did work very hard to find initial success, the economy in South Korea turned and his company went bankrupt. Although I did not know this at the time, this was the reason for why he was all of a sudden home so much during our final year in Korea. He could not find work and was too proud to ask his friends for money. With no other options left, he accepted the help of my mother's parents and accepted their sponsorship of our family to move to the States. Our first apartment in Los Angeles was paid for entirely by my grandparents, a humble "one bedroom" but really just a studio that had a curtain down the middle of the room that separated the living quarters from the bedroom. My parents soon found work at the same photo processing company as office clerks as my father's law degree from Korea meant very little in the new country. Good meals were very hard to come by during this time and we often ate what we could. This meant eating a lot of Spam as a substitute for "real" meat and even cut up hot dogs, fried on a pan and eaten with rice. My parents worked 40 hours per week but took whatever overtime they could and whenever they got paid on Fridays they would still take me to my favorite restaurant. They did much to shield both my brother and I from these tough times as they bore most of the stress from life's struggles.

As hard as they worked it became apparent to my father that his current employment situation was not going to get our family very far. So he decided to take on a second job at night as a janitor that would ensure he would have 60-70 hour work weeks. He and my mother would go to their day jobs, be home by 6:00 PM to eat dinner with the family and then my father would be back out the door by 8:00 PM to literally clean toilets. My father worked so hard that he eventually developed a stomach ulcer and became so violently ill that he could not work for a month. As soon as he was better my father would return to both jobs and continue his monstrous work schedule. On top of all this he picked up an extra job on the weekend working once again as a janitor in a luxury condominium complex. He impressed enough in just the 2 days per week that he worked that he outperformed his boss and caught the attention of the facility's management office. They eventually gave my father the contract for the cleaning of the entire complex and with this he was able to quit both his day and night jobs. He would go on to form his own cleaning company and after picking up a few more contracts was able to move our family out and buy a proper home.

Around this time we used to spend Saturday evenings with my mother's sister and her family. I remember they had an apartment very much like the one we just moved out of and had been in the States as long as we had. I asked my father why they were not able to get ahead like he had and he gave me an answer that has weighed heavily in both my heart and mind since. My father told me that my aunt's husband was not able to find consistent work because he too had come from a prestigious university in Korea and that he found much of the work that he was able to find in the States beneath him. Then with all of the seriousness of the world my father looked at me and relayed to me words that I would never forget. He said that when your family has to eat, and more importantly if you want for them a better life, there is no such thing as a job that is beneath you. You have to do whatever you can to provide, even if that means working 70 hours per week and cleaning toilets to the point you become sick. My father was nearly the literal representation of working oneself to death because he knew that nothing short of that should stop one from working and providing for one's family.

Finally things were looking up for our family as we lived in a nice house, in a great neighborhood and my father was the head of a successful company. We were even able to sponsor my grandmother from South Korea so that she could finally join us in America. At this time we would receive news that both my father and grandmother thought would never come. A family friend who was also from North Korea headed back in search of his father, whom he had lost in a similar manner. While he was there he offered to look for my grandfather as well and after a few weeks sent word that while his own father was since deceased, that he had found my dad's father who was remarried but very much still alive. Upon hearing this news I recall thinking that I had never seen my father and grandmother so happy. She could honestly care less that my grandfather had remarried as she was just so happy to hear that he was still alive. My father also found out that he had step brothers and sisters and was excited at the prospect of at least speaking to them and his father through letters. While he and my grandmother were discussing the possibility of going out to North Korea themselves, they would receive a phone call that would immediately reverse all the happiness they were feeling. With all the sorrow and regret in the world, our family friend relayed to my father that a horrible mistake had occurred. The information he had received was incorrect and it was his father that was still alive and that my grandfather had passed away several years ago. My grandmother did not come out of her room for two weeks as she spent most of that time crying endlessly. We had to leave meals for her at the door, many of which went uneaten. To this day I cannot imagine what my father must have been going through but he carried on as he always had. He went to work every day and held things together during a most tragic time for our family.

Much of what remains in the history between my father and I is largely negative. This fact revolves mainly around two things, one my decision to be a poker player and pursue a career in this game and my decision to not only come to Cambodia but to start a family here with a Cambodian woman. When I first started playing poker the fact that I lived in Vegas was a well kept secret in my family. When I would return to Los Angeles for holidays my other family members would ask me where I had been, not having a single clue that I lived 5 hours away. After I had reached some level of success as a player I invited my parents for a visit after I started renting an 11th floor condo on the strip right behind the Wynn Hotel. When my mother and father entered my new home, they took a careful and long look around before uttering a sound. Then after a dramatic pause that seemed to last forever, my father finally said, "This is not your home. Whose home is this?" To be fair there was a lot right about why my father was thinking. I have mentioned in a previous blog post that the condo was much too expensive and that I had no business renting it. Not to mention that I would go broke within 12 months of that visit. Even though I eventually came to have more success and stability in poker, the reservations they had were completely understandable and justified. And I imagine that this is not what he exactly envisioned for his son when he moved the entire family to America for a better life.

What remains and brings us to the present day is even more complicated. Neither of my parents were thrilled with my decision to visit Cambodia. They had horrifying thoughts in their heads of me sleeping in a hammock outside, catching malaria and worst of all meeting a Cambodian woman. There is no delicate way of saying this, but it is largely true that 1st generation Asians in America can be racist. I have had many conversations with my father about whom I am allowed to marry in terms of race, with a sequential order no less. The list is as follows:

• Korean
• Chinese
• Japanese
• White

The following are strictly prohibited:

• Blacks
• Latinos
• Indians
• Southeast Asians

My father's worst fears would come true as I did meet a Cambodian woman who would eventually become the mother of my first and only children. Neither of my parents have met nor spoken to any of my kids and we have not spoken to one another in nearly 6 years.

With all that is happening right now in Cambodia with covid-19, I have thought that this might be an opportune time for a visit to the States. It would allow me to get vaccinated and I can run my business there easily and send money back to the family. I have already emailed my mother with this possibility but have yet to get a response. It would be the first time in 5 years since I have been in America and perhaps may serve as an opportunity for a reunion with my parents. There is a lot that has remained unsaid regarding our relationship in this blog post. And I have done much as well to contribute to the current state of our relationship as I have not always played an innocent role. Therefore such a reunion remains unlikely and I am not getting my hopes up too high. I doubt that my children will ever get to meet their grandparents and I remain unsure whether I even want them to. I have resigned myself to the likelihood that I will not be around when my father passes. But in many ways my father will live on in certain ideals that I have adopted from him and hope to pass onto my own children.

Never in my near 7 years of living in Cambodia have I witnessed what we are all experiencing in this climate of covid-19. After more than a year of enjoying a relatively free lifestyle, the pandemic has finally hit home as Phnom Penh and other cities are either under curfew or under a complete lock down. In such a time it is tempting to become depressed and ponder on all the negatives. I admit that even the thought of going back home to the States has crossed my mind in these past few weeks. But perhaps this presents even a better opportunity to consider why I came here in the first place and in the end still love living in the Kingdom of Wonder. From my family to the great lifestyle I have been afforded here, it is clear to me now that this home is where I will continue to live my life.

Like so many others one of the chief reasons for why I came here was due to the low cost of living. But in my time here I have come to realize there are two ways to approach this. For some they simply choose to live the same or similar version of their life back home, but at a much lower cost. And for others they decide to live a better lifestyle, one they could not afford back home, affordably here in Cambodia. My first few years I was of the former camp but have moved squarely into the latter as the years have progressed. The truth is I did not like much my life back in the States and it was not something that I wanted to spend the rest of my life duplicating here. For certain I can write this blog highlighting the $1 meals and $0.75 draft beers, and I mean no disrespect to those who choose this path. But I wanted to improve my life, not recreate it. I have lived in the $100 studio room, but now much prefer living with my family in a spacious and modern apartment with an off duty police guard standing duty 24/7. And as I find it difficult to work at home I was able to rent a nearby condo, where I play poker and do my live Twitch streams from, at a fraction of the price of what it would cost back home. All this while being able to go to the gym, swim in a large pool and enjoy lightning fast internet speeds. My second child, and firstborn son, is about to enter this world in one month. Back in the States I could never imagine being able to afford having such a family. Here it is not only possible, but the prospect of sending all of my children to a decent school is one I will be able to do comfortably.

When I first arrived in Phnom Penh I was often found wanting in terms of quality food. As I stated previously I often did the $1 meals from street carts as that at least offered great value. But the food and restaurant scene has changed so much in these last few years that I often find myself struggling to decide where to eat. One would expect great Asian food in an Asian country but that has not always been true. As I am Korean-American, quality Korean cuisine was difficult to come by in my first few years. But currently I have a choice of nearly every type and regional type of food that my home country has to offer. There are is no shortage of great Western fare as well. From simple burgers to quality steaks, there are a plethora of restaurants vying for our dollars, constantly improving their menu and reducing their prices. Is it exactly the same as I enjoyed in the States? Of course not, but eating in such a way back home was cost prohibitive to the point that going out to certain types of restaurants was a luxury that could not be done often. Although going out with friends and enjoying a fine dining experience is a common occurrence here, one can also have that brought right to their door as well with a plethora of choices in delivery services throughout the city. And should I have a craving for local fare I can enjoy that as well whether that be the $1 variety from down the street or at the new restaurant that offers a premium and reimagined menu of traditional local food.

Much of this is of course due to poker and the fact that we are still allowed to play online here. Unlike America which offers the game only in a few States, players here are able to enjoy the fruits of their poker labor as most traditional sites and apps are available for real money play. And for those that prefer the live venue they exist as well from the Nagaworld casino here in Phnom Penh to games in other cities such as Sihanoukville and Kampot. If one cannot play poker there is very little reason for a player to come here, but fortunately the Kingdom offers a wide array of choices for those that play both professionally and recreationally. Personally I enjoy playing in the comfort of my own home on my desktop rig with games spread over two monitors. But everyone is different as a close friend takes 4 tablets over to his neighborhood 24 hour gastropub to play and drink cappuccinos all night. Others can play in the casino in games from $1/$2 to $5/$10 or take a holiday down to the beach and play in any one of their many casinos. It is ironic considering where I come from, but I had to come to a third world country to enjoy the freedoms of playing poker in all its forms.

The last reason for why I love living in Cambodia is no big secret, especially for those that follow me on social media or have hung out with me at night. The nightlife here in Phnom Penh is absolutely epic and while we can argue ad nauseum over other places that some might enjoy more, this city is just perfect for me personally. There is no shortage of bars, clubs, KTVs and the like that one can choose from when trying to decide where to spend one's night. The greatest nights I have enjoyed in my life have been those traversing the bars at night with friends, barely able to remember all the events the following morning but somehow still knowing we had an epic night. And here we can talk about the cheap drinks because alcohol here costs nothing compare to what we are used to paying back home. If beer is your poison of choice than just a few dollars will carry you a long way. Personally I like to drink whiskey and even those can be had for near $3 at some places. But why settle for a drink when bottles can be had under $100 at just about every bar and club. But more than the alcohol, the real reason we go out and keep coming back are the bevy of beautiful and young girls at the hostess bars and KTVs ready and willing to keep all their customers happy. Make no mistake when I say that I came here to be a much bigger fish in a very much smaller pond. Back home I could not get pretty girls to look at me twice let alone get the kind of attention I get here. The nightlife here is very much a stage and when we go out we are the stars of the production.

I write all this of course as Phnom Penh and neighboring areas are experiencing a full lockdown. Currently everyone has to stay home and we are not allowed to go out anywhere, let alone enjoy the nightlife. The streets are dark at night, the bars shut and all of the girls at home staring aimlessly at YouTube on their phones. But to all my fellow poker brothers I say that life is merely on pause. As difficult as things are currently, others that surround us are experiencing a much harsher time. So do not be afraid to give a little back when the opportunity presents itself because they are all around us. As the old saying goes, this too shall pass and pass it shall for all of us. Businesses will be back open, bars will be pouring drinks soon and girls will be at the ready to laugh at every unfunny word we utter that they can barely understand. Until that day comes keep your head up, keep grinding and be ready for that night when all things returns to normal.

Back when I lived in Las Vegas I remember a night of playing $1-$3 NLH at the Treasure Island Poker Room. I was on a table with a close friend and we happen to get into a fairly big pot heads up. I had bricked my draw by the river but when he checked I decided to put in a huge bet to try and take the pot anyway. He tanked for a minute and then made the call with top pair. Upon losing the hand another player at the table, who as it turned out was a poker coach, remarked that I had really polarized my range with the sizing on my river bet. When hearing this my friend immediately asked the floor for a table change. I asked him if he did not want to play on the same table as a friend to which he replied that he simply did not want to be in a $1-$3 game where players were talking about polarizing ranges. This was back in 2009 and it was the day I realized that it was the beginning of the end for No Limit Hold’em.

Back when I started playing in 2003 my friends and I were printing money. Online sites were filled with recreational players that never seemed to mind shipping it in constantly with marginal hands. When we moved out to Vegas in 2005, live games were just as easy as I would often joke that I could walk through a poker room blindfolded and come out with at least a few hundred dollars. But as the game grew, especially online, data collection and the proliferation of software made the game increasingly difficult to play as players were constantly improving and even recreational players became familiar with advanced principles. All one has to do is look at the list of the winners at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker since the boom in 2003. Names like Chris Moneymaker, Jerry Gold and Jerry Yang represented the “every-man”, making many believe that truly anyone can win at the game of poker. But since Joe Cada’s win in 2009, the list of winners has been filled with younger players in their 20’s who all made their way up in the poker world through online sites. And if one does decide to jump online now to try and fulfill their poker dream, they will be faced with players who have played at least a million hands in their lifetime, all using software and many who study daily. And even lower stakes live games are now populated by those with much experience that used to play bigger, now playing smaller in order to survive.

All poker rooms, both live and online, are now riddled with promotions in order to attract players. But all that everyone is doing is recycling the same old players and what most are failing to do is the one thing that might save the game, namely the creation of new players. I see it all the time on my Facebook feed as agents for online poker clubs travel the world over to sign up this player and that player. But these guys were just playing on a different site previously and now they are just going to make the games on some other network much tougher. But creating new players for no limit hold’em is very difficult to do as the game is no longer as attractive as it once was. It is not as ubiquitous on television as before and the lack of participation by huge markets such as North America has depleted the player base of new players. And it does not take even recreational players long to realize that they are completely dominated once they sit down at most tables. Not only are they facing much tougher players with every resource available to them, but hold’em is not a game that lends itself well to newer players. When most of the money gets in the pot for big hands, equity does not run all that close in this game and recreational players often find themselves on the bad side of domination.

The more established players do not help their own cause in this regard. No Limit Hold’em is a game that has become increasingly more difficult to play over the years and the tables are filled with those that are losing more, not winning as much and those that are barely surviving. My friend used to comment about one particular room here in Phnom Pehn that it was such a depressing place to be compared to years prior. The online environment has not proven to be any better as players using software and playing for massive amounts of rakeback have not made for great games. In addition, the online side of things creates its own unique set of problems such as the presence of bots that can now be programmed to beat games at most levels. And the presence of massive promotions that benefit regular players do keep the rooms busy, but in the long run will be the downfall of the game. Recreational players are not attracted by such promotions as it unfairly punishes them for being passers by. Poker is a game that is fed by tourists and those that do not play regularly in any one location. These promotions are always paid for by taking additional money to the rake and recs often figure out that they are being taxed for something that they rarely can benefit from as promotions such as freerolls and bad beat jackpots give a higher chance of hitting for those that play more regularly in one room. And if nothing else, the extra money being taken depletes the money of those that are already losing.

As regular players we have all noticed the proliferation or gaining popularity in recent years of different games apart from no limit hold’em. Games like pot limit omaha have steadily grew over the past decade and even newer games are proving to be popular in parts of Asia such as short deck poker. And while recreational players may not necessarily be conscious of why these games are growing, it is no accident why they are drawn to these tables. I won’t get into the technical intricacies of each game, but the fact remains that in a game with more cards such as omaha the equity runs much closer and bad players do not get their money in as often being dominated, as is the case in a game like no limit hold’em. We see this evolution on a micro level within omaha itself as 5 and 6 card versions are now gaining in popularity as the equities run even closer with the additional cards. Short deck poker produces similar results, although for the opposite reason as cards are now removed from the deck. In either case, the high variance that is created by the equities running closer is also a more attractive feature of the game for newer players. Whether online or on a live table, there is perhaps nothing more boring than sitting in a no limit hold’em game with tight players, most of them chasing some promo offered by the room. These newer games provide a much more conducive environment for gamblers, those that want to play the game for every right reason.

I doubt there will ever be anything like the poker boom again, but it does appear that these newer games represent the future of poker. Fewer players are being attracted to poker today and the price to pay for getting them in very well may be adjusting to play these games. After all there has to be some give and compromise as we cannot expect recreational players to just hand over their money in an environment where regulars have most of the edge. I made the adjustment to omaha myself about a year ago and recently switched to 5-card games. As 6-card variants are now being offered I will probably have to adjust and switch to that game as well eventually. The numbers never lie and the point that I am making here can easily be seen on the tables. When playing these different games, those that have a high VP$IP can regularly be spotted whereas they are rare specimens on the hold’em tables. I do not see anything in the near future that can possibly change this trend. I know many point to the popularity of poker in parts of China as a sign of hope, but I have already covered in previous articles how the way in which the Chinese run their poker rooms is not conducive to the game’s growth. And it just so happens to be that the game of short deck was born out of games in Macau and is already quite popular there. Perhaps if America were to legalize the game again on a federal level and everyone had easy access the market can see an upward spike. But given how legistlation has been slow to be enacted even on a state level, I cannot see that happening any time soon.

There is a phrase that poker players love to use, namely “GTO” which stands for game theory optimal. I absolutely hate this saying as it represents everything wrong with poker culture today. I understand that players want every possible edge and advantage, but without other players to provide that edge there will be no game and more importantly no money to be had. Poker has become a game in which 2% of the playing population win 98% of the money. How long can such an ecosystem be sustained? As players we have to give up some equity on the table itself in order to meet others at some sort of half way point to ensure the survival of the game.