I can’t say I grew up playing poker across the table from my dad though. He certainly didn’t provide me with any trade secrets while I was in my teens that would ensure poker dominance in my later years. In fact, the old man set me back plenty by refusing to really even play cards with me until I…get this…actually got an education and accomplished a few things in life. What a jerk…

This column is going to be a look into the mind of an everyday player, me, who is trying to break into the poker world. Now granted, I have some advantages and insights from my father that the everyday player is not going to have. I hope to be able to share those with you, here. These advantages also come with a decided disadvantage as well though: I had never even played poker until February ’04. Bear had specifically kept me away from all things spade, diamond, heart, and club for all of my young life. I had to actually print out one of those charts for hand rankings when I started. You know the ones…this is a flush, this is a full house…not exactly the makings of a poker god.

We did have one constant in my childhood life though, and that was competitiveness. I have always been hyper-competitive, and this quality was absolutely fed by Bear, who is just as competitive. Reflecting back on my childhood, I remember so many different non-card related ways that we gambled with each other.

If I wanted some ice cream on a Sunday afternoon after watching football (which we probably had a pool on for who had to walk the dogs later that week), rather than going for a nice walk in the sun to get some, you know, like a normal father and son would do, we would actually compete for whether to go or not. Bear would go and get the football from the garage, and fire bullet passes at me, with how hard depending on how much of a pain-in-the-ass I had been that week. If I caught the pass, or enough of the passes, then it would be an ice cream wonderland. If I had been difficult that week, then it would probably be welts and some tired yogurt from the fridge. No exaggeration, the man gave his 10-year-old son welts occasionally.

We loved to gamble in our house though, at least my father and I did with each other. Over almost anything. We would bet on our one-on-one basketball games, we would have bets to determine what kind of basketball sneakers I got that year, we would actually have bets to decide where we would go for dinner that night. On everything, except for card games. That wasn’t allowed. Ever.

When I decided to actually try and take on this poker challenge, we discussed how, despite no direct poker game preparation, I had been trained -mentally trained -to be a poker player since I was a little kid. Not through the playing of cards, or the memorizing of starting hands, but through learning how to handle myself in competitive situations and maintain composure in high stress environments. Just by my father being who he was, one of the coolest and calmest cats in the poker world, and by raising me to be mentally tough, I was gaining a leg up on many of my future opponents across the table.

Take a look at what I mean:
After graduating from UC-Berkeley in 1999, I went to work for several Internet start-ups. Now, I don’t mean the ones where the kids worked for two hours and then played beer pong for five, I was clocking solid and regular workdays of 12-15 hours. I also noticed that I had almost no trouble with the high stress job, nor with focusing for that length of time. I have to thank, begrudgingly of course, my dad for this. His work ethic is legendary and I developed mine from long hours of algebra and trigonometry in high school. A few spirited words from him in regards to me being weak, which are also legendary, and I began to treat school as just another way to compete with others. He wasn’t always the kindest father in the world, but with regards to me, he certainly was the most effective.

The foundation was being laid for me not ever giving in, and for me becoming mentally strong. This is one of the most important characteristics of a good poker player, and I was sneaking them out of my dad for future use, unbeknownst to him.

We have discussed this concept several times since I began playing; the fact that I was picking up all of these different skills that would enable me to slip onto a poker table more comfortably later. Despite the fact that Bear had absolutely no intention of ever allowing me to play cards at my age, he was teaching me many of the lessons that I would need to learn to do just that. I quickly learned that I had to be able to lie effectively to him when I was trying to yank the wool over his eyes. He seemed to always know when I was trying to pull something, somehow. I also had to adapt to his style and be able to reason out situations with him in order to procure whatever it was that I wanted at that time. By the time I was 18, I was many times better than all of my friends at logically picking apart things and figuring out what was true, which you have to be able to do effectively and quickly, while sitting behind the felt.

So the race is on to see how much all the mental beatings I received from my dad are going to help my poker career. Is it going to be enough to overcome a woeful lack of playing experience? What's more important for a player? Is it better to be able to recite hand-odds down the line or to be unflinching in the face of intense pressure across the felt? No doubt, you must be able to stare down an opponent and deduce if he actually has the nuts or just a big enough pair of his own to bluff you in that spot. But is that more valuable then having every starting hand he has ever played memorized in your head? I can honestly say that I don’t know. Let’s think of this column as sort of a reality television show…only in print.

You may get the point of this: Can an everyday player break into the world of big-time poker? Through this column, I expect I will echo concerns many of you are facing in regards to your own games, and I can share some of my successes and failures to help you secure, and avoid, your own.