1990-2000 Bankroll Stories from Poker Pros: Kicked Off by Josh Arieh

Joshua Arieh (1990s): Poker and Pool Frenzy

Joshua Arieh shared two stories from two different years both from the same time period.

The first is from 1996 when Arieh had around a $2,500 bankroll and was just coming of age:

“I was finally 21 and could stop using my brothers I.D to get in the casino. No better time for my 1st Vegas trip.  

Booked my room at Binions for WSOP and me and my buddy couldn’t get there soon enough.  Threw my bags in the room and went to check out the action.  

Mike Matusow & Scotty Nguyen were playing $20-$40 limit Holdem and I got on the list.  

Sparing the details, I blew $2000 of my money and had $400 left to last 4 days :(“

Arieh couldn’t quite remember how this trip ended but he assumes that he spent the rest of the trip in his hotel room.

The second story is from a little earlier — 1994, when Joshua had only a $250 bankroll and no job. This story isn’t necessarily about poker but about gambling poolside, something that was very popular in the US south in the 1990s:

“The biggest gambler in the pool room was a guy that owned a carpet cleaning company and he played a little better than me. I learned early in my career, the best way to make a big score is to take the worst of it.

I called him up and said “you wanna play some 9ball? Race to 7 for $200?”

He replied with ‘I’m

Not giving you a spot, but if you wanna play even, I’ll play you for whatever you want!”

The game was set for 7pm that night! Only decision left for me was do I keep 100% and have one bullet, or find a partner and have 2 bullets

Made a few phone calls and after a few ‘don’t do it’ replies from Knish-like friends, I found someone that liked to gamble like me.”

Arieh didn’t start the game on the right foot, losing 4-0. Still, he found a way to compose himself and went to 6-6 hour later:

“Carpet guy says ‘back it and double the bet?’ Meaning start over and bet double instead of playing one game for the $200.

I thought for about 5 seconds and ‘fuck it, let’s go!’

Now we’re racing to 7 for $400 and I only have one barrel!!!

Well, the beers and the recreational drugs got the best of him. 30 hours and 2 different pool halls later I was $16k winner!  I’ve never been into drugs, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

The next day I awoke after about 12 hours of sleep to no less than 10 missed calls. It was my carpet guy ready to play more….i was happy to oblige “see you in an hour”

Everything was working in Arieh’s favor until his partner backed off:

Adam Schwartz (2000): A Half Year Poker Trip

At the start of the second millennium, Adam Schwartz found himself pretty tired of playing Limit Hold’em in Vancouver — so he took his friend Jimmy, got into Adam’s 15-year-old mini van and went to Los Angeles to play something new at the Commerce and the Bike.

En route they stopped in Seattle to play a little — and left $1,600 at the Four Queens. That’s where the real story started:

“Only have 1400 left, obviously turned around and went home with my tail between my legs…

LOL just kidding, Jimmy and I jumped in the van and drove south.

Got to LA, figured we try Hollywood Park first as they had really good 15/30, 20/40 and 40/80 limit games.

HP had a deal with the Crowne Plaza at LAX to stay for $50/night. We got off to a hot start, the games were amazing. It would regularly go raise, 5 flat calls to a flop.”

For the entire month, Schwartz met poker legends such as John Phan, Amir Vehidi, and Mike Caro, to name a few. Everything was fine until one fateful Friday when Schwartz asked his friend to figure out how they could get into the Commerce:

“We pull out of HP and he says go east on Century. Jimmy’s not great with maps, so he takes us east on Century as far east as it goes and then figure it out from there.

As we’re driving, it becomes apparent that we’re driving through some bad areas and we need to get back to the freeway fast.

When we passed Century and Compton Avenue, I’d listened to enough NWA to know we were in one at that moment, but Jimmy is completely unaware.

Here’s a pasty white dude driving an old mini-van with Canadian plates and an Asian guy in the passenger seat holding a giant map, each of us with 10k in cash on us. What could go wrong?

I ask Jimmy where we are on the map. “Wattus”, he says. Do you mean Watts? 

Ya, Watts.”

The next thing Schwartz saw could have been a scene picked right out of the movies: dudes hanging around the corner standing over an oil drum with a fire in it, low-riders, everyone was out to party on a Friday night. It was fascinating and scary at the same time:

The story ended on a pretty good note: Adam and Jimmy stayed at the hotel for half of the year printing money. Maybe more importantly, they met a lot of great people and made a few friends with whom they keep in touch even 20 years later.

Bryan Micon (2001): Gamble for Living

It was a time in 2001 when Bryan Micon had only a $1,400 bankroll with $2,200 monthly rent overdue by three days. His landlord was already pissed, so Micon decided to gamble his way out of debt:

“One of my (still to this day) closest friends and I are grinding 10-20 limit in Chicago on a shared bankroll. We would print ~$5-10k on a good month, but the last few weeks have been terrible. 

We scrape up all the change in the apartment and stack the quarters up like poker chips. 6 stacks of 20 each. We play our usual rap music mix on the way to the casino, hopeful as we head to put this $1400 into action.

6 hours and dozens of limit holdem beats later, we drive back busted, in silence.

Get home and use one stack of the quarters to buy cigarettes.”

Gambling fired back on Micon, forcing him to borrow money from a friend to cover the debt and shortly after to move back home to work at a real job:

His friend, by the way, eventually quit poker and began a successful career for a Fortune Global 500 company and is doing great overall.