I always worked for The Man
I've never been a professional poker player.
This statement surprises some people who know of my history in poker, how long I've been around poker, and how much I love the game. But those people don't know what a life nit I am. I was working for IBM on my 21st birthday, fresh out of college, and continued to work for The Man until the end of 2018 – over 40 years as a professional something.
My career morphed from high-tech into the poker world, but whatever the role, there was always (a) a boss, and (b) a paycheck associated with it. Professional poker players will tell you that one of the upsides of being a poker pro is that there's no boss. They'll also tell you that one of the downsides is not having a paycheck. Me, I was always willing to fade the former to have the latter.
Until I didn't work for The Man
In 2019, I found myself not working for anybody, and thanks to, well... thanks to having some generous employers, and some decent investment acumen, I found that I didn't need to work, per se. But I also found that I liked working. I started writing and doing other projects for PokerOrg, and writing for Jonathan Little's PokerCoaching.com site. I even formed a bluegrass band that gets paid to play – this is a stronger statement than you might realize.
But one thing that hasn't changed in 40 years – I still love playing poker. And since 2019, I've been playing more poker than I ever played before. I wouldn't call myself a professional, because I don't support my 'food and rent habit' (as Tommy Angelo calls it) with poker earnings. But I was a serious amateur, for-profit rec – whatever the term du jour is.
Enter Conrad Simpson
It was just recently, at the World Series of Poker. I was helping to host the PokerOrg Lounge at the Horseshoe. It was great fun, I got to work with some of my favorite people, and it seemed that all my other favorite poker people were just randomly wandering into the Lounge to say hi.
But we closed up shop at 9pm every evening, and my colleagues would do something sane, like find dinner, have a beer to wind down, or maybe just crawl into bed, turn off the lights, and bathe in peace, quiet, and darkness.
Me? I would always go looking for a poker game. I made it to the Wynn, the WSOP cash games, and even down to South Point (aka 'The Jewel of the South'). I avoided the Horseshoe poker room and its free all-you-can-breathe carbon monoxide – the WSOP cash games were buried deep within the convention center area, and thus were blessedly smoke-free.
On this particular evening, I was sitting in a $5/10 NLHE game at the Bellagio, when Conrad Simpson came strolling by. If you're not familiar with Conrad, he wears two hats. One is that of a poker professional, who is always on the grind. His other hat is best described as that of a court jester. 'Cap 'n' bells' is the official term for a jester's hat, but Conrad looks particularly dapper in a PokerOrg bucket hat. He works the room (including Bobby's Legends Room), visiting, sweating hands, and generally being an entertainment director. Some people say that poker is allowed to be fun – Conrad Simpson goes out of his way to ensure it.
Anyway, Conrad was cruising near my table, so I hollered a hello at him.
"Lee Jones. What are you doing here?"
"We closed up the Lounge at nine. I'm off the clock and playing poker."
There was the briefest of pauses.
"Nah, man – you're on the clock, now."
A little buzz of adrenaline shot through me. A grinder's grinder had just labeled me one of his own tribe.
It took 40 years and Conrad Simpson, but now... now I'm an official demi-grinder. I couldn't be more proud.
