Hello, my name is Michael Pillsbury, and I would like to tell you all a little bit about my life and the roll poker has played in it the last 15 years. I am 28 now, so I've officially been involved in the game for over half of it.
I learned how to play from my best friend and mentor when I was 13. He was 17 and cancer stricken. Almost every day after school I would go to his house and we would play games, watch movies, and talk about life and philosophy. In addition to poker he introduced me to a lot of ideas. Toa The Ching, Marcus Arelius' meditations, etc.
When I met him at the comic shop I was a timid boy with a learning disability and a chip on his shoulder, I thought that I could do better in school and I wanted more friends. Playing magic on Friday night was the only place I really felt like my self.
For whatever reason he took an interest in me, as he got to know me at FNM, and we quickly became great friends despite the age gap. He didn't care much about things like numbers, though he was very good with them. He was mostly interested in ideas and life. And how to be the best person that he could.
Under his tutelage I became the best version of myself, and by the summer before high school, he was cancer free again, and we were both so happy. I was able to talk my way in to honors classes at the beginning of the year, despite my ADD/Dyslexia, which had the guidance counselor completely against the idea. In fact I had to go straight to the teachers to get my shot. And when I got it I ran away with it. I gave up lunch for another study hall so I could keep up, and I held my own with the smartest in my grade. I also attained a level of popularity I never thought I would, and everyone liked me. I was a happy, ambitious, gregarious young man. I just wanted to be a good person and prove that I could do more than other's previously thought.
His cancer came back in a big way at the end of the fall that year, 2001. And by April 2002, he was gone, and I was lost in grief. I vowed to carry on his good nature and be charitable in his name. But I threw myself into my studies and began to withdrawal socially.
A year later, when Moneymaker won. I thought that maybe there was some kind of destiny going on, and that if I could play poker and win a lot of money, I could donate much of it to St Judes, or start my own non profit.
I was still focused on school for the time being. But quickly grew weary and disillusioned with academics. I had to put in twice the time just to get B's where others got A's, and I eventually got A's. But it wasn't making me happy, and my heart wasn't really in it. And then I quit on it.
I kept withdrawing and started playing more online, though it wasn't nearly as fun as my .05/.10 home game with my friends, which I would regularly crush. I loved poker and I was good at it so I thought of course I should pursue it. I didn't though, my heart was never really in it. What I really loved was people, and being with them. I wasn't good at computers and I didn't know how to post on forums, and I never learned. That was one of my biggest mistakes. One among many I'm trying now to rectify.
In chasing the delusion all these years, I've gotten very far away from the person that I was, who I want to be, and who I know I truly am. I became obsessed with the numbers, the swings, percentages. I started looking at my life like it was a game, one in which I thought the ends would justify the means. And I did many things I wish I hadn't and that my friend would not condone.
I just lost another relationship, one that could have been great, maybe it can be someday, but I can't worry about that now. I'm utterly broke, 0.00 in my checking account. Deep in credit card debt, and still owe a few k to an old backer who I've been trying to pay back through all of this, and who's been really cool about it. Thanks for that bro, I'm sorry it's taking so long, I will get it done.
Despite all of this I feel as if I've come full circle, learned a lot about myself, and am on the upswing again physically, mentally, and most of all emotionally. I'm Ubering and have just started a vlog on YouTube, to help me work through it, and have another source of income. I don't know what the ceiling is there money wise, and I'm not worried about that right now. So far I've made a few $ and have a couple dozen subscribers, and a few fans who have been inspired by the attitude I'm cultivating. And that is what's really spurring me on. I'm not here to plug the channel or anything. If someone wants a link I'll be happy to send it to them though.
Right now I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona, at a hotel that my mother put me up in with her Marriot rewards points. Most of my worldly possessions are in my car, and I'm driving home with just enough gas money to get there. My 10 year high school reunion is in a week and a half and I have written a speech for my old classmates. Speech and Debate was one of the clubs I was active in, and my favorite.
I don't know what's next, I'm hoping to get back to Las Vegas. I truly believe that it is the place for me, for now. The tentative plan, and the one I think I will stick with for at least a month if I get back, is to live in my 1 person hiking tent out near Red Rock. Wake up and go bouldering each day, then shower at the gym and uber/lyft/YouTube/write/whatever else to make money and pay my debts off. I don't want a 9-5, I know that I can be creative and make a living on my own terms if I put the work in. Everything I do going forward is going to be geared toward helping people, or bettering the world, in one way or another. This was the first time in over a decade that there were no DUI fatalities in the state of Nevada on the 4th of July. All the Uber drivers from that weekend got a thank you email, and I proudly forwarded it to my parents. I want to do well by doing good and I believe that it's possible. I had it all backwards before.
I realize now that the most important things in life, to me at least, are community, communication, honesty, and taking care of people. I have to learn to take care of myself first. I know I'll need some help a long the way, I always have. Everybody does. But I will not accept money from people that I do not earn. I don't want backing or coaching for poker. I won't be playing again at least till I'm 30, and never again for a living. I don't want a lover or my mother to take care of me. I told her that this is the last hotel she's putting me in. I tried to decline the offer but she insisted, and I knew I needed to type this out.
I am here to reach out, to the community that I should have been a part of for the past decade, and have been lurking on the fringes of. I need to tell this story and I think that people need to hear it. I'll gladly accept a couch to crash on a long the way, and kind conversation. I made some new friends in Vegas my last night there, one of whom I should have called my first day in town. They are going to help me learn the youtubes better. Right now I'm operating with just my phone, a selfie stick, and my thoughts. But I have a lot of fun creative ideas I think I can bring to fruition if I put the work in. I would love to collaborate as well. I want as many people in my life as possible.
Don't make my mistakes, make sure that you always talk to someone, I haven't even been communicating with my closes friends and family well the last however many years. It's never too late and now is as good a time as any, and the best time as it is the only time. Last night I talked for over an hour on the phone with another best friend, and my oldest, we met in diapers.
Poker did not cause my problems, and though it did compound them, it was also a life raft in a way. The boat is not the shore, however, and I am glad to finally be setting my foot upon the solid ground once more. Now I must take the next step in my journey, and find somewhere to pitch my tent in Albuquerque. GL me my brethren, and gl to yourselves.
