Andrew Seidman Planning to Leave Poker for Business
Andrew Seidman was a freshman at Dartmouth College in 2006 when he realized that he had a talent for poker. Recalling the past, he said: “I applied for a summer job at a pizza parlor in my home town. In the week while I waited to hear a response, I made $7,000 playing online poker. So I pretty much gave up the idea of normal employment at that time.”
Seidman, who plays poker online as BalugaWhale, says that it was the beginning of what led to “a surreal lifestyle—travelling all over the world, skipping class, seriously considering dropping out of college, clubs and bottles and Cirque du Soleil.” This further led to large losses, recoveries, and Black Friday. Today, Seidman still plays poker although he is a bit tired of it and feels oppressed with gambling regulations.
Seidman said that he started as a recreational poker player in high school and was the worst player at that time. In 2005, he visited TwoPlusTwo Publishing, an online poker training venue, and began to learn the game. Later, Seidman migrated from playing $25 poker players to playing $5,000 cash games. In the summer of 2007, he won his first large pot of $10,000; and in the spring of 2008, he had begun winning over $40,000 every month.
Seidman’s poker career, however, was not devoid of bad times. In 2009, he lost so much money that he seriously contemplated quitting poker. He thought that opponents had come to know more about his gaming style because he had just published a book about his poker strategies along with several instructional videos on playing poker online. Besides, he had lost focus and the quality of online poker players around him was improving. Finally, he decided to take a break instead of quitting poker.
Speaking about Black Friday, Seidman said that he could reclaim only around $20,000 of the total $65,000 he had lost. Although Black Friday was depressing, Seidman found his hopes for US online poker rising because of the attempts for online gambling legalization made at state as well as federal levels. Regarding his poker career post Black Friday, he said: “I only play online poker when I leave the USA. I occasionally play live poker, but in general, federal action has caused me to move away from poker and search for other non-poker opportunities.”
When asked why he no longer plays poker full time, he said that he has two reasons for it. First, he loves living in America and doesn’t want to experience Las Vegas full-time. Second, he has been playing poker for such a long time that he is losing interest in it and thinking about developing a new business.
Seidman has authored and sold several poker books, coached individual poker players, and published instructional videos online. Speaking about his secrets of poker success, he said that players should first learn to create a psychological profile of their opponents. The next steps are to understand basic poker probabilities and predict opponents’ moves, among others.
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