Page 40 of Niccolo

It was the sharks who actually taught me to be a poker player.

At first, I lostallmy money to them.

After the fourth time returning home completely broke, I wondered if it was worth it to go on…

But I refused to give up.

Finally I had my first winning weekend: 800 euros in profits.

The next weekend, it was 1200.

The next, 2800.

Eventually it got to the point where I would show up on a Friday, play through the weekend, and walk away on Monday morning with as much as 5000 euros after expenses.

Of course, there were still times I wiped out completely.

On average, though, I was making three times as much money in real life as I did online –

And I was getting much better practice.

After three months of casino trips, I was ready for my first tournament.

The poker tournament scene wascompletelydifferent.

For one, the professionals in tournaments made the casino sharks I’d encountered look like chumps.

Yes, there were plenty of amateurs who wanted to try their hand at the big time –

But they generally busted out in the first couple rounds of the tournament.

By the end, you were left playing the best of the best.

I went through the same process I’d gone through in the casinos:

I lost everything the first seven times I played.

But on the eighth, I came in 12thplace…

Which earned me 15,000 euros.

I was overjoyed.

After that, I doubled down and began going to every tournament in Europe I could find.

I should mention one other thing about poker tournaments:

There was a lot of hooking up going on.

Not that I was interested, because the options weren’t much better than at chess tournaments. Just different.

You had your poker math nerds, who were the most similar to chess nerds…

Celebrity types, flashy guys who were closer to the Danish grandmaster who had framed me…

And a bunch of gym bros who cared more about their biceps than memorizing poker tables. They tended to be the biggest bluffers and the ones who saw winning as a direct correlation to their masculinity.

I wasn’t attracted to any of them.

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