A typical tradition among restaurant owners and some other businesses is to frame the first dollar bill they make upon setting up shop. Even the great Scrooge McDuck, of fictional cartoon fame, fondly recalled “me number one dime!” on many occasions. No matter how successful an enterprise one ends up growing, there’s just something uniquely special about the first time you’ve made money. So, too, for a poker player, however much money you end up making over your career, there’s just nothing quite like that first time you rake in a pot or cash in a tournament.
I’ve been playing poker since I was eight years old. I’ve raked in many, MANY a pot over the years, but tournament success has always eluded me. That’s not to say “I tend to fare better in cash games than I do in tournaments,” or that “I’m missing that big signature win.” Rather, I mean it quite literally: I have never experienced ANY tournament success whatsoever. Not a single cash!
How to Explain a 20+ Year-Long Poker Tournament Dry Spell
We all know the oft-cited stat that “even the best players only cash approximately 20% of the time in tournaments.” Well, I’m certainly under no illusions that I’m “one of the best”. But even if I’m just an average or below-average player, a big fat “$0” in lifetime cashes is tough to explain. It’s that much more difficult to “justify” considering how involved and active I have been in the poker world since starting Cardplayer Lifestyle over 15 years ago and making this my full-time work since 2017.
Believe it or not, though, the main reason why I have never cashed in a poker tournament for over 20 years actually has relatively less to do with luck, or dare I even also say skill, than it has to do with something else entirely: volume, or more precisely “lack thereof”.
After endless agonizing, I made an important decision and took action today.
I don’t have the luxury of showing up to play poker every day but, to the extent I’m able, I’m committing to make 2025 be “the year of volume”.
I’m hungry, and it’s about time we “get lucky”! 🚀📈💰🔥 https://t.co/XW5tQhcUhw pic.twitter.com/QgPrD9SApp
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) February 3, 2025
While there’s a part of me that has always wanted to play lots and lots of poker tournaments, “real life” has always gotten in the way. I’ve lived in Israel since I was 16 years old, and we unfortunately have no casinos or poker rooms in the country. Thus, while I have regularly played in home games for decades, the only chances I’d even have to play poker tournaments would necessitate a flight abroad.
Pause to think about that for a moment. Realize how fortunate you are, dear reader, to not have to fly to a different country(!) if you want to get your poker fix. How lucky you are to be able to hop into your car (or take public transportation) and just head over over to the nearest poker room. Even if it’s a 4-hour journey! What I would give to even have a single poker room that I could drive to from my house… but I digress.
If I’m on a family trip abroad, slipping away to a poker room, even just for an hour or two, is not typically something that’s, ahem, in the cards. And even on the occasion during a trip that I could justify a short cash game session, sacrificing family time to hop in a potentially hours-long tournament is just not something I’d ever consider doing.
That leaves my work trips abroad. By definition, what comes first during a work trip is… work! The typical work I do abroad consists of covering poker events or hosting the Mixed Game Festival. I can’t play while I’m working. It’s a huge -EV move to risk hopping into a tournament with a likelihood of potentially being needed for something work-related.
Oh, and most of you surely know by now that I’ve always preferred mixed games, almost to the complete exclusion of Texas Hold’em. So even if and when I do have the time and ability, I really only want to play in mixed game tournaments.
So that’s the context, my friends. That’s the all-encompassing set of reasons and circumstances — a very tight and limited set of parameters — that have determined I’d be a lifelong cash game player. Getting to play in a poker tournament is an ultra-rare treat that has only happened when the stars perfectly align; when I’m on a solo trip abroad with enough time in my schedule that I can clear for tournament play. This has happened altogether approximately 25 times since I turned 21 years old (and about 80% of those were mixed game tournaments).
Every Poker Tournament I Play is an Adventure
The occasions are so rare that I just want to hold on to every single one and never let them go. Each tournament I play is such a treasure to experience that I have felt compelled to record and document it, sometimes through pictures on social media, and sometimes right here on Cardplayer Lifestyle. Occasions such as the first time I played in a WSOP bracelet event. Or the WPT “Sea-HORSE”. Or the one mixed game tournament I could afford (time- and money-wise) to play at the PokerStars Players Championship in the Bahamas.
Every time I visit Las Vegas I (re)start thinking about finally getting to “take some shots” in mixed game tournaments.
I do, genuinely, think I could see some success.
Unfortunately, finding/dedicating the time is always the issue; between family + work it’s just too tough. pic.twitter.com/pzBePGp80E
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) December 21, 2022
Alas, none of those big marquee events saw me take down any bracelets, trophies or trinkets. Nor did any of the dailies or one-off special events I’ve played in see the name “Robbie Strazynski” listed alongside those of others who cashed. That’s just the nature of variance in poker tournaments. I’ve gotten close a few times, but my best finish was three spots outside the money.
Someone more typical on the poker tournament-playing spectrum would likely play in the same 25 tournaments across the span of anywhere from 1-4 months. And it’s not atypical to hear of a lengthy “dry spell” of that nature (e.g., “I’m 0-for-25 during the WSOP”). But my 25 tournaments have taken place across 20+ years. A two-decade-long “dry spell” is a very bitter, sour, and frustrating thing to have to live with day in and day out for all those long, long days, weeks, and months in between opportunities to try again.
You start to think you’re cursed. You start to think that it’s just never meant to be. You start to think you are, in fact, destined to never ever get a HendonMob profile, no matter how many times you try, no matter how hard you play. And you live with that feeling eating at you, living rent-free in your head for years and years because nothing ever changes. No flag. No result. As though you weren’t even there and never showed up to play in the first place.
Then arrived the glorious evening on Tuesday, February 25, 2025.
The $150 T.O.R.S.E. tournament (2-7 Triple Draw, Omaha 8 or Better, Razz, 7-Card Stud, and 7-Card Stud 8 or Better) that I played in yesterday at the Orleans Casino here in Las Vegas also had its fair share of adventure. For starters, it was the first time I ever late-regged a tournament. To a serious recreational player like me, starting on time means you get to have the full tournament experience; that’s what I want. But I had been in the middle of a mixed cash game yesterday that only broke up after the tournament had begun. With no other mixed game action available to me that day, I decided to grab a quick bite to eat and then enter the TORSE-ament (about 2 hours late).
I was one of 55 entries into the $4k GTD event. The 6-handed affair featured a 7-handed final table, where everyone making it to that stage of the tournament would win some money.
Some Memorable Tournament Hands
The Good: By 5th street in a Stud 8 hand, I had made a wheel: Ad2d | 5h4h3d. Two opponents remained in the hand for 6th street, where I caught the 4d. One opponent, showing a likely flush, remained for 7th street and called my bet, only to see that I had binked the 5d for a steel wheel; a straight flush, to scoop a huge pot.
The Bad: Coasting with an average-sized stack with 10 players remaining, holding A245 in Omaha 8 and the board comes 99A rainbow. I stupidly decide to stick around “just in case” and the turn brings a 3. Now I HAVE to call with the wrap wheel + nut low draw. Blank on the river and heads up, I stupidly call “just in case” again (the pot was “so big” 🤦♂️)… and lost about half my stack to his AKxx. At that stage of the tournament, the collection of moves was about the stupidest thing I could’ve roped myself into doing. The deck didn’t bail me out, and I was forced to play desperate, short-stack poker to try and sneak into the money.
The Ugly: Starting out with 99 | 9 in 7-Card Stud, rather than full-throttle the gas throughout the hand, out of concern that my hand would seem “face up” if I’d do so, I let my opponent lead the action throughout and didn’t begin raising until 5th street. (Remember how I said earlier that I’m certainly not among the best players in the world? 🤣) By then, it was too late, as he had a low draw and ended up hitting a flush on 7th street to scoop me.
With eight players left, short-handed play at two tables with rising blinds and three games featuring compulsory antes ate hungrily at my chip stack. You can only imagine the internal panic coursing through me as I feared “no, please Gd NO! Not again. I will NOT bubble this tournament! I do not want to carry this monkey on my back for even a single moment longer!”
We were hand for hand for about 20 minutes, but it cost us 40-minutes in tournament clock time, when finally, mercifully, the bubble burst… and I didn’t have to pack up my bag and take yet another walk of shame.
Visions of Poker Glory, Through a Teary-Eyed Lens
I’m still that guy who dreams of instantly becoming rich through a big poker win. It doesn’t even make any logical sense to do that in my particular situation, but I dream on nonetheless. I had dreamed that when the “big first tournament cash” finally came, it would be in a WSOP bracelet event, along with a six-figure payout; life-changing money to me. My family and friends would be there — having flown in from Israel and other places around the US to watch me achieve that glorious championship moment.
But my life changed on a far more humble stage. The top prize I was shooting for was just over $2,400 and I whiffed on that. There was no cheering in the stands “Ro-bbie, Ro-bbie, Ro-bbie!” — there wasn’t even a rail. Nobody at the final table even realized what me making that final table had meant to me. Nobody realized how close I was to breaking down in tears when the bubble burst. The player on my right, however, did have a good belly laugh at the deep breath I expelled when the eighth place finisher existed the arena.
I managed to ladder up one more spot to eventually bust in sixth place for $380. My remaining 1BB was all in in 2-7 Triple Draw, and my 97 couldn’t hold against a better hand. GG, Robbie.
I couldn’t help myself, so I politely asked the remaining five players if I could hit the record button:
And then, the tears started flowing.
I cried by myself at an empty table. I cried walking to the car as I video-called my wife, Miriam, to share the news. I cried again when my Dad called to congratulate me after seeing my Facebook post. I actually teared up AGAIN a few when some people very, very close to me congratulated me on the achievement. Hundreds upon hundreds of people have engaged with my posts on Facebook and X where I “let the world know” that it happened.
And you know? It IS an achievement. Because it’s not about the $380. It felt like I won a million dollars that night. Had it actually been more money, that would’ve been icing on the cake.
But it was actually just about breaking through. Shattering that damn brick wall that I could never overcome. Forever that memory has finally been banished to the rail.
On to the Next One, with a Sweet, Sweet Smile
Who can forget Phil Ivey’s reaction to Brad Booth’s placing of three massive bricks of hundreds dollar bills on the poker table during that fabled old episode of High Stakes Poker? “That cash just looks so sweet,” said Ivey, as he contemplated making a call with KK for $300,000.
Yeah, man. That (first) cash just looks SO sweet. 🙂
Tonight, I did a thing.
Finally, for the first time in my life, I cashed in a poker tournament. 💰
I estimate that I have played in about 25 tournaments since turning 21.
You cannot possibly fathom how incredible it feels to get this monkey off my back after 22+ years. pic.twitter.com/KQpuWKbUzX
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) February 26, 2025
I don’t have one of those frames to display “my first dollar”, but I do have a keyboard with which to enshrine special memories with words. And while this story took me almost 2,500 words to tell, it’s one that has obviously been decades in the making. I might’ve taken me 43 years, but Robbie Strazynski is finally in the money!
I’ll leave you all with this: There was another guy in the poker world who also only recorded his first tournament cash at age 43, and he did pretty well for himself when “the dealin’ was done”. Maybe my poker tournament future is also a bright one after all.
This gives me hope, Norman. I’m 43 years old, and still no official tournament cashes. ❤️ It’s about damn time to start racking them up 👍#RIPMiami
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) February 11, 2025
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