Statistics

• Born: 1977
• Birthplace: Hartford, Connecticut
• Marital Status: Married (to a beautiful, dark haired Swede)

And you may ask yourself: Well...How did I get here?
The real reason for starting this thing was to see if I had the discipline to write every day.  I've read a lot of books that have changed my life, and I've always wanted to write something that would change someone else's life.  So I started this thing out as a sort of practice... a place to develop my unique voice and style.  I figured if I got a few people reading me, then that would motivate me to keep writing.  

Why Poker?
I don't think writing about poker is going to lead people to any epiphanies, but it's something I'm passionate about and I spend a lot of time thinking about.  Maybe some day I'll get tired of the game, and move on to writing about something "deeper," but for now I really enjoy reading, writing, and playing poker.  Joseph Campbell said that if you "follow your bliss," you'll end up in a good place.  For now, poker is bliss for me.

Life before Poker
I played football since I was 8 years old, and I always loved the game.  After 18 years, this last year has been the first year I haven't played, and I guess I'm officially retired.  I played at a Division III school in Connecticut after blowing out my knee in high school.  I blew out my other knee my sophomore year in college, but was dumb enough to come back for 2 more seasons, and more recently 2 more years of semi-pro ball out here in Southern California.  I always dreamed of playing pro, and I think I had the skills, but not the frame.  I think part of the reason I like poker so much is that it's a replacement for football.  It's different in almost every way, but there are enough similarities between the poker table and the football field that I feel at home in a poker game.

When I was 5, my Dad brought home a Commodore 64, and I played games on that thing for years.  When I finally got to college (Wesleyan University, Connecticut) and took a computer science class, I was hooked.  I went on to Grad School at the University of California, Irvine, after they offered me a nice little stipend to live on while I studied.  After 3 years, I was 2 years away from getting my PHD, but my advisor jumped ship and left town, so I had to decide whether to take my Master's degree and run, or hook up with a new advisor for some serious PHD research.  I took the degree, and got a job writing code for a major hospital in Los Angeles.

Although my dad taught me how to play when I was young, I never played a real poker game until the summer of 2003.  I dove in headfirst, reading as many books as I could, and playing thousands of hands in the best Poker simulation out there-- Turbo Texas Hold 'Em.  Reading, playing, and especially writing about poker has made me think about a lot of things (in addition to poker), and hopefully I'm still learning.

These are a few of my favorite things

• Everything Walker Percy wrote, especially The Last Gentleman
• Dostoevsky
• Almost all of the Coen Brothers movies, especially "The Big Lebowski"
• Joyce's Dubliners
• Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf
• Playing guitar with the boys from Folk Ax
• Uncle Tupelo, The Bottlerockets, and Wilco
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Anthony Holden's Big Deal (the best poker book)
• Peter Gent's North Dallas Forty

To everybody out there reading-- thank you, and I can never get enough feedback.  Feel free to email me at h_wasserman.nospam@yahoo.com (remove the .nospam) or find me on instant messenger (AIM: henrywass MSN: h_wasserman).  

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