John Slavin, 30, has been playing poker since he was a teenager in Rancho Bernardo. Back then, he could hardly find a game.
"Nowadays, people call me everyday and say, 'Hey, do you wanna get into a home game?' Every day."
But many players, like Slavin, get bored with low-action home games and move on to higher stakes at professional venues. Two years ago, Slavin got serious about poker.
He plays Hold'em at local Indian casinos at least three times a week, he said. The buy-ins are higher: $50, $100, $200. Winning those rounds gets a free ticket to higher-stakes tournaments.
Slavin is confident but not cocky, and he has thousands in winnings to back it up, he said. In February, he played in a $30,000 tournament and took home a respectable $3,500. Last month, he outlasted about 400 people to take 15th place and win almost $1,200 at Viejas Casino's Southern California Poker Tour, which airs on television next month.
At that tournament, Slavin wore a T-shirt that the cameramen loved: "Why work when you can play poker?"
"When I need to make rent, and I need to make money to pay bills, I feel pretty comfortable going to a tournament and making a thousand bucks," he said.
When he leaves for the casino, he said, friends tease him about his "second job."
"This is our little inside joke. I say, 'Oh, I'm off to my office.' Poker's been paying my bills for the last six months."
Slavin is a hotel valet attendant, but wants to make poker a full-time career. He plans to move to Las Vegas in a few months and become a dealer there.
