We recently connected with Anthony Caldiero and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Anthony, thanks for joining us today. Everyone has crazy stuff happen to them, but often small business owners and creatives, artists and others who are doing something off the beaten path are often hit with things (positive or negative) that are so out there, so unpredictable and unexpected. Can you share a crazy story from your journey?
I just lost $4000, basically all of the money to my name. I was 21 years old, and still deciding If I could make it, or if it was worth it to play poker full time. I had less than $7000 to my name at the time. My absolute dream was to be able to make a living making content about my life, my journey, and the poker games I played. As any “business” goes, it was by no means easy. I had to go through some of the toughest days of my life to get to where I currently am. Many days, I wanted to quit, and this is the story of the first day I wanted to quit, but fate had something else in store.
Let me take you through the story of how I decided to quit everything I had started, and less than 10 minutes later, had the most motivation I ever had to continue.
I decided to “shot take”. In poker, that means playing a slightly bigger game than you are used to, and can afford. I had about $7000 to my name and was playing $2/5. This means the small blind is $2 and big blind is $5, but all you need to know is the average buy in was $500. This means I could only buy in and lose 14 times before I had $0. I was quite confident in my skills though, and had been winning a good amount of money. I had won about $10,000 in the last 2 months, and was riding the high road. So, as any cocky 21 year old would do, I had decided to move up and try to make even more money. I sat down with the big boys playing $10-10 where the average buy in is $2000, sometimes even more.
As you can see where this is going, I lost every dollar I brought. $4000. It was so brutal of a day that I had actually decided at that moment in time that this was not for me. I was going to quit making content, quit pursuing this as a “job” and head to the corporate world.
As I was walking out of the casino with my head in the gutter, I hear someone yell, “Ace! Is that you?” Confused, I turn around and I say “yeah?” To my surprise, he says “DUDE! I watch your content every week, I love you man!” Literally on the verge of calling it quits, my spirits are quickly uplifted as I respond, “wow, really?” He asks to take a photo with me, and we go our separate ways.
At the time, I had maybe 1000 subscribers on YouTube, so I’m sure you can imagine how shocked I was that one of those 1000 people had run in to me in person. Granted, I was in a spot where my specific niche was, but still, I had barely any followers at the time! In awe, I walk to my car, sit down, take a deep breath, and decide, I can do this. That small interaction made me realize how much I love doing this, and how cool it would be to connect with tens and hundreds of new people that watch me. No corporate job could ever have someone coming up to me and saying they admire me, watch me, and root for me/support me! I decided from that moment on I would grind and grind until I got to the top.
I thank god every single day that he brought that follower into my life. He knew what it would take to keep me on my path, and kept me on it day in and day out. I am forever grateful.
Here I am years later, never having to have got a “real job”, thousands of followers, millions of views, played poker on TV, met celebrities, and achieved some of my wildest dreams.
Anthony, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Hey! My name is Anthony, and I play poker for a living! Well, not really as much anymore as I have leveraged my online following into doing many different things for many companies, but that is how I got here!
I grew up loving poker, infatuated by the chess feel to it, but being able to make money! I watched other professionals log their journey on their YouTube channels, and I thought, you know what, I can do that! So, at 21 years old, I started going to the casino, playing poker, recording the hands I played, and making vlogs explaining why I did what I did, a bit about my life, and journey into the space, and people loved it! It made them feel close to me, made them feel as though they played the hands with me, and I quickly garnered a real love for the game, and a huge following! Quickly, I was invited to play on TV with other big names, celebrities, and so much more! I traveled the world making poker content in the form of my own content, poker news for various companies, which is where I met Blake Wynn, owner of the “celebrity Poker Tour”. Blake wanted me to help their social media growth, so I joined him in helping grow the tour. That is what I currently do, and have put poker a bit on the back burner, but I still love the game and am so grateful to where it brought me today! I also currently help run “Casino Stream US” which is a network of influencers that stream themselves online playing slots, blakcjack, and much more! I help negotiate deals, set up their streams, edit clips, and help them run successful shows.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Being real. That was my take from day one. I saw so many influencers in the space be so bland and dry. I had a unique take on it and a real unique chance being 21 at the time. I wanted to be real and show the real side of me. These days, with so many influencers, you can always find someone living the perfect, ideal life, but that is not reality for 99% of people. So, I wanted to be the voice of the people. Show my struggles, voice my opinions, talk about real topics like mental health. Awareness for men’s mental health month, talk about my love for god, how I read the Bible every night. Talk about the real stuff to help people. Remind everyone that life is about more than money. Taking a deep breath every now and then, taking time to stop and smell the roses. Just be myself, and that’s what garnered my audience. And it was relieving because I didn’t have to play a role, I didn’t have to fake being anyone else. I was me, my true self day in and day out, and that’s what people really liked about me.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Resilience is all I’m about. Resilience is what gave birth to my channel. Resilience is why I am where I am today. I can’t even count on one hand how many nights I broke down in tears, on my hands and knees praying to god, begging for help. All I wanted was to succeed, it’s all I was focused on. I was trying so hard to succeed, it is just SO hard. At the time of me starting my journey, I was 21 years old, with barely any money trying to make it in a field where I literally needed money to make money, with my parents breathing down my neck to get a real job, putting their hand deep in any wound they could, leaning on my failures to try to get me to quit and get a real job. Balancing a social life with a girlfriend and trying to enjoy being 21 years old. So many nights of self doubt, laying awake in bed at night wondering if I was wasting my time or doing the right thing. Multiple times I said that’s it, I am done, I quit. I never did. I kept at it every single day. Sharpening my blade every single day. Showing up every single day. Another post on YouTube, another Instagram reel, another post on Facebook. Another poker session, another vlog, day after day just showing up. I never stopped, I never fully gave up on my self, and I achieved more than I ever could have imagined.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gambleforgood.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acepoker444/
- Twitter: https://x.com/acepoker444
- Youtube: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=ace+poker+youtube&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
- Other: I also do casino streaming content on lucky ace channel here below a new venture I started
https://www.facebook.com/people/Lucky-Ace-Gambling/61571174924492/
https://www.facebook.com/people/Lucky-Ace-Gambling/61571174924492/
