LandingPad Buenos Aires

What’s some of the crazier things you’ve seen while playing?

If you play enough you’ll see it all; quads losing to straight flushes, straight flushes losing to straight flushes. Nothing will really surprise you anymore.

How much difference do you see between online poker and live poker play?

I actually have not played much live poker. It seems slow and boring: having to count the chips, shuffling cards, too much table talk, you got these people that watch the world series of poker and wear hats and sun glasses that take themselves way too seriously. They are good for the game though, they typically don’t know what they are doing.

Any advantages/disadvantages that you have online as opposed to live play?

Playing online you have multi-tabling as a possibility; I play 6 tables at once which isn’t that crazy – others play way more. You also have “rake back” (the site rewards regular players with a small percentage from each pot they help generate while playing), faster games, poker tracker (track your results and track information about betting habits from your opponents), which can really help while analyzing your game. There’s tons of software that you can use to help your game today.

How can you tell if someone is bluffing? You’ve now lost all the physical ‘tells’ they talk about so much in the poker movies.

Live tells, people read too much into live tells. Any good player will not reveal much at all! It comes down to probabilities, odds really. But how do you tell if someone’s bluffing…it depends. You’re trying to quickly assess what type of player it is. If someone always bluffs, they are easy to play against, if someone hardly ever bluffs, they are easy to play against, but somewhere in the middle is where the skilled player is. You have to pay attention to timing, bet sizing, those might mean something. Both are easy to manipulate though. Multi-tabling can slow you or your opponent down though. If it’s heads up (one on one)…that’s a different game.

Heads up is much more of a possibility now. Casinos want larger pots for the rake so they typically don’t have them, but now online sites can offer this heads up play and still make money as having a heads up table does not cost them anything extra. It’s beginning to gain momentum.

Do you find your work/playing stressful?

Yes, it can be. Completely depends upon how you are doing. The point of poker is you can make all the right decisions and still lose.

How many hours do you put in a week and do you plan on continuing to play for a while?

About 8 hours a day on 6 tables and well, it depends on some other things I have going on. I’m ready to start doing something else. I’d like to use the money I’ve won to do a business.

Any advice for the beginners?

Do a bit of reading, no reason to go crazy, but one book will save you some time and money. Start in the low stakes unless you are loaded. Play for fun, that’s what it is meant to be about.

What books would you recommend to someone that is starting up?

Your best bet would be to check some forums. Try twoplustwo.com, they will have plenty of suggestions for the most current books and such along with great general advice.

How do people react when you tell them you play poker for a living?

A lot of the time I don’t tell them because I’m so bored of hearing the same questions. A lot of people here in Argentina don’t believe me. Most of the guys consider it a dream job and give me a lot of respect, but girls don’t seem to understand it here. Either you can make yourself very popular or unpopular, depending upon who you are talking to.

What do your family and friends back home say?

My parents don’t approve, my friends think it’s a bit weird. I’ve been doing it for a while so I don’t really talk about it anymore.

Last question: what do you wear to work?

Ha, something comfortable.

Rex Racer
LPBA Staff