Hey guys,

I’ve been on the fence about making one of these threads and/or blogging for awhile now. On one hand, I have some reservations about putting personal thoughts and information out there on the Internet, but on the other hand I feel like it could be fun as a hobby while helping me stay level-headed, accountable, and motivated

Anyway, for those of you that don’t know me, my name is Andrew Chen (achen on Stars/FTP) and you might know me from this top ten list… FML. All joking aside, I’m one of those luckboxes that was lucky enough to make a pretty silly amount of money mainly from playing NLHE tournaments. I’ll be honest, I have a hypocritical point of view with regards to this: On one hand, I’ll constantly tell people (especially non-poker playing friends) that I’ve just been really lucky/fortunate/ran above expectation, which is obviously true, but on the other hand I can’t help but be somewhat irrationally proud of myself for being one of a handful of tournament players that has made good money and isn’t scummy/broke/backed-in-400k-makeup/etc. Ok enough brags...

These days my volume is pretty pathetic: I play most Sundays when I’m at home/not travelling, and some Zoom PLO500 here and there, but most of my buy-ins come from live tournaments - mostly EPTs, currently doing Aussie Millions (maybe busting two bullets in the 25k in rapid fashion has something to do with my willingness to mope- err blog ).

Let’s see…

2015 Goals:
1. Get better at NLHE
- I’ll expand on my reasoning and thoughts regarding this later but I’ve actually been writing down a lot of hands from live tournaments and plan on reviewing them myself and with a good friend of mine whom crushes midstakes 6m NLHE cash
- Actually play some NLHE cash and review
- Watch videos maybe? RIO? Not sure about this but seems like it wouldn’t hurt
Since the first goal is kind of broad/lame/not concrete, I guess I’ll throw in arbitrary MTT goals:
2. Profit in online MTTs, min. 2000 games played, and
3. Profit in Live MTTs after expenses
- These may seem kind of paltry 2. is more of a volume goal and 3. is probably pretty reasonable considering I’m currently down ~60k USD on the year
(Bonus) 4. Get better at PLO (enough to be reasonably confident that I'm beating Zoom 6m PLO500)
- This is probably too ambitious without failing the other goals but I thought I'd mention this since I'll probably end up playing some PLO and while I do prioritize improving at NLHE, it's more for non profit-related reasons whereas improving at PLO would probably be more efficient at this point.


That’s about it really for now; given my overall laziness I’d be very happy if I could just consistently do the things listed above. Obviously I have some non-poker related goals as well but I’ll leave that for when I’m more comfortable and less embarrassed talking about non-poker aspects of my life. Also, I’ll probably slowly put together my version of “My Poker Story” since it would be fun and nostalgic. Other than that, I’ll periodically update with how things are going poker-wise and with regards to the goals above, and I’d be happy to answer most questions of course.

Thanks for reading

I've been stalking Andrew Chen for awhile and the first to reply. Gl on your endeavor. why don't you pick a game type that doesn't have ultra sick variance, like 6 card plo

niceee. subbed, good luck man.

subbing. tough hero call vids. I'm sure that's mostly variance. Looking forward to the story.

Hmmm!

When are we starting?

Hey Andrew best of luck with all of your goals!

I m that semi black dude who sat on your right in the evening of the eurekaVienna 2k highroller. We got to talking a little bit and you seemed like a really chill guy, so genuinely wish you (and your gf who u told me a little about) the bestest of the best

Subbed!, Great live crusher, I'm a big fan

Subbed! Not like he cares but *** it I'm in. Best of luck this year, looking forward to updates

Hey what do you think gives you your edge in these super high rollers if you think you need to get so much better in general or do you think you're way better at exploiting the fish/businessmen than the other regs who may be "technically" better

Subbed, good luck at the Aussie Millions!

Dongerrrrrr tyty, although these days I think the stalker has become the stalkee by now

Thanks, Attila!

Yeah I was mostly kidding around re: the Davidi hands, kind of a running joke that pops up from time to time I'll get to the story eventually, maybe I'll give it a crack on the long plane ride(s) home after Aussie Millions.

When I get back from Aussie hopefully , thoughts on Fallsview trip again (FWIW Pretty indifferent about the poker/tournaments, more of an excuse to hang out with you guys )?

Ah, I definitely remember talking to you but nothing specific unfortunately. I'm kind of weird in that deep down I really enjoy talking to people at the tables (as long as they're nice and genuine), but I'm pretty shy/introverted/socially awkward so it often doesn't show . Thanks very much for the kind words and well wishes!

Tyvm

I care, thanks!

Hrmm, this is kind of a difficult question for me to answer because I'm most comfortable being very modest about this kind of stuff given the absurdity of tournaments, let alone running as well as I have in them. I guess firstly I'll say that I'm a little uncomfortable with the notion that there are discrete "things" I can describe about myself that give me an edge, per se (Sorry if that comes off as nitpicky/wishy-washy, obv I understand your question, just trying to answer it well ). I think I just have a very fundamentally sound approach to poker and poker concepts. I think I’m quite theoretically strong (for someone as lazy as I am, at least ) in that most of my decisions and strategy are constructed around the concept that “I will make my decisions under the assumption that my opponent(s) are aware of what these decisions are”. Of course, this isn’t to say that I don’t do exploitable things - I just think I adhere more strongly to the fundamental philosophy of “I should only do this if I would still do it if my opponent(s) know I’m doing it” than most people, and it’s worked out well for me so far (I think ).

That said, I’m well aware that the NLHE beasts obviously do exploitable stuff but I feel like it’s more of a response to other players making theoretical errors themselves to begin with, which the beasts have identified through experience and well… just being beastly I guess .

Relevant story that I’m not sure how it’s relevant but thought it’d be worth sharing: There was a hand played at my table on day 1 of the EPT Prague 50k where ike 4b/folds HJ vs. BTN against Tobias and Tobi shows a 6 after making a small 5bet to/for half his stack. Like… I would never do something like that. But Tobi is obviously a beast and has insane results (even just came 2nd in the 25k), and I would take him vs. me in any tournament. That said, I don’t know what ike had but I like how he played the hand better than Tobi tbh. Sorry that I don’t know what the point of this story is… maybe I need to play a bit more like Tobi (Who knows, maybe he flats the 4b with A2s-A5s, A8s+ and 5b bluffs A6s-A7s, or something like that ;p, although IIRC I think ike’s 4b-sizing was pretty big such that flatting any of those hands would’ve been pretty uncomfortable).

Anyway, I never said I need to get so much better fwiw, just that I would like to. I think what I meant to convey in the OP was just honesty in that I've been pretty lazy and could no doubt really stand to improve given how lazy I am, rather than really saying anything about my level of skill in absolute terms. TBH, speaking to Dong (also my friend nate/bandin, but Dong more recently) and listening to him talk even ever-so-briefly about NLHE is what gave me this realization and desire to get better.

TL;DR:
- I think I’m fundamentally strong at NLHE
- I think I’m quite good at not doing dumb ****/punting
- I’m extremely comfortable playing live (as are all the other crushers in these things are obv, but still worth pointing out imo), and think I’m pretty good at making assumptions/”guesses” about my opponents’ thought process based on timing and just overall “putting myself in his/her shoes”-ness
- Even though tournaments are absurd, I can’t help but get caught up in how ****ing fun they are, especially the HRs/SHRs. I’m a tiny bit embarrassed to admit this, but for me the competition, the socializing (i.e., v.s. the stone-quiet EPT main event tables where everybody seems miserable and is silent), chasing the glory, etc. are just awesome such that I’d probably play them even if I knew I was a breakeven player in the field

I guess I didn’t really answer your question, sorry .

Actual TL;DR:
- I think I’m likely at least a breakeven player in most of these fields (maybe something close to a normal distribution between -6 to +9% ROI would describe how I would guess my ROI is), at least enough that the absurdity and fun of them is enough to make me want to play them.

Thanks!

Can we have gossip/names plz.

glgl

good luck. I feel like it's easy to get into rut of not putting max effort into improving in MTTs because there's so much variance. Good to focus on it even if you are a SHR baller

different scandi but i forgive you since its been so long

FML, thought I was being so clever with my memory and such

Ehh, it's more like a general rule of thumb (that I suppose I was exaggerating somewhat ) and I wouldn't be comfortable calling anyone out anyway unless 1) I was absolutely certain with my judgment and 2) I had reason to believe it was necessary (i.e., to prevent scamming, etc.).

Max Heinzelmann (holy **** I spelled his name right the first try) is a good example though. I like to think I'm pretty nitty in general and very, very low on the list of people in the poker world who would be scammed, but he got me good . I met him awhile ago at an EPT and he seemed like any other young, socially awkward MTT pro. At the time there really wasn't much reason really for me to separate him in my mind from guys like Mickey, Dominik, whom I also met around the same time. He was very friendly with me, albeit a little awkward, he came 2nd in back-to-back EPTs. Obviously I didn't think he was a millionaire or anything - I knew he was backed for the first one, then I think sold action to the 2nd one - but I thought it must have improved his financial situation significantly at the very least. Then he sort of quit poker not long after.

Long story short, he "came back" a little over a year ago just before EPT Prague and the big FTOPS ME Sunday in December and got me pretty good for ~15k (~5k in transfers, ~10k from me buying action of him in the EPT Prague 10k that he got 9th in ) because I just didn't think he was a threat and I had my guard down.

Not a great story by any means but it's the only one that came to mind that I would be comfortable sharing without feeling like a huge gossip

Someone like Zima probably has a better idea than me anyway .

TL;DR:
- People generally have a much lower percentage of themselves in big tournaments than you think
- People are generally worse with money than you think

Thanks

re: "SHR baller" I know you're just kidding but I guess this is a good place to expand on some of the concepts listed above . I've played four SHRs so far, the EPT London 50k in 2013, the EPT Prague 50k in December, the recent PCA 100k, and yesterday's Aussie Millions 100k. I had 24.5%, 25%, 18%, and 15% of myself in them respectively, after selling at no markup and swaps. I'm not very sure but I'd guess that I lie somewhere in the 60th-70th percentile of the field regarding amount of actual $$ at risk, with the median being something like $25k USD (totally pulling numbers out of my ass ;p). I'm not going to share anything concrete with regards to what I've heard/known about other players' pieces of themselves but I thought sharing my own would give a better picture.

Nit.







Jkjk more stories please its rly interesting to read all of your posts

Interesting becoming better at NLH would probably be a decent option for me too :P

in for the ride.

so does anyone (realistically) make seven figures a year from tournaments not inc sponsorships?

when u say that u didnt think max h obviously wasnt a millionaire after posting 1.6mm in back to back cashes while having supported himself with poker prior to that (pretty shocking to me) + what ive heard of tournament players generally having of themselves, seems like lots of people who would kill for $100 hourly

In for awesome blog, glglgl

goodluck!

any plans playing NLHE cashgames too?

Should be an interesting thread, subbed!

i doubt anyone playing only mtt's has an ev of 1m+ a year