Interview with Zak Wray

 

 

Charles Hawk: How and when you discover poker?

Zak Wray: One of my friends trades/gambles on betfair.com on the horse racing markets. He has been doing that since about 2003, so in 2009, I was working in a min-wage type job and basically i quit my job to try and follow/learn what he was doing to better myself financially. In hindsight, it was actually quite a bad decison. But i got lucky. The betfair.com thing didn't work out for me, but i used all of my spare time by learning how to play poker. The same friend introduced me to heads up poker and I started playing $2 SNG's on PKR.com - the rest is history.

Charles Hawk: What exactly did you work before starting with poker?

Zak Wray: Working in a call centre, where you sit at a desk answering/taking phone calls all day - basically selling a product to customers. It was good, probably my most enjoyable job because the people who i worked with were good fun but the pay was a joke so i had to find something more rewarding.

So my advice to anyone else who is currently in full-time employment, but is fed up with there job and looking to take poker on full time, make sure it's the right decision before you make an impulsive move, you might look at it like: i have nothing to lose, but if it doesn't work out for you, you've still wasted at least a couple of years.

Charles Hawk: Do you think these days it is worthwhile to leave your job and pursuit poker?

Zak Wray: It all depends on the individual. If they are willing to put the dedication in to make a success of it and go about things the right way, then yeah it could be, it probably won't be as easy it might have been 5 years ago, but that doesn't mean it's not possible or worthwhile, the rewards are still there if you want it badly enough.

Charles Hawk: Did you become winning player straight away?

Zak Wray: I think I learned really fast. In May 2009 i didn't even know all of the rules of the game and by August 2009 i was making $3000-$5000 a month. I never really had a tough start results wise, but the hardest part for me was how to cope with the variance. I mean, in those early days, i might've made $5000 in a month, but i might've also smashed 1-2 laptops along the way. In 2009-2010 - i knew how to beat the games yeah, but because i was a mental-game fish, it was also very stressful and there were a lot of highs and lows emotionally.

Zak Wray:  At the beginning I never really understood variance, so my expectations of poker were unrealistic. I probably thought it was possible to win nearly everyday. Then the days when you don't win, you're setting yourself up emotionally for kick in the face. When you have unrealistic expectations the stress can add up much quicker. I used to let losing days affect my mood and happiness. You become defined by your p+l. The trick is to educate yourself with everything you do, so you can understand it better and have realistic expectations and goals.

Charles Hawk: So which limits are you playing now?

Zak Wray: $200-$300 mainly.

Charles Hawk: Could you tell me your last year’s profit results?

Zak Wray:

2010: +$103,204.68

2011: +$103,813.30

2012: +$112,742.16

2013: +$183,059.22

Charles Hawk: Nice! Is it pre-rakeback?

Zak Wray: Nah after.

Charles Hawk: Still awesome!:)

Zak Wray:  I’m about $70k under EV as well. And i've made about $45k for my stakers because im such a nice friend.

Charles Hawk: Do you talk about Serkules (Serkan Kurnaz)?

Zak Wray: he's one of the guys yeah.

Charles Hawk: Are you staked now?

Zak Wray: Nah

Charles Hawk: Do you remember your yearly VPP counts since 2010?

Zak Wray: Nah I didn't keep a record of that, I used to play most of my games on Full Tilt before it closed. I made around 500k last year.

Charles Hawk: Is it hard to reach Super Nova Elite playing in $200-$300 limits?

Zak Wray: Yeah I guess it is, I don't play super long hours to get there. I think there are a few guys who achieved it, but I don't focus on it, I play shorter sessions and maximise my EV from playing more focused instead.

Charles Hawk: What do you buy for fpps?:)

Zak Wray: Always cash.

Charles Hawk: How much cash you got for 500k VPPs?

Zak Wray: I dont know tbh, i just added it over time without keep a seperate tab of it. 100k fpp is $1600. So $32,000?

Charles Hawk: Do you live in London?

Zak Wray: Nah, I live in North East of England. Low cost of living = win

Charles Hawk: That was my another question actually. Leon “flippetyflop: Louis told me that he spends 20ks per year just on bills living in London.

Zak Wray:  I do spend a lot still though. But hey, you can’t take it with you.

Charles Hawk: How about saving money?

Zak Wray: Yeah i try to save as much as I can. With the uncertainty around poker, I think it’s important to save as much as you can whilst you can.

Charles Hawk: Do you have a car?

Zak Wray: Yeah ^^ Audi RS4. 6 years old, £21k.

Charles Hawk: Nice! Ok let’s talk more about poker.

Charles Hawk: Did you start as a turbo player? Tell me about your transition.

Zak Wray: Yeah I started in 2009, the hyper format everyone plays now wasn't around then so it was turbo's usually 75bb effective stack. At the time hyper turbos came out around May 2010, I was travelling at the time and wasn't playing that much poker. I actually used Sharkscope to keep track of a couple of regs who had already transitioned over to hypers.

Zak Wray: I noticed they were making x2/3 what they were usually making at turbos.

Zak Wray: I said to my friend at the time, as soon as I get back home, I’m going to start playing these games instead of turbos, this is where you can make the most profit, these guys are killing it.

Zak Wray: It took me a few weeks to get used to them, but I think I learned how to play them well quite quickly and had an immediate upswing, the games in 2010 were really soft though, fish open sitting at 500s etc.

Charles Hawk: Did you play 500s back then?

Zak Wray: When I was playing turbos I was playing $22s, $33s and $55s, I didn't even play many $110s.  Then, when hypers came out, I was playing mainly $100s but quite a lot of $200s and $350s as well.

Charles Hawk: I remember back then some turbo regs in their yearly resolutions on 2p2 were writing something like "Do not become a hyper turbo reg".

Zak Wray: yeah pretty silly

Charles Hawk: Comparing those days with now: is it much harder to find fish in 200s and 300s after cartels?

Zak Wray: It's hard for fish to open sit on Pokerstars now because of Sharkystrator, rather than cartels.

Charles Hawk: How you handle your results? What’s your approach?

Zak Wray: At the moment I never check results or balances. I have a hide bankroll script running on ftp and Pokerstars so I never get to see my balance, and on Pokertracker 4 I don't use the profit line (you can erase that line on there too).

Zak Wray: So when I’m playing now, I just focus on my play, and just ignore any variance.

Zak Wray: I did it for the whole of February and I felt like it worked well, so doing the same for March, I’ll check results at the end of the month as a reward for being disciplined!

Zak Wray: It's good because it stops me from getting carried away when im running good, and stops me from getting low when im running bad, i do check my EV though, so I have an idea of where i am at, but the days are generally more consistant and humble :)

Zak Wray: Maybe Jared Tendler would say it's not a great idea though

Zak Wray: I mean, I'm not resolving the underlying issues behind my mental game problems by hiding information, but yeah this is maybe a short-term option.

Zak Wray: Ideally, there should be no reason to hide it

Charles Hawk: Not sure if it could make your results worse:}

Zak Wray:  Ya, so far, so good. The best thing about this approach for me has been that it allows me to play longer hours.

Charles Hawk:  Do you remember your biggest downswing?

Zak Wray: I think both times when I tried to move to a higher level. I don't think that's coincidental either. I lost about 100 buy ins before when playing $200s-$300s for the first time. I've also lost about 50 buy ins at the $500s when i first moved up there as well. The new level can have an impact on the mental game which might make you play sub-optimal in certain spots. Eg. you might bluff less overall.

Zak Wray: I was staked at $500s, but i ran about 125 buy ins under EV over 2-3 months which wasn't fun.

Charles Hawk: Tell me something about your grinding routine? How many games do you play on average?

Zak Wray: I get up around 12pm, mess around for an hour getting up to date with news etc and breakfast then play most of the afternoon for 4-5 hours. I play 5/7aside football x3 times a week, so quite often I’ll go there about 6pm, come back get something to eat then play on the evening for another 4-5 hours, then bed. I usually get about 100 games in on average.

Zak Wray: I think it's good to split the day into two and do something non-poker related because it can be a long day just sitting there in a room without any other interaction or exercise.

Charles Hawk: How much tables do u play at once?

Zak Wray: 1-4

Charles Hawk: Do you imagine yourself doing something besides poker?

Zak Wray: No I can’t, I hope I have the opportunity to be able to play for as long as possible

Zak Wray: I love it, it's not a grind or like a job for me, it's enjoyable, I’m doing something I love.

Charles Hawk: How often do you play live?

Zak Wray: Almost never play live. All my experience is heads up so i just play online. The games at the casino are low stakes compared to online so it makes no sense to grind there, occasionally I might play for fun but nothing to serious/

Zak Wray: If I get asked to play on a weekend for fun, usually ill say no because if ive been playing online all week, the last thing I want to do in my spare time is play more

Charles Hawk: How about major tournaments? Many online grinders visit them as a holiday option…

Zak Wray: Nah never been interested, if I played them or knew more about how to play strong in them then I might invest some time into that but at the moment its all HU.

Charles Hawk: What’s your goals/wishes for 2014?

Zak Wray: My long term goals are to make more profit this year than in 2013. I strive to have a 4% EV ROI and volume goal of min. 2000 games a month. Short term, I try to put in the hours each week to achieve these goals. At the moment I try to play 50 hours a week. I also have a couple of learning goals like reviewing a set amount of games per day etc.

Zak Wray: Outside of poker i don't really set goals, everything is chilled. I guess if there were any it'd be just to keep in good shape for football. Last year i did quite a bit of running. It would be good to beat my PB at the 5k distance this year (nothing flash around the 21mins mark).