Interview with Richard "chadders0" Chadwick

 

Before starting this interview chadders0 wrote me:

Just a heads up: I stopped my 1k shots. Gave up after running too bad.

 

 

Charles Hawk: When exactly did you start shooting $1ks?

Mid September (2013), the 17th or 18th

Charles Hawk: What was the reasoning behind it?

From March of last year I started to get staked by Dan Colman (mrGR33N13). In my previous stake and bleeding in a little to the new one i was having a very bad downswing,  about 100k under ev. Then in April I had the car crash that took me out of action for about 6 weeks and kinda brought the rest of my life to a halt. Fortunately though when I finally recovered I went on a massive upswing, and Dan was a very encouraging person always advising me to go for aggressive game selection when I was running so well.

So it eventually got to a point where he was telling me I would have the best chance of the 500 regs of becoming a 1k reg, and my confidence was at an all time high too, to go from the sick downswing and not recognizing myself in the mirror to making loads of cash and starting to look normal etc

It just felt right with all these factors combined.

I had set aside 2 years worth of expenses in the event of a worst case scenario and organized a stake that let me attempt my mission in return for a large profit guarantee regardless of success or failure

Charles Hawk: Why Dan Colman didn’t stake you on attempts to becoming 1k reg?

It was a conflict of interest really, not only would it not be fair on the other 1k regs that share with him to bring someone new into the fold (especially when only he profits off it). But he also realized that if I made it it would only be a matter of time before I left the stake and just cut into the money he made by taking his fish.

With similar grinding schedules it could have easily cost him 150k a year long term after we had done with our deal.

Charles Hawk: So ironically it was his mistake to put this idea 'of becoming 1k reg in your mind? Because you ended stake with him just after you decided to take his advice?

I have no doubt that I would have tried it anyway, at the time I had been a 500 reg for well over a year and the thought of platueing there always felt a little unsatisfying, but at the very least Dan sped it up a little

Regardless of what I and Dan have went through at this point I will say Dan had mad passion for grinding and he is very enthusiastic. It can be contagious.

Charles Hawk: So how much did you make to Dan and to yourself while being at $500s/just before starting shooting 1ks?

I think 200k at a 70/30 split. So 60k for him.

Charles Hawk: Describe your journey from discovering poker to the 2013 of March when you made a deal with Dan Colman?

I discovered poker at about 16, playing online on the Virgin poker client if I recall correctly. I was terrible though and never played for any serious money. At 18 I went to a local casino quite often to play low buy-in MTTs, I lived in Plymouth in England and the poker scene was limited to maybe 50 people most of who were older than 25 so I didn't really have peers I could discuss strategy with and forums were a foreign concept to me at the time.

At university I got a little better but played anything from MTTs to cap cash to 6max sngs, just running up a few hundred and busting continuously. At about 21 I gravitated to HUSNGs just because of the constant decision making involved. I always found it the most interesting form of poker but it took a while for me to realize it was more appropriate to focus on one variant.

After my 3rd year of university I won like $8,000 in a WCOOP series and saw it as a time to quit my job at Subway and spent the last year earning surplus cash through poker. I didn’t make any money that year grinding $20 turbo sngs. Well maybe a rakeback pro at best with a 1% ROI back when people were printing 15% at 500 turbos. I left university a year later and received a 2:2, a disappointment at the time because I could apply for any of the graduate training programs I had intended to.

So I took it as a hint to try and be a pro poker player. I told myself I would give it one year and if I failed I would get a job. I continued grinding $20 turbos and got lucky with a UKIPT final table during the summer for £4k, a measly payout because I had sold 70% of action on my £500 buyin. So I was far from a baller.

I spent about 8 months after grinding with very poor results. Around april '11 I think I made friends with jacktheshipepr who introduced me into hypers. I had kind of hit a tether with not making money and jacktheshipepr recommended the mers program that had opened on husng.com.

So I made switched all my action to hypers and signed up for the program.

I read everything he posted, developed a complete guide on how I would play the first hand without any reads. I figured if I could do that much I would make money and any better I got would just make me more. I got a stake from simpledude to play 50$ hypers on FTP. This was when I finally started making money. A few $5k months and I was on top of the world, and still very passionate about getting better.

Then there was Black Friday.

I moved to stars and became the king of the 60ss. Around this time I was put into contact with Ryan of husng after I had told a friend about my idea of the super turbo for beginners pack. I figured I was making 5k a month at the time but giving a bit away from being staked. If I could make a video course in a few weeks and it could make me a few thousands it would be worth it.

Fast forward 3 months later, turns out I’m lazier than I realized, I had finished the pack and it was a smash on husng.com. I made far more than I had expected I would and went on my own money at the 60s. I stayed there longer than expected because a few tries at the 100s just led me to being 100 buyins over ev. And I didn’t help myself by always trying to pick on other regs. I used to just see that people were bad and play them assuming I was better, but not realising that I didn’t know how to exploit them properly.

So there was a lot of reg warring even from the earlier days.

At the beginning of 2012 I had finally graduated to 100 and 200s, and decided that I was going to go for SNE for the year so managed to chuck in a few 300s too. As far as moving up from 100-300 it didn’t feel like there were really many barriers. It was more just a case of whether i could deal with the swings. The lobbies weren't protected like they are now.

I got on pace with SNE and at some point, the dates are hazy I sold some of my action so I could work 500s into my grind. I just bumhunted them to begin with and had ok results. I put in a lot of consistent hours so I think that helped with not having to put up with as much resistance becoming established at 500s. It was still a while before all the 1k regs left me alone, I put in big sessions with killuifuplay but played well enough for him to quit me eventually.

Then after I was used to the swings at 500s a bit more and nobody hassling me I started a stake with qihu00 so that I could work 1ks into my grind too.

Then from there it was slowly getting used to those swings and some reg warring at 500s to move people down until I started my stake with Dan Colman (mrGR33N13)

Dan had recently come on the scene and had taken hold of the 1ks from the bad 500 regs pretty fast just because he didn’t give a shit about the swings and we all still did. I came in one night drunk and started to grind and Dan vid called me on Skype. I normally wouldn’t answer in that spot but thought what the hell and ended up chatting to him and Earl Hindman for 3-4 hours whilst grinding. He thought I was good I guess and knew I was staked. He said he would coach me and give me a slightly better cut than I was already getting so I moved instantly.

And that’s the whole story

Charles Hawk: So Dan Colman coached you? Was it serious coaching or just some overview? What did you learn from him?

We didn’t actually ever get round to the coaching. I downswing a bit to begin with but had the accident before we had any sessions. Then when I came back I upswinged so hard that both of us were just too complacent to ever get round to it.

The one thing I do remember though was him saying he flatted all Kx and just went nuts check raising K high flops. And about how on some boards he didn’t have a check raise and thought a donk range was better.

I remember when we played in the early stages we had one hand where he donked a flop and I had recalled he said he did it with gutshots in that spot. So called him down with k high when the gutshot bricked and he called me a moron or something like that. It took so much for me to bite my tongue in that spot and not tell him how I knew

Charles Hawk: However Dan Colman was the one who crushed your aim. You Reg War'ed him week after week at $1ks but the results were terrible. Especially recent results. Tell me all your thoughts about Reg Waring him.

Well I think it's obvious to everyone that Dan is a better player than me, but he also had a lot working in his favor. During our games he ran over 60k above ev, he had a good time zone edge such that he always played me at the start of his day and the end of mine. And during my attempts I had a serious injury at the gym with a slipped disc and nerve damage that I’m still recovering from now that led me to be less focused than I should have been during some of our sessions.

But having said all that Dan is easily one of the best, and thinks more outside the box than a lot of people to the point where some of his tendencies have seeped down the ranks to a lot of other players.

Probably most notably the end game limping strategies he developed

Charles Hawk: Tell me more about that :) Is he still limping with blinds 30/60?

He is definitely on the less aggressive side in spots, likes to have a hand play out and let his hand reading abilities have a chance to shine. It’s not like he’s limping super super shallow but I think before he was around nobody was limping as much as him at high stakes around 8-16bb. And if they were they probably weren’t doing it as well as him.

Dan definitely had me at the start of our games. But around the 800 game point i was starting to get a better handle for his game and did well up until around game 2000 getting us both to paying rake. But around this point he upped to 6 tables and came in with some pretty major adjustements that I wasn’t expecting. There were a few really bad sessions that kinda killed my chances and I couldn’t recover my roll enough with fish in between sessions because I was running too bad, around 170k under by the end of it.

Charles Hawk: As I know, Dan is sharing with you $500s lobbies now, when you announced giving up shooting $1ks. Is it just for now, letting you to recover (some ethics involved) or was his goal just to move you back to the $500s?

I think Dan realizes there isn’t any value in trying to move me down further. I also think it will be a while before I go back so most of them will be better to just cross that bridge when they come to it. I say a while, I can be quite impatient.

Charles Hawk: Your philosophy is clear: trying to be the best player in highest limits. Do you think it will make you the most money in long run? Or maybe you are ready to give up some $$$ for being able to satisfy your competitiveness?

Take Helio Neves or Sifosis or some other best regs in their limits. Lots of 60-300 regs has enough in their pockets to be able shot higher limits. But most of them are just happy with where they are now. Do you think it is a mistake?

I wanted to move up because I want to earn as much money as possible. It’s always been only about the money for me. That’s not to say I don’t have a passion for poker, but it's clear to me hypers is my thing and I am not interested in learning other formats. So I may as well make as much money as I can in this format. I have almost no interest in non heads up formats of poker and hypers also have the extra perk of being the most time flexible poker format for a pro.

As for other regs, I just think everyone needs to be realistic with the sustainability of their grind. Who knows how long hypers will be able to yield an acceptable salary for people. They have ages left of course, but you have to think far ahead, we are all pretty young, and if you are a $1k reg now and do it right you're set for life

For sure some 100-500 regs will be looking back in 20 years wondering where it went wrong. I can fail this now and still expect to make over $400k a year for the next few years i believe, but $800k would have been much sweeter. But I think with the diminishing returns of poker the best thing for a lot of people to do is earn as much as possible until they can leverage their money to make more with investments.

Charles Hawk: Do you have enough money left to play $500s?

I’m staked by m@d since I left Dan.

Charles Hawk: Maybe it was better to aim to grind $500s on your own than shooting $1000s giving up 40-50% to the staker?

My cut is significantly in my favor, and being staked has played a massive part in getting me to become the player I am today. I can pursue thinner edges a lot more aggressively which often has the added value of making me a slightly better player.

Obviously at this point with m@d I have a deal in place that means I will be grinding with him for a while, but I think the loss of value this yields was worth it for the chance at taking a shot at being a 1k reg.

Charles Hawk: FPP and yearly stellar rewards belongs to you with this deal?

m@d would have to be an idiot to give me that when warring the best in the world day in day out.

Charles Hawk: 2p2 member’s question: "I want to know how he handles big swings at 1ks and in general mentally. Has he ever worked with a mental coach?”

I went into this knowing there was a good chance I would go into a significant amount of makeup in the process. Though I ran nut low over the period so it has been very tough at times, but at the end of the day if you want it enough you just keep grinding and try to be as focused as possible at all times

At my worst point in January after my surgery I had to take a few weeks off the shot taking because I found it didn’t take a lot to tilt me in the condition I was in, but other than that I have managed to handle it as well as I could really be expected to I think.

Of course it hurts to fail, but you just need to get over it and not let it consume you, if you do you are only jeopardizing your future profitability.

Charles Hawk: So as I understand you don’t do anything specific? Like yoga, relaxation therapy, coaching with Jared Tandler, jerking off at least twice a day (as it’s suggested to DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wallstreet:), etc.?

The best thing to get rid of the stress is go to the gym for sure. Other than that I have no real methods to deal with tilt. It goes without saying if you are happy in aspects outside of poker tilt will be far less of an issue in your daily grind.

Charles Hawk: Although your results against mrGR33N13 are tragic, you played huge sample with one of the best HUSNg players - Fisfarfar. And you managed to beat the rake with him, which is very good result I believe.

Yeh I was very happy with my results there, we will play more because he still hasn’t agreed to share and it would be foolish for me not to continue given the results so far, but our overlapping grind times are very little recently.

With mrGR33N13 at around game 2000 the chances of me getting a share were looking very promising given the ev adjusted results. Given that he would be arguably the most valuable share of all the 1k regs I decided to put everything I had into getting it.

Charles Hawk: Maybe you should have try to "take off" some other 1ks regs first?

Nah I would do it again, you have to keep the pressure on, even with me playing him 3 hours a day because of our overlap times he still had plenty of time to grind fish on the side.

At game 2100 we were both just losing to rake almost exactly. That was when i stepped it up. I mean if we get to that point and he is the one 50k under EV I like my chances

Charles Hawk: As I see you have positive balance against Jossel2008 as well after more than 1000 games (+$1,0009).

I ran good vs Jossel, he was a very tough opponent too. When I started Jossel still hadn’t achieved all his shares so it made sense to add to that pressure and play him at the same time, but he achieved the shares pretty soon, and with being the person with the most recent reg warring experience against the best it made him a formidable opponent.

Charles Hawk: You are a coach as well. When you are coaching losing player, to play husng hypers, what are the main advices which you are giving him?

The first thing I always ask students is if they want to focus on reg play or fish play and the answer I normally get is along the lines of "reg play, my fish game is fine", while that may be the case, you should never settle for fine when it can be better.

Given that most of my sessions normally focus on reg on reg play I would say my main advice includes bet sizing, a lot of people think some larger sizing are lol bad and these rumors occasionally need to be dispelled. Having well balanced ranges vs regs is vital when you intend to play over large samples. Also advice on approaches to poker and reg war metagame including how some lifestyle choices can affect your grind, the importance of a sustainable grind schedule and the value of not making enemies by running your mouth.

Charles Hawk: Do you feel any pressure about being undervalued in the eyes of other High Stakes Hyper Regs?

This is not the slightest concern for me unless being undervalued translates to somebody wanting to play me. It should be obvious to everyone that I have lost a lot of money in the process of trying out be a 1k reg, so maybe some regs may see it as a good opportunity to get rid of me once and for all. While this would likely never happen it would be ignorant for me to not acknowledge it’s not in my best interests to have to put up with them trying. As far as my direct peers and friends are concerned though I have heard nothing but praise for what I have attempted and commiserations for the outcome.

Charles Hawk: What are your goals for 2014?

Well my poker  goal for 2014  is on hold for now, for how long will be dictated by how the next 6 months of grind goes, thought I will at least aim for 1.5m vpps for the year. My interests outside of poker have taken a back burner the last 6 months so my only goal with regards to them is really pay them more attention. Previously it has been hard to manage my time effectively because I was reg warring almost every time I logged onto stars which at times led to my schedule being dictated by who is online at any one time, be it rushing home for empty $1ks or calling a grind short because Green came online and I wasn't focused. Now I can make set hours and keep to them always, which gives me more down time. On top of this getting back to the gym and getting in shape after my spine surgery is a big focus for me currently.

Charles Hawk: Is it harder to play your A game now than it was before shooting $1ks? I am sure that you are playing your A game quite often, but are those intervals shortened up, if we talk about length of each session?

If anything it will be easier now, I have spent the last 6 months winning and losing 20k chunks on a daily basis and burning myself out at points trying to figure out some of the best in the game. To go from this to fish and any other regs just seems like a walk in the park, I just have to make sure not to get complacent or overconfident.

Charles Hawk: How often do you autopilot? Is it harder to control autopilot when you are in such downswing?

Maybe during sessions losing 10 in a row can have an effect on my focus levels, but overall downswings make me focus more because when you are running so bad the last thing you want to do is compound the problem by playing bad too.

Charles Hawk: What’s your approach each grinding day or week? Do you try to spend each day not thinking about previous results or are you itchy to win it all back and this thought is affecting your grinding routine from time to time?

When you spend months running bad aggregate tilt will be the biggest issue, it's too easy after 100k under ev to get tilted in the first few games of a session. I never got the itch to win it all back but you can occasionaly just sit there with your finger in your ass thinking how unfair life is.  As for my daily approach I try to make poker a 9 to 5 job so that I don't have to compromise any of my personal relationships, it's also just much nicer to be awake during the day instead of a night owl.

Charles Hawk: What are the most enjoyable moments of 2013-2014 to you?

I used my end of 2012 SNE payout to take my family on holiday in the beginning of 2013, that was easily the most satisfying thing I have ever done with any money I have earn from poker because holidays used to be an annual thing for us until I was about 16 at which point my parents couldn't really afford it anymore.

Leading up to my car crash I had been working up the courage to ask a long term friend on a date, I thought I had finally psyched myself up enough to do it when I next saw her, unfortunately I never got the chance because I woke up the next day in intensive care needing extensive surgery for facial reconstruction.  Five months, four fake teeth and two surgeries later she made a move on me and we have been dating since. It's true what they say though, girlfriends are so -ev.

Charles Hawk: Could you wish something to readers of this interview? :)

errrr, good luck grinding? What more can you wish a poker player.  To anyone who bought my pack and is wondering when an update is coming, it will be relatively soon now that I finally have less on my plate. I'll also be starting coaching again if anyone is interested, can be reached at chadders0@gmail.com