Interview with pavels4444

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Charles Hawk: When you started playing poker and how you discover/was introduced to it? Tell me about the main turning point between playing recreationally and becoming pro who earns money regularly?

pavels4444: I started playing towards the end of high school with my friends. It was around that time when I discovered online poker. I deposited $10 and played for fun in my first year of university while managing to win a few hundred $ in various games. Later I discovered Heads-Up SNGs and really liked the game. I decided to study the game more and earn money in summer playing poker instead of taking some random summer job. My parents thought I was crazy, fortunately it all worked out in the end. I bought a book “The Mathematics of Poker” and subscription to husng.com (especially enjoyed mersenneary’s videos) and began playing 7s Turbos on Stars. I had okay results, moved up conservatively to 30s by the end of 2011 despite running a lot below EV. That completely changed in 2012. I switched to the hyper-turbo format, started at 15s, and managed to earn $5k and move up to 60s within the first month. Yes, I ran like god 

Charles Hawk: How you educated yourself in poker? Maybe because of the studies you focused close to all your attention to just playing, and haven't done any major self-coaching routines except hh analysis?

pavels4444: I have always had few good players around that I could strategy with. This usually consisted of going over HH histories or recorded videos via Skype and Teamviewer. As for poker software, usually PT4 was used for an analysis as well as CoffeeCalcs later on. Compare to other players, I probably haven’t been studying the game as much, I never even took a coaching although I have coached a few players. Being a full-time university student otherwise, I just wanted to play poker instead of studying it haha. These days it is a lot more competitive and people need to work harder to reach certain level than in 2012

Charles Hawk: You have been in 100s division since the beginning (Nov. 2013) and quit it just before New Years 15/16. What were the main reasons?

pavels4444: The main reason was a lack of time due to studying double degree master program in Innsbruck, Austria this year. It is my last year as a student and I want to enjoy all aspects of it (e.g. skiing is absolutely awesome in this area). I have thought about quitting poker already in 2014 because I have always known that it is something that I don’t want to do in the future. I enjoyed playing poker a lot when I started playing competitively but later it changed to being just a regular day grind at 60s-100s that was only about making money. This actually gets quite boring after certain time. A job can’t be a monotonous routine which this sort of turned into. If I wanted to move up further in stakes, I would have to dedicate a lot more time to it and that wasn’t possible being a full-time student (even few years back).

Charles Hawk: Was your decision to quit poker (or reduce it to minimum) based on purely studying double degree? How about such factors as Amaya rb changes and decreased action in husngs?

pavels4444: There are few more reasons. Pokerstars being bought by Amaya is one of them. Ever since then, I felt like the environment for playing poker professionally has been getting consistently worse. Furthermore, HU SNGs have developed into the game that is not as much fun for me anymore. I just don’t like the GTO approach which is absolutely necessary to learn in today’s game. I used to love husngs because you were finding the best strategies to exploit other’s weaknesses and the strategies have been evolving all the time. Nowadays, it’s more about finding the correct static strategy for all situations and being as unexploitable as possible. This consequently makes creating bots and semi-bots easier. However, props to the players who are actually spending enormous amount of time getting better at the game theory optimum.

Charles Hawk: When did you enjoy playing poker the most/the least? Which was your best year?

pavels4444: I really loved moving up in stakes at the beginning. This was very exciting and the feeling of accomplishment was great. Playing poker became much less enjoyable for me in 2014 which was ironically my best year with the biggest volume. It started with my biggest downswing though when I almost dropped 100 BIs within a week or two.

2014 – Yearly HU Hyper-Turbo Graph

Charles Hawk: How have you combined poker with being a full-time uni student?

pavels4444: It has been relatively tough at times but still manageable. HU Hypers are such short games that I could fit short sessions anywhere during the day. The main downside was that I never had a stable playing schedule so it was sometimes hard to know what kind of volume I can achieve this or that month.

Charles Hawk: What is your plan for the future? Do you think playing poker competitively for years will help your future career? If yes, in which ways? How about disadvantages?

pavels4444: I should finish both degrees by October this year; then I would like to start working in my field. Studying international business gives me quite a few opportunities. I’m thinking about working abroad for some time before returning to Prague.

Poker will surely have some positive as well as negative impact on my future career. Let’s start with the positives. There are a lot of skills a professional poker player develops throughout his/her career. Just like an entrepreneur, you need to be good at time management and put in the required work, all yourself. You need to have an analytical mind to make quick calculations to reach the best possible outcome. This goes for in-game play as well as for post-game software analysis. Successful players are generally very competitive, are good at evaluating the risk-to-reward ratio and need to be persistent and try to improve all the time to keep up with the competition. Many characteristics of being a successful poker player overlap with being a successful trader. (Ex. Traders look for patterns of the market, poker players try to analyze their opponents and come up with the best strategy to defeat them etc.)

The main disadvantage is the lack of working experience in my field. I have to be careful to which companies I will send a CV that will include poker. I don’t think poker influenced my social interaction since I have been going to uni all this time and still had a good social life on a side. However, for example playing all weekend by myself in my room definitely felt a bit isolating which also made me not wanting to do this in distant future.

Charles Hawk: In which area you are planning to work? Do you have any idea about your possible salary?

pavels4444: I would like to work in any company on a position that involves international trade or risk management in some way. If I start working back home in Prague, the starting salary is going to be relatively low. This is one of the reasons why I’d like to work abroad for a while. I believe that quitting poker and starting working in my field once being done with university should be a good decision from a long-term perspective.

Charles Hawk: Will you need to reduce your spending after quitting poker? How have you been spending money so far?

pavels4444: I have been very conservative with my money. I have always lived with other students, so I was adjusted to their way of living. Some of my fellow poker players that knew me liked to make fun of it at times. Therefore, I don’t think I will have to reduce my spending too much as I have saved enough for some time to go. Travelling has been the only thing I have spent a lot of money on. To travel the world has always been my dream and I was fortunate enough to do so thanks to poker. I have done some great trips in the past few years. If you would like to see the best of my travels this past year, check out this short video -

Charles Hawk: Write your opinion about Stars changes and your predictions what could come in upcoming years as well as for predictions the online poker future overall?

pavels4444: I would like to sound optimistic but it’s really hard to do so. Stars (Amaya) has made it clear that they are going to try to cut the earnings of professionals as much as they can. If you followed the developments ever since Stars was acquired by Amaya, it is hard to predict anything good to happen to online poker in the near future. I know people have been saying that we are behind the golden age of online poker already in 2012, however now this statement is more true than ever. It is still possible to earn decent living in poker, however there are a lot less people who make it nowadays and profits have definitely lowered on average.

Charles Hawk: Any news/changes in groups/divisions? Describe the situation and the recent politics? Also tell me about the recent concerns and moods in in divisions?

pavels4444: I have been very active in 2014; however that has changed in 2015. I have rarely read Skype messages the last few months as I just didn’t have time to do so. The politics has been pretty stable in the 100s division and nobody really complained anymore. However, people were surely concerned with Stars changes as well as with questionable semi-bot programs supposedly used by certain players. Vast majority of the players in the group plays full time and wants to keep playing at least for a few years into the future, so their concerns are understandable.

Charles Hawk: What is your opinion about $ in Spins? Don't you think you should wait up a year or few and grind them out to accumulate capital, as it should be very soft? Maybe you are planning do give it a go at least part time?

pavels4444: I have always been affected by the variance in the game. The variance of Spins is honestly too big for me to handle and is something that I wouldn’t want to go through long-term. I have given Spins a try and played a bit over 1000 games but I didn’t find it as appealing as some other players did. I know a lot of guys had a decent success playing this format and there is surely money to be made. However, the recent rakeback changes significantly lowered the attractiveness of this format for professional players. If I ever return to playing poker part time, it is going to be most likely Heads-Up poker again in some form.