Rumnchess Poker Player Profile
Welcome to the heads up player profile for Rumnchess, detailing his poker playing career, feats and other information.
Quick Stats
Started Playing HUSNGs: 2007
Poker Handle: Rumnchess (Full Tilt)
Birth Year: 1987
Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
Went Broke on the Way Up: Numerous times
Secrets to Success: Surrounding himself with core friends
Rumnchess Strengths: Work ethic, confidence, versatility
Rumnchess Weaknesses: Calls too many 3-bets, too splashy, tilt control
Background and Beginning
Alex "rumnchess" Livingston has been playing poker for seven years, and playing professionally for four. Livingston began as most did, watching poker on ESPN and donning around at intensely emotional $5 buy-in tournaments with friends. Eventually, he progressed to the internet, where for one year he was a steady donator, readily giving away his paycheck to the hands of bumbling idiots with just a slightly better idea of how to play the game.
It was when rumnchess first stepped foot into a live casino that he realized he could make some money playing the game. A three-day, $1,000 heater at the 2/4 limit tables made the young man begin to take the game more seriously, and after prolonged success playing live, he decided to drop out of school for a year to give the game a try.
Going Pro
The first year of his professional career was, by all accounts a success. Rumnchess eventually learned to tackle the virtual felt as well, and it was HUSNGs that were the first form of online poker he was able to beat. Slowly moving from the $22s to the $110s, rumnchess put up solid numbers in HUSNGs and was extremely diligent about putting in volume and recording his results. A slightly neurotic Livingston began recording every game on Microsoft Excel - including such mundane details as the amount of minutes a game lasted. This attention to detail instilled a professional attitude that led to success.
Unfotunately, off the tables, rum's passion for getting drunk and playing blackjack was becoming an expensive habit. A fixation with non-poker gambling would continue to plague rum.
In August 2008, he had his best month to date; having discovered HU cash online just 1 month prior, rumnchess banked an impressive $40,000 that month, mostly from 1/2 NL HU.
Challenges
Rumnchess attempted a $30,000 in 21 days challenge in March of 2011. HUSNG.com covered the heads up challenge, which was ultimately unsuccessful.
The Professional Life
Subsequent years would see rumnchess playing anything from live cash (usually 2/5 and 5/10) to HUSNGs to HU cash to online MTTs. Rum never fully overcame his degenerate ways, though he has toned down his table games habits in recent years.
Rum would be the first to admit that his high stakes HUSNG results are fairly mediocre - he's pretty well break-even over a decent sample high stakes* - though he claims when he plays his A game he can be a force to be reckoned with. These days, however, rumnchess feels his biggest edge relative to the field is in online MTTs and he focuses a lot of his energy towards that. Nonethless, because rum first became a winning online player through HUSNGs, he still enjoys playing them, especially when it involves multi-tabling regs, and the psychological challenge that provides.