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I stand next to an ironing board fit for a Lilliputian. A dozen yellow roses darken around the edges as death comes in for the kill. A bottle of tea tree oil prepares to skin its knees in its fight against the Mozzie bites. A Post-It Note reminds me to get walnuts. Roasted and salted almonds wink at me. And I think about what I am going to do with the three dead batteries in an assortment of variable yoga poses in a small white cup. 

Sam Soverel?

Sam Soverel ponders the best route to the summit of the Poker Central High Roller of the Year Leaderboard. He’s been there before, but the altitude sickness wasn’t as severe.

This time it’s more arduous.

Soverel needs another route, and he’s out front, plotting every step of the way.

The Story After London.

The reigning Poker Central High Roller of the Year arrived in London to see the queen in pole position to retain his title. He crushed the British Poker Open (BPO), making money in five events, winning two, and earning close to £800,000 in gross profit. 

The net result of Soverel’s sumptuous performance is an extended lead in the High Roller of the Year rankings, but Cary Katz put on a robust performance of his own, ensuring Soverel’s angelic wings didn’t reach its full span. Katz made money in three BPO events and won the SHRB London.

The one area that Katz has the edge over Soverel (other than his short-stack ninja superpowers) is mobility. The Poker Central founder made the trip to Rozvadov for the partypoker MILLIONS Europe event and racked up points for making the final table of the €25,500 and €100,000 events. Soverel didn’t make his way to Leon land.

Katz sits in second place.

Ali Imsirovic is in third place after making the final table of a £26,000 event at the BPO, and finishing runner-up to Katz in the SHRB London. Chidwick moves into the fourth place after cashing in four BPO events, winning one. David Peters failed to catch up some much-needed yardage after only cashing once in the BPO, and once at the MILLIONS Europe event. 

Crystal Ball Time

There’s a long way to go, and you get the impression, Soverel’s chances of retaining his velvet slippers, depends on his attitude towards flying. If he turns into a pterodactyl, he will win this thing. If he goes all B.A.Baracus on us, he will lose it.

44-events are remaining, and the key to the schedule are the events that don’t take place in Las Vegas. Soverel won the award last year, because of his consistency in small field events wholly contained within his hometown. The only trip outside of Vegas that Soverel made money was the MILLIONS World in the Bahamas. 

So far this year, that’s changed with Soverel popping up in Los Angeles, Florida, and most notably, London. 

There are a lot of points up for grabs during the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) in Rozvadov. The Poker Masters follows, and then a trip to the Bahamas for MILLIONS World. It will be interesting to see who goes to Rozvadov, and the effect it will have on the rankings. If Soverel stays at home and Katz makes the trip, we could have a new leader going into the Poker Masters. 

2018 High Roller of the Year Leaderboard Final Standings

1. Sam Soverel – 1,765 pts ($2,615,907)
2. Isaac Haxton – 1,530 ($5,285,144)
3. David Peters – 1,430 ($4,914,208)
4. Jake Schindler – 1,325 ($3,251,546)
5. Cary Katz – 1,300 ($1,471,800)

2019 High Roller of the Year Leaderboard

1. Sam Soverel – 1,940 pts ($3,455,968)
2. Cary Katz – 1,790 ($4,451,212)
3. Ali Imsirovic – 1,445 ($2,611,242)
4. Stephen Chidwick 1,430 ($2,908,724)
5. David Peters – 965 ($2,102,219)

I clench my fist around the batteries and head to the supermarket.

In my mind, I see Soverel strolling on his treadmill, thinking, “Rozvadov? Really?”

The day is different depending on where you live. For some, it’s 90-degree heat, and the ankle-biting mosquitoes are hitting them like miniature machine guns. For others, they are hard at work, metalwork helmet shielding eyes from sparks. Then you have the unfortunate souls in the middle of a coup as a dogfight breaks out overhead. 

Then there are the grinders.

When the World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) hits PokerStars, every day is the same.

Wake up.

Play.

Sleep.

Wake up.

Play.

Sleep.

Like these three monsters. 

Adrian “Amadi_017” Mateos Wins His Second Title 

Adrian Mateos is one of those crazy conjurers with a natural affinity for the great game of ours. In his early 20s, Mateos sacrificed the warm bosom of his family to move to London from Spain to grind out a career as a professional poker. 

Methinks he made the right decision.

The Winamax pro donned his cape to take down the 326-entrant Event #50 (H) $2,100 No-Limit Hold’em PKO for $130,468.21 (inc. bounties). Mateos defeated former WCOOP Champ, “CalmRevolver” heads-up. Alex “bigfox86” Foxen and the reigning Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Main Event winner, Gianluca “Tankanza” Separanza, also made the final table.

The win is Mateos’s third COOP after winning a $2k No-Limit Hold’em title for $234,030.07 during the 2017 SCOOP. Last year, he won his first WCOOP title beating 2,822-entrants to win a $109 No-Limit Hold’em event for $40,888.24.

Mateos is also a three-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, and a European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final champion with more than. $17.7m in live tournament earnings, and is the All-Time Money Earner in Spain.

Michael “mczhang” Zhang Continues to Flourish.

The sun’s going to find it challenging to burn Michael Zhang’s skin. If he’s not in a casino taking everybody’s money, he’s doing the same from the comfort of his home.

Zhang is one of the oddities capable of playing brilliantly in tournaments and cash games both live and online, and he’s currently in the middle of the heater of his life. 

In 2018, Zhang earned $1.5m playing online tournaments, including winning a WCOOP and SCOOP title. He also won $1.1m playing live, with the lion share of that coming in his €51,000 High Roller win at partypoker MILLIONS Germany.

The promenade of Zhang’s pure poker run extended this week after he beat 175-entrants to take down Event #48 (H) $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller. Zhang beat the Romanian, Alexandru “steakaddict” Papazian, heads up to win the $253,810 first prize.

Boom.

Boom.

Thomas Boivin Wins One

Another player in fine fettle is Thomas Boivin. 

The Belgian operates out of the UK, and on Tuesday he won Event #48: (M) $1,050 No-Limit Hold’em Super Tuesday after defeating a 1,112-entrant field to collect a career-high bounty of $178,331.

Boivin has now won $1.7m playing online.

His previous best score was for $80k, finishing runner-up in the PokerStars Sunday Million back in March. On the live front, Boivin won the $25,000 at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Gardens Poker Festival in July and then finished third in the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in August.

Soon all three will witness the sun, the moon and the stars.

Until then, the grind continues.

A great man once said that the definition of grit is not charging up the same hill, again and again. Instead, it’s better to minimise friction and find the most effective way up that hill. If you want more grit, treat your energy as a precious commodity. That great man was Reid Hoffman, the man who helped create PayPal and LinkedIn, a man who was an avid gamer as a child. 

There’s another great man, and avid gamer, who is currently taking Reid’s advice. 

Shaun Deeb.

Deeb won his seventh World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) title after winning Event #9 (H) $1,050 No-Limit 5-Card Draw PKO. Deeb had to beat Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov, heads-up, to claim the title, after a heads-up match that lasted two-hours – a heads-up match Deeb wished to avoid.

Speaking to the PokerStars blog:

“We were like 140 big blinds deep, and it’s a very slow game that deep heads-up…. I knew these heads-up matches could probably take a couple of hours, and I’d just rather during this WCOOP grind play less hours when I can, because it’s just so exhausting,” says Deeb.

It’s a plan that’s working.

Deeb became the first double WCOOP champion of the series after winning Event #37: $530 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Max. Deeb clambered through 599-entrants without too much irritation to pick up the $52,371 first prize. The win is Deeb’s eighth, and he is now only one behind Strebkov’s record of nine, with half of the series still to play. 

Lex Veldhuis Nearly Gets There

Talking about grit, if you’ve ever visited a Triton Poker Super High Roller Series, then you know commentator, Lex Veldhuis, has it in spades. Veldhuis is the top man when it comes to live streaming. More than 20,000 people watched him reach the heads-up phase of Event #30: (H) $2,100 No-Limit Hold’em, after wading through 347-entrants like a hungry mole gets through worms. 

Stopping Veldhuis from winning his first WCOOP title was “GODofHU” from the UK, and apparently, it’s an apt name.

“This guy is a fucking God heads up,” said Veldhuis.

Ultimately, Veldhuis fell short but was ecstatic about the $91,694.92 prize, and the ability to provide such an incredible story for his viewers. 

Finished 2nd place in @PokerStars WCOOP $2100 for $91.500. Absolute madness. 20.000 viewers, the whole army watching.

Cant say how nice it is to get this monkey off my back & get a big score during a COOP. Tomorrow fighting again, playing the $10k bounty and everything else <3 pic.twitter.com/tYkVoKR1Qr

— Lex Veldhuis (@LexVeldhuis) September 14, 2019

Bartlomiej “bartek901” Machon Wins Event #31: (H) $1,050 No-Limit Hold’em

Bartlomiej “bartek901” Machon is known to compete in the odd high roller two. The Pole won his second WCOOP title after defeating 573-entrants to bank $101,148 in Event #31: (H) $1,050 No-Limit Hold’em (his third COOP title, overall). The former Triton Poker commentator, Celina Lin, finished ninth.

Machon finished runner-up to Igor Kurganov in the PokerStars Championships Barcelona €50,000 No-Limit Hold’em in 2017, collecting a one million dollar prize. He also cashed in the €111,111 No-Limit Hold’em One Drop High Roller at the 2017 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) finishing 18/132

Leaderboard News

From the high roller pack, Dzmitry “colisea” Urbanovich leads the Medium Leaderboard, but the best performing high roller of WCOOP thus far is Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira, who sits third in the Overall Leaderboard, and second in the High Leaderboard.

When Kim opens the fridge and sees the bottle of champagne, a thought appears. Brushstrokes painted this thought onto a non-declarative memory long ago.

‘See a bottle of champagne, drink it.’

‘The bubbles.’

‘The pomp.’

‘The increase in status.’

Kim closed the fridge, recognised her trigger, made her excuses and left her position as a temporary barmaid, and headed home.

She did not drink that night.

But she did drink.

It took a week for her Resistance to turn that initial thought into a tsunami of opinion.

She stood no chance.

People rarely do.

Kim is a member of a community that I run designed to help people to manage alcohol addiction. I am sharing her story, after reading a Bill Perkins tweet on the carnage that alcohol is currently creating across Europe.

Perkins initially tweeted an article in Bloomberg entitled: “Europe Needs to Cut Back on the Booze,” emanating from a 2016 report from the World Health Organisation (WHO), on the effects of alcohol across Europe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-05/who-report-shows-europe-needs-a-change-in-drinking-habits?srnd=opinion&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-view&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=business&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business

From that article:

“Europeans are the heaviest drinkers in the world, according to a new World Health Organization report. Alcohol killed 291,000 people in 30 European countries in 2016, more than ten times the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents in the European Union that year. The U.S. opioid epidemic only kills about a quarter as many people every year.”

An even more damning report came from WHO when posting their 2014 global findings that alcohol-related deaths accounted for 3.3m lost souls, and is a causal factor in more than 200 illnesses and diseases.

3.3m is a lot of dead people, and what’s interesting about that figure, is it’s more than homicide, war and terrorism combined. The Bloomberg report was right to compare the opioid death rates with alcohol because we need to start thinking about what’s going on here. A terrorist mounts the pavement in London; mows down six people, killing them outright, and it makes worldwide news – yet nothing on alcohol-related deaths.

Why is that, and why should we care?

Following in Your Parents Footsteps, Not.

It’s rare for a professional poker player to want their children to follow in their footsteps. When you consider that pro poker players have freedom, get to travel, don’t have a boss, can choose their hours – why wouldn’t you want you, child, to do what you do?

The most popular reason for not wanting their offspring to turn into the next Alex Foxen or Kristen Bicknell is: ‘the poker life is too hard’. If this is the case, you can bet your flop, turn and river that anxiety, stress and depression are not too far behind.

Learning About Vulnerability From Bryn Kenney’s Mum

During the final table of the Triton Million London, I was fortunate enough to spend the entirety of my time sitting next to Bryn Kenney’s mum, Carol. During our conversation, we talked about the role that vulnerability plays in poker, and she pulled out a tattered copy of Daring Greatly by Brené Brown, the vulnerability master.

In that book, Brown points out the trending view that narcissism has reached epidemic proportions.

From that book:
“The topic of narcissism has penetrated the social consciousness enough that most people correctly associate it with a pattern of behaviours that include grandiosity, a pervasive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.”

More from Brown.

“What almost no one understands is how every level of severity in this diagnosis {narcissism} is underpinned by shame.”

Shame?

Where does shame come from, and how does it relate to narcissism? Brown believes that we currently live in an environment fuelled by advertisements, discourse, and social media posts, creating a culture of scarcity.

In short, we are ‘never enough’.

Never good enough.
Never perfect enough.
Never thin enough.
Never successful enough.
Never smart enough.
Never rich enough.

And our scarcity culture makes being ‘ordinary’ an aberration. The shame-based fear of being ordinary is fanning our narcissistic tendencies and with it our over-inflated egos.

Who Wants to be a Purple Cow

When I take my daughter to London on the train, we both get excited when we see a field full of cows. Then after a while, the excitement drifts away like confetti the day after a wedding, when the sameness bores us.

Imagine if we saw a purple cow, standing amid a herd of Friesians.

Wouldn’t that make you stand up and take notice?

Marketing guru, Seth Godin, wrote a book called ‘The Purple Cow: Transform Your Business,” where he urges entrepreneurs and small business owners, to create their purple cows.

Bryn Kenney is a purple cow.

But here’s the thing.

Being the purple cow creates intense pressure because you exist in a community that wants you to ‘fit-in’. Then you have the Friesians who desperately want to be a purple cow but can’t get passed the cattle prods that keep them on the path of least resistance.

Here are those three cattle prods:

1. Shame

Jump onto Twitter, follow the poker community, and watch shaming, finger-pointing and blaming in full flow.

2. Comparison

The Global Poker Index, The Hendon Mob All-Time Money List, comparisons between peers in the media and on social media, GTO v non-GTO styles and the kickback if you don’t follow one or the other.

3. Disengagement

Are we afraid to take risks? Is it easier to remain quiet than to be vocal? Are we comfortable in our environment, and doing what we do? Do we spend enough time outside of poker?

Building Shame Resilience

Brené Brown defines shame as follows.

“Shame is the intensely painful feeling of experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore, unworthy of love and belonging.”

Her research found 12 shame categories.

1. Appearance and body image
2. Money and work
3. Parenting
4. Motherhood/fatherhood
5. Family
6. Mental and physical health
7. Addiction
8. Sex
9. Ageing
10. Religion
11. Trauma
12. Being stereotyped or labelled

To fight shame, Brown believes we have to cultivate armour known as ‘shame-resilience.’

The first port of call, if you want to develop shame resilience, is to learn to be vulnerable – to share your stories, pain and suffering. To do that, you need to feel like you belong to a tribe that practices in mutual trust and empathy.

And that’s where drinking alcohol comes in.

Numbing

There are many reasons why people drink alcohol. The core reason is that our culture dictates that it’s both ‘normal’ and ‘pleasurable’ to drink it. Despite the labelling as one of the top five most addictive drugs in the world. It’s the only drug where you are actively encouraged by your peers to take it, and ostracised if you don’t.

I work with people who struggle with alcohol addiction. Kim, the young lady who opened this story, works with me daily. When she saw the bottle of champagne in the fridge that day, she didn’t want to drink it because it tasted sweet. Kim wanted to drink it because she didn’t feel like she belonged in her environment.

It wasn’t an isolated problem for Kim.

Kim doesn’t feel like she belongs in the more familiar environment of her home and work, and doesn’t feel like she belongs in her skin. And Kim is not alone. I see this in people all of the time. Something happened when a person was younger that confirmed that they didn’t ‘belong’ or ‘fit-in,’ a sense of shame developed, and over time drinking alcohol became an effective way of numbing.

But what are we numbing?

Surface level thinking assumes it’s our thoughts, but what we’re numbing is our vulnerability. But alcohol consumption as a numbing agent is a double-edged sword. Not only will it numb our negative thoughts and feelings, but our positive ones.

“You numb the dark, you numb the light.” Brené Brown.

I applaud Perkins for pointing out the WHO report; shining a light on a critically important issue in the world, today. But it’s not the 3.3m deaths per year that concerns me the most. It’s the billions adversely affected by alcohol that the WHO never reports on.

People like Kim.

People like me.

People like the person who wrote to me the other day to say that he keeps blowing his poker winnings in the casino when he’s drunk.

The masses describe these people as ‘functional alcoholics.’ I hate that term. In my experience, we should start describing them as ‘normal.’

It’s not unusual for someone to be a member of a poker tribe, be seen to have plenty of friends, and thousands of social media followers, and feel entirely unseen and unheard because of a lack of connection.

“For many of us, the literal chemical anaesthetizing of emotions is just a pleasant, albeit dangerous, side effect of behaviours that are more about fitting in, finding connection and managing anxiety.”

A question I used to ask poker players was, “Who is the best?” I don’t ask it anymore. The consensus is little separates the very best. Ike Haxton v Stephen Chidwick. Justin Bonomo v Nick Petrangelo. Dominik Nitsche v Steffen Sontheimer. There’s nothing between them.

If this is the case, I will put my money on the player who has his shit together off the table. More often than not, it will be the person for whom alcohol plays a minimal role in their life, or they don’t drink at all.

It’s not easy to turn off the shame tap, and perform, no matter what you do for a living. Poker is no different. If alcohol has become a problem for you, it affects your sleep, your thinking, your studying, your relationships, and ultimately your performances.

In a game where the edges are becoming increasingly more challenging to find, why not try becoming someone that doesn’t drink alcohol? Maybe you don’t think you have a problem. If so, try stopping, and see what happens when you open the fridge door and see the bottle of champagne winking back at you, desperate for you to pop its cork.

If you want to be someone that doesn’t drink alcohol, then email Lee Davy at thetruthaboutalcohol@gmail.com.