Tag: high stakes poker

The latest Paul Phua Poker School video interview is with French poker pro Rui Cao. Paul Phua explores the lessons to be learned

Rui Cao, the subject of this new video profile for the Paul Phua Poker School, is recognised as one of the best poker players in France. I first played against him six years ago, when he came to Macau to play in the high-stakes cash game known in poker circles as “the Big Game”. Rui Cao is an aggressive, risk-taking player, and he loved the excitement of these huge pots. Anyone who can thrive in such a high-pressure situation, where even the most experienced players can be at risk of losing their bankroll, deserves respect.


In his previous video interview for the Paul Phua Poker School, discussing aggression in poker with myself and Wai Kin Yong, Rui Cao admitted that he sometimes plays a little too loose: “It’s an ego problem,” he said. So this time we asked him what he considers the most important attributes for success in poker.
“I think being smart is a good point,” Rui Cao says in the new video interview, “and being able to learn fast is similar, to adjust fast to the game. Other than that, some human factors as well like discipline, patience, the ability to control ourselves, I think mostly.”

How not to go on tilt

I very much agree with him on this last point. In fact, I wrote a blog about this a few months ago. Even if you have total mastery of poker strategy and poker odds, you will still be a losing player if you don’t have the patience and discipline to apply the theory in practice. What is the point of knowing the best starting hands, for instance, if you get bored of folding and start to play everything you are dealt?
Part of not going “on tilt” is developing a philosophical attitude to the game. Yes, you got unlucky this time. But the longer you play, the more luck evens out. You get unlucky sometimes, you get lucky sometimes. If you make the right decisions, over time you will be a winner. So don’t let temporary setbacks affect you.
When asked in this interview how he deals with losing, Rui Cao says, “Quite OK. I just sleep for 15 hours and try to forget!” The swings in poker, he says, “are just part of the game”. The one thing you can do, he adds, is to examine whether any of the hands you lost were the result of bad play rather than bad luck. “I try to improve my game and losing is part of the game, I would say.”

An epic struggle with Isildur1

Rui Cao originally made his name playing Omaha, which can have even greater swings than Texas Hold ’Em. Asked which of his many matches was the most memorable, he recalls one marathon PLO session against Viktor Blom, better known under his online name “Isildur1” as one of the most skilled, aggressive and feared online players of all.
“We were four-tabling,” Rui Cao recalls in the video interview, “and maybe at one point I was down 30 buy-ins or something, and two hours later I was up like 30 buy-ins, and it was a pretty crazy upswing. We were, like, playing crazy, and it was a really, really fun session to play in.”
I like the way Rui Cao considers this game his favourite not because he bested one of the world’s top players, or because he made a lot of money, but because it was “really, really fun”! We poker players talk a lot about strategy, and discipline, and improving our game. Of course that’s important; in fact, it’s fundamental to the Paul Phua Poker School. Without it, we would lose money. And if we lose too much money, we can no longer play.
But let us not lose sight of the reason we all took up poker in the first place: it’s just a really, really fun game to play!
More videos from the poker pros will be going live weekly on the Paul Phua Poker YouTube channel. Subscribe if you don’t want to miss out. It’s free!

With the results now in of Mike Noori’s prop bet to eat $1,000 of McDonald’s in just 36 hours, Paul Phua lists five more poker prop bets that were even crazier

In the first part of my top 10, I wrote that poker player Mike Noori would be attempting to eat $1,000 of McDonald’s food in just 36 hours for a prop bet. The results of the weekend’s food-fest are in, and… he failed. To be fair, most people thought it was physically impossible!
Mike Noori entered the event in good spirit, dressed up as McDonald’s character the Hamburglar, and Tweeting video clips and updates as @McHamburgler1k. However, the writing was on the wall when he Tweeted: “10 hours in, $90 worth of food consumed. Mental state = shaky”. The final Tweet conceding defeat said that it had been “a fun time” and that the event had raised $14k for charity.
Will poker players go to any lengths for a prop bet? Judge for yourself, with the final five entries in my top 10, below.

Ashton Griffin and the ultra marathon

Poker players don’t always take the greatest care of themselves, which makes Ashton Griffin’s prop bet feat particularly impressive. In 2011, he claimed he could run 70 miles on a treadmill within 24 hours, and got enough people interested in the action to have $300,000 riding on success. Griffin was just 22, and hugely fit; he must have known he could do it, because he went out partying the night before his physical ordeal. Despite concerns for his health – his own parents turned up halfway through to plead with him to stop – he completed the 70 miles with 45 minutes to spare. Talk about “running good”!

Dan Bilzerian and the Vegas bike challenge

You might more readily associate Dan Bilzerian with private jets than bicycles, but the poker-playing playboy also completed an impressive physical challenge for a prop bet. He was bet $600,000 that he couldn’t cycle from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in less than 48 hours. Bilzerian had hardly touched a bicycle in years, so he left nothing to chance. He says he spent nearly $150,000 on preparing for the feat of endurance, including getting coaching from Lance Armstrong. In the end, it wasn’t even close: Bilzerian aced it in just 33 hours.

Joe Sebek and the face tattoos

Many prop bets involve tattoos, or haircuts. After being eliminated from the 2002 WSOP Main Event by Robert Varkonyi, Phil Hellmuth said he would shave his head if Varkonyi went on to win. He did, and Hellmuth honoured the bet. But the one the players likely regret most was a “last longer” bet between Joe Sebok, Jeff Madsen, and Gavin Smith: the loser had to get tattooed with the others’ faces. Sebok is the one with a permanent ink reminder on his skin of both men, while Jeff Madsen, who busted out next, “only” had to have a tattoo of Gavin Smith.

Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow and the crash diet

In 2008, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow won a $100,000 bet from Ted Forrest by losing 60lbs in a year. Two years later, the tables were turned: this time it was Forrest who had to get down to a trim 140lbs, by losing 48lbs. Forrest bet $50,000 at 10:1 he could do it in just four months, and another $100,000 at 20:1 he could do it in two. Two months to lose 40lbs is a tall order, but with $2 million riding on his crash diet, Forrest literally starved himself for the last ten days and made it just before the shorter deadline.

John Hennigan and the exile to Iowa

One of the most telling of all prop bet stories is told by Howard Lederer. Poker player John Hennigan was once bet that he couldn’t spend a quiet six weeks in casino-free Des Moines, Iowa. Some say the bet was $50,000, some say it was $100,000, but it certainly sounds like an easy enough bet to win. Hennigan even said he was looking forward to working on his golf. But after just two days he bought out of the bet and returned sheepishly to Vegas. It seems like the only prop bet a dedicated gambler can’t possibly win is a bet not to gamble!

Poker player Mike Noori’s bet to supersize himself on McDonald’s this weekend is part of a long tradition of outrageous prop bets. From Paul Ivey to Dan Bilzerian, Paul Phua picks out 10 favourites 

Starting from today (Friday May 19), poker player Mike Noori has just 36 hours in which to eat $1,000 of McDonald’s food. Many people believe it cannot be done, estimating that he will need to consume about 70,000 calories – the recommended daily amount is less than 3,000! Others say it can: hundreds of thousands of dollars have by now been wagered on the outcome by poker players.
And why is Mike Noori putting his body through this ordeal? Because he was challenged to do so in a prop bet.
Some poker players will gamble on just about anything: whether it’s as small as what the next woman to enter the room will be wearing, or as big as eating several weeks’ worth of food in 36 hours! The most outrageous of these prop bets make great stories. Here are just ten of them, starting with some old-timers:

Titanic Thompson and the golf ball

Titanic Thompson, who hosted the very first World Series of Poker, is one of the most famous gamblers of all time. Sky Masterson, the hero of the musical Guys and Dolls, was based on him. He was no fool: when Titanic Thompson made a prop bet, he always had an angle. He would first secretly count all the watermelons in a truck and later wager, during a seemingly casual conversation with bystanders, that he could guess the exact number. Another time he bet he could throw a walnut over a building, having first secretly weighted it with lead. And when he bet he could drive a golf ball 500 yards, further than any golf pro had managed at that time, he found no shortage of takers for this seemingly impossible feat. But he simply waited till winter, then drove the ball, bouncing, over a frozen lake!

Amarillo Slim and the ping pong battle

Amarillo Slim was one of the great old-school poker players, who won the first of his four WSOP bracelets in 1972. He, too, would bet on almost anything. Perhaps his most famous prop bet was when he challenged Bobby Riggs, a former tennis champ, to a table tennis match. Slim’s one condition was that he could choose the paddles they used. He showed up with two frying pans, having secretly practised with them for months beforehand. He won the match. He successfully repeated the trick years later against a Taiwanese ping-pong champion, though this time his weapon of choice was Coca-Cola bottles!

Brian Zembic and his 38C breast implants

A magician and high-stakes gambler, Brian Zembic was famous for his bizarre prop bets: he lived in a box for a week and in a bathroom for another week. For another bet he slept the night in Central Park with $20,000 on his person. But one prop bet in particular made the headlines. In 1996, for a $100,000 bet, he agreed to have breast implants – 38C, to be precise – and keep them for a year. He even won the $4,500 cost of the operation from a cosmetic surgeon at backgammon. Not only did Zembic go through with it, he kept the implants for two decades. It was only last year that he appeared on the reality TV show, Botched, saying he had finally decided to have them removed.

Antonio Esfandiari and the lunges

What is it with magicians? Poker pro Antonio Esfandiari is also a former magician, and one of the most entertaining people you could share a card table with. His willingness to take a prop bet is legendary, though he often lives to regret it: he once swore off eating bread for a year, but cracked after a few minutes; a bet to remain celibate for a year was cancelled after nine days. But the prop bet that made the headlines, for all the wrong reasons, was one where for 48 hours he was not allowed to walk, only to lunge forward (going down on one knee then the other). It caused him so much pain that at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, rather than face going to the toilet, he made use of an empty water bottle at the table, and was promptly disqualified for “breach of tournament etiquette”. To Antonio Esfandiari’s credit, he offered up a sincere public apology for taking things too far, and donated his $50,000 winnings from the prop bet to charity.

Phil Ivey and the $150,000 steak

Phil Ivey is another player who is never afraid to take a big bet. His golf course wagers with Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negreanu are the stuff of legend, and he famously had a $5 million wager on whether he could win two WSOP bracelets in two years (despite his 10 bracelets overall, he only managed one bracelet in that period). But his craziest prop bet was when Tom Dwan challenged him to go vegetarian for a year. Phil Ivey stood to take down $1 million if he could swear off meat, something he had been thinking of doing anyway. But in the event, Phil Ivey said, he was too busy to work out how to eat healthily, and found eating pasta three times a day affected his poker. So he bought out of the bet after just nine days. The cost of that first juicy steak? $150,000…
Read part two of this Top 10, along with the eagerly awaited result of this weekend’s McDonald’s prop bet.

What is “short-deck” poker? This is just one of the things Paul Phua discusses with Phil Ivey in the latest Paul Phua Poker School video, along with strategy tips for beginners

Do beginners have an easier time at poker these days? In the latest Paul Phua Poker School video, we welcome back the great Phil Ivey. Last time we talked about the thrills and challenges poker holds, even for a player as experienced as Phil. This time we focus on beginners to the game, as well as a fun variant on Texas Hold ’Em called “short-deck poker” or “Six Plus Hold ’Em”.


Poker can be a hard game to break into: experienced players may punish you if they sense weakness, and though it is easy to learn the basic rules, it can take a while to understand all the odds and strategies. But as Phil Ivey says in this video interview, “Because of all the information that’s available, with the different teaching schools and things that are available now, different ways of learning that are out there, and with Paul’s teaching site, I think everyone is catching up.”
When Phil Ivey started out in poker, winning his first WSOP bracelet when he was just 23, internet poker was in its infancy. There were a few strategy books, such as Doyle Brunson’s Super System, but not the virtual library of tips that is out there now.
“I didn’t have schools,” says Phil Ivey in the video interview. “I didn’t have teaching sites. I didn’t have different tools I could learn from.” His most important lessons, he says, came just from trial and error.

A big tip for beginners

So one big tip for beginners is to learn everything they can from sites like Paul Phua Poker! And always be aware that however much you think you know, there is always more to learn. As Phil Ivey points out in our video interview, “beginners have a certain selection of hands in their minds that they want to play, and they just stick with that”.
Instead, he encourages players to experiment: “Start learning which hands you can play, in which positions, which hands you can bluff with, which hands you should call with.”
And as I say in the video, your play should also vary according to the structure of the games – whether there are antes or straddles involved, for instance – as well as whether the other players are aggressive or tight.
If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is! Phil Ivey has devoted two decades to perfecting his game. I know Phil pretty well, as we have played together many, many times. And, as I also say in the video, I think one of the most impressive things about him is not just his grasp of strategy, but his strength of character. He just never seems to go on tilt, and that’s something I try to model myself on.

“Short-deck” or “Six-Plus Hold ’Em”

There are more useful tips in the video, so do watch it. But one thing I perhaps need to explain more is the “short deck game” that we talk about in the interview. We often like to play this game when we get together. It is very similar to Texas Hold ’Em, but with fewer cards.
Before you start you remove from the deck all the low cards, deuce through to 5, which is why the game is also known as “Six Plus Hold ’Em”. It’s a more exciting game than Texas Hold ’Em in many ways, because with the low cards taken out you are more often dealt high cards and big pairs. You also have to adapt to a different set of odds. Post-flop, you have a nearly 1 in 2 chance of completing an open-ended straight draw by the river, for instance, compared with nearly 1 in 3 in classic Texas Hold ’Em.
As Phil Ivey says in the video interview, “There’s a lot of gambling involved. The equities run pretty close, so it’s pretty easy to get your money in the middle and be 50/50 or somewhere near that. It suits a more gambling style of player.”
Phil thinks this makes the short-deck game perfect for the beginner. But if so, I have just one piece of advice. You still don’t want to be playing against Phil Ivey!
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Slow rolling, splashing the pot, string betting – these are some common mistakes to avoid in live poker, says Paul Phua

I have always preferred playing live, and more and more online players are making the transition. In the recent Paul Phua Poker School video interview with Dan Colman, we discussed some of the problems they face in terms of tells. But there is also a set of rituals and etiquette associated with live play that online players and poker novices need to be aware of. Not only does getting them wrong annoy the other players, it marks you out as a novice – easy prey!

  1. Don’t hit and run

In a cash game, you can leave whenever you want. In theory! In practice, if you do so straight after winning a very big pot, especially with a lucky hand, the other players will complain that it’s a “hit and run”. You should wait for at least an orbit.

  1. Don’t hold up the game

By all means think for a while before calling a big bet. But if you take ages over every small decision, it can be frustrating for the other players. In poker, time is money! Even worse is if you have your face buried in a laptop or mobile phone screen, and have to be prompted by the dealer every time it’s your turn to bet.

  1. Don’t go “bum-hunting”

In live cash games, you can ask to be moved away from a table where you feel you are at a disadvantage compared with other players. Equally, you can ask to be moved to a table where there are some easy “fish”. If you do that too blatantly or often, however, you may be accused of “bum-hunting”. A couple of years ago 35 pros were banned from the high-stakes poker room at the Palm Beach casino in London for poor etiquette including bum-hunting.

  1. Have a massage, eat some food – just maybe not at the same time

Long sessions can be tiring. That’s why most poker rooms offer massages while you’re sitting at the table. You can also order food at your seat, so you don’t miss any action with a meal break. That said, Victoria Coren Mitchell recently Tweeted her surprise when she saw this: “A poker player on another table is eating and having a massage at the same time. I’m tempted to hand him some nose clippers and a crossword.”

  1. Don’t talk about the hand in a multi-way pot

House rules vary on this. Some casinos apply this rule strictly; others turn a blind eye. Just be aware that you may be asked by the dealer to refrain from talking about the hand being played unless you are heads up. And it’s always wrong to do so when you yourself are not in the hand.

  1. Don’t forget to tip

It’s customary to tip the dealer when you win a good pot, and to tip the serving staff when they bring you food or drink. Exactly how much depends on how generous you are feeling and what country you are in. Watch what the regulars are doing, and follow suit.

  1. Don’t tap on the glass

When a player suffers a bad beat, they will often chastise the winner for their poor play in calling when behind. Instead, you should smile, congratulate them, and generally do everything you can to keep this “fish” happy for long enough to lose the money back again. And why do poker players say “Don’t tap on the glass?” Because, in an aquarium, tapping on the glass frightens away the fish!

  1. Beware of string bets

Different casinos in different countries all have slightly different rules. For instance, counting out the chips for your bet one by one when over the betting line is fine in most of America, but in England it’s called a “string bet” and only your first chip will count. Or a novice may throw one large chip into the middle, thinking it’s a raise, unaware that in live play any single chip counts as a call. If you’re not sure of the house rules, simply announce your raise before making it.

  1. Don’t splash the pot

When you bet, keep the chips directly in front of you. If you throw them into the middle, so that some of them “splash” the pot, it makes it hard for the dealer to work out how much you bet.

  1. Act in turn

Always wait for the action to come round to you before folding. In fact, don’t even hold your cards in an obvious folding position. This is because it helps players to know that players in late position are intending to fold, thus disadvantaging anyone who has previously acted.

  1. Be graceful when losing or winning

When you lose, don’t slam the table, swear or throw the cards at the dealer. It’s bad tactics as well as bad manners, since it tells other players you may be on tilt for the next few hands. And when you win a big pot, remember that means another player has just lost: celebrating loudly is like partying at someone else’s funeral.

  1. And above all, don’t slow roll

“Slow rolling” is when a player whose bet is called pretends at first to be caught in a bluff, and only belatedly reveals the winning hand. This may seem funny in a home game when teasing a friend, but in a casino game the whole table will line up to kick you!

Paul Phua introduces the hugely successful Malaysian poker pro Wai Kin Yong, who is interviewed in the latest Paul Phua Poker School video

In the last few months Wai Kin Yong has made headlines in poker circles for winning more than $3 million across three different tournaments. Last September he won the Triton Charity Tournament in Manila, and then just two months later the Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event as well. This February he also finished sixth in the Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event.
Even more remarkably, Wai Kin Yong is mostly a high-stakes cash player, not a tournament player. He says in this latest Paul Phua Poker School video interview that he only plays tournaments two or three times a year!


What is the secret of his success? And what can other players learn from him?
Asked for his biggest strength, Wai Kin Yong says in the interview, “I would think it’s my craziness, aggressiveness. I love to be aggressive, I love to be in control, I love to put pressure on other people.”

A key hand against Koray Aldemir

One such hand was picked by cardplayer.com recently as their Hand of the Week. It was against Koray Aldemir in the 2017 Triton Super High Roller in February, where initial pre-flop bettor Aldemir called every street on a 4-4-4 flop. Wai Kin Yong, on the button, three-bet (re-raised) on the flop and then kept betting on every street. Though Wai Kin Yong held just A2 while Aldemir had AK, it was Wai Kin who was the aggressor.
This is indeed an interesting hand. Many players would have been more cautious, but Wai Kin Yong’s aggression here is more strategic than it might at first appear. When Aldemir called Wai Kin’s three-bet pre-flop without re-raising again (as some might do with AK), he appeared weak, and Wai Kin Yong decided to exploit that weakness. Being on the button, Wai Kin could also use position to his advantage.
The turn came a 9, and the river came a Jack. Wai Kin bet not much less than the pot each time. Coupled with his re-raise pre-flop, this might suggest that he had a big pair to make a house. So Wai Kin will surely have been hoping that Aldemir would fold to such strength.
Wai Kin’s strategy nearly succeeded. After he also bet the river, Aldemir “tanked” (that is, he thought for a long time about his decision). But in the end he did find it within himself to call with just Ace high, winning with the superior King kicker, and Wai Kin’s stack was badly dented.
In this particular case, it did not work out for Wai Kin Yong. But certainly, aggression has its place in poker, as it gives you “fold equity”, which is to say that you win when you induce a fold as well as winning when you have the best hand.
If you are over-aggressive in too many spots, however, you will soon lose all your chips. In the recent Paul Phua Poker School video interview featuring Wai Kin Yong and Rui Cao, Wai Kin says he learned a lot about patience from playing with me! He also analyses his game constantly to find ways to improve it, which is a valuable lesson for any player.

Why you should always question your mistakes 

“I question myself a lot, always,” Wai Kin Yong says in our new video. “When I go back into the room I will question myself: ‘did I do something wrong today?’, or ‘have I made any mistakes today?’ And then I’ll ask around, I’ll ask people that I know. I’ll ask my mentor and see if I actually made mistakes, and try to improve on them and never make the same mistake ever again.”
Wai Kin Yong’s mentor is the poker pro Mikael Thuritz, and Wai Kin gives him a lot of credit for his recent successes. This, too, is a good tip for players. You may not all be able to find a mentor of Mikael Thuritz’s level, but find someone whose play you admire, whether online or in live play, and ask them if you can run some hands by them occasionally and get their opinion.
You will be surprised how many people are happy to help. It’s flattering to them, I guess!
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Paul Phua introduces the latest in a series of “In Conversation With Paul Phua” videos, in which the thrilling young poker pros Rui Cao and Wai Kin Yong discuss how to improve your game

How long would you play poker for in a single session? Eight hours? Twelve? Fifteen?
Try 40 or 50 hours!
As you will see in this three-way video interview between myself and the brilliant young players Rui Cao and Wai Kin Yong, we often used to play for two days and nights without stopping. We don’t do that so much anymore, but a round-the-clock game is still pretty common. As we say in the video, one skill you definitely need to develop as a player is stamina!
As I think comes across in this video, when you play poker together for such long periods, you develop a kind of bond, a friendship. But you also develop an awareness of each other’s strengths and weaknesses – and, if you are a good player, you will become conscious of your own.


Rui Cao admits in this interview that one of his weaknesses is playing too loose, wanting to show the table who is boss. “I think it’s an ego problem,” he says.
Then again, it’s also what makes Rui Cao one of France’s most exciting players. It’s six years since Rui Cao first came out to Macau to test himself in the high-stakes cash game against some of the world’s top poker pros (poker players call it “The Big Game”), and I could tell he was instantly drawn to the thrill of those huge pots of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As for Wai Kin Yong, he admits his weakness is probably being too “sticky”: “I always find the hands to call,” he says in the video.
Is that a bad thing? Well, on the one hand it’s exciting to make that “hero call”, where you call down a bluff with just Ace high. But on the other hand, if you don’t learn when to lay down a hand, even a hand as good as two pairs, you will lose a lot of money over time. You must ask yourself: are you calling because you’ve thought through the action on every street, and you really think the other person is bluffing? Or is it because your ego won’t let you back down, or you can’t stand not knowing and must see the other person’s cards? It’s something I think you learn as you get older: the patience and humility to fold, and to wait for a better spot further down the line where you are more certain of making money from the hand.
That said, Wai Kin Yong is an exceptional player for one so young. You could say it runs in the family: his father is my friend, the businessman Richard Yong. But Wai Kin Yong also very much has his own style, and has been doing very well in live tournaments. Last September he won the Triton Charity Tournament in Manila, and then just two months later the Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event as well. This February he finished sixth in the Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event. These three pay-outs were together worth more than $3 million!
So it was a pleasure to be able to sit down with these two excellent players, and talk about poker for this video. I hope you enjoy it, and pick up some tips for improving your own playing style.
It’s your decision whether to play loose or tight, aggressively or by trapping other players into making a mistake. Whatever works for you, whatever suits your personality, style and the dynamics of the table you’re on.
But the one thing I think you can definitely take away from this video interview is that good players are always talking about poker with other good players: comparing notes on hands and playing styles, working out what they can learn from each other and how they can play better in future. If you can do this, the next big tournament winner could be you!
Enjoyed this video? Subscribe to the Paul Phua Poker School YouTube channel so you don’t miss the rest in this series. It’s free!

The latest in the new series of Paul Phua Poker School videos is a revealing interview with a true poker great, Phil Ivey. Paul Phua, who talks with him in the video, picks out the highlights

Phil Ivey, the subject of this new Paul Phua Poker School video interview, is definitely one of the all-time poker greats. He has ten World Series of Poker bracelets to his name, having won the first when he was just 23. He has more than $20 million in live tournament earnings, even though he spends most of his time playing cash at high stakes. His famously intimidating stare has become almost a brand in its own right, even though when you get to know Phil Ivey, as you will see from this video, he is actually warm and funny.


This interview was conducted in Manila in February, during the Triton Super High Roller Series, but it seems especially interesting now, since it was announced this week that Phil Ivey will no longer be making videos for his Ivey League site.
And one of the things that strikes me about this interview is an irony that will not be lost on long-term players. When you first start playing, the adrenaline is incredible. If you dare make a bluff you think other players will actually see your shirt moving up and down, as your heart is beating so hard. That’s partly why I used never to bluff when I first started playing!
So you learn to calm your emotions and dampen the adrenaline rush, in order to be hard to read. But does that take some of the thrill out of the game? This is what Phil Ivey has to say in the video interview:
“When you’ve played so much and you’ve played for so many years, it’s really difficult to get a huge thrill… The actual thrill of like, ‘wow I’m betting a lot of money on it’, that’s not really there for me. I don’t really feel that. I haven’t felt that in quite some time, actually.”
Don’t make the mistake from that of thinking Phil Ivey is finished with poker! I am certain he will go on to win many more big tournaments and WSOP bracelets. Because, of course, Phil is still passionate about poker, as am I. As he says in this interview, “I don’t look at it like I’m going to work, because I love doing what I do.”
Maybe it’s just that with poker, as with so many things in life, you never quite recapture the same strong thrill of your first times, of your youth. So my advice to anyone still starting out in poker would be, “enjoy it!” Poker can be hard work, the bad beats can be upsetting, and you must study to improve. But poker is also a fantastic game: a mixture of strategy and chance, where no two hands are ever exactly the same, played against some of the brightest and most interesting people.
Phil Ivey definitely falls into that last category. I have had the pleasure of playing with – and learning from – Phil Ivey many, many times in the last few years, and we have developed both a friendship and a bond of mutual respect. He is kind enough to say in this interview, “What makes Paul Phua so amazing is that he started off playing with some of the best players in the world, and now he is playing in games constantly with the best players in the world and he’s winning in those games.”
Of course, what Phil Ivey is too modest to say outright is that he himself is one of those “best players in the world”! So enjoy this revealing video interview with one of the greats, then go and subscribe to the Paul Phua Poker School YouTube channel. There are many more videos to come in this series, including further interviews with and tips from Phil Ivey.

Paul Phua introduces the first in an exciting new series of videos for the Paul Phua Poker School YouTube channel featuring some of the world’s top pros

If you want to improve your poker and become a winning player, there is no better place to start than by watching strategy tips from the top pros. Phil Ivey, Dan Cates and Dan Colman have very generously given up some of their valuable time to film this video for the Paul Phua Poker School – and with these high-stakes cash and tournament players, “valuable time” is not merely a figure of speech!
Phil Ivey is a ten times World Series of Poker bracelet winner, and one of the most fearless and creative players of the game. Dan “Jungleman” Cates passed the $10 million online cash earnings milestone nearly three years ago. And Dan Colman has graduated from internet poker (he rose to fame in 2013 as the first hyper-turbo player to win $1 million on Pokerstars in a year) to take down $28 million in live tournament play.
The Paul Phua Poker School YouTube video team caught up with these players at the Triton High Roller Series in Manila this February, and their tips for beginners are just as insightful as you would expect. And it’s not only beginners who can benefit from their strategy advice.


Phil Ivey tells players that “an important thing is to be able to manage their money”. This is very true: many a player has gone bust by moving too quickly to levels they cannot really afford. For more detailed advice, see my previous Paul Phua Poker School blog on bankroll management.
Dan Colman recommends that you should “get out of your comfort zone”, and “play in difficult games”. This may seem strange: why choose a difficult game if you can find one with poor players instead? But this is something I myself did when starting out in poker. I challenged myself to play with some of the world’s top pros in high-stakes cash games, not because I arrogantly thought I could beat them, but because I humbly felt I could learn from them. If I have any skill at poker (and Phil Ivey has been kind enough to say that “Paul Phua is probably the best non-pro I’ve ever played poker against”), it is thanks to learning from the best.
And if you do find yourself up against more experienced players, Dan Cates’ advice in the video may prove especially valuable. He says, “The first tip for beginners would be to play tighter than they think.” Unless you are sure you can outplay everyone else around the table, you should pick your poker battles with care, going armed with only the best starting hands.
Those are just a few of the useful tips in the video that will improve your poker game. Watch it now to discover more, and subscribe to the Paul Phua Poker School YouTube channel so as not to miss new videos in the series. It’s free!
 

With poker millionaires Charlie Carrel and “Xavi666” making headlines for their big wins, Paul Phua explains why it can take years to become an overnight success.

Two players deserve particular congratulations this week. One is a player from Panama known by his online name of “Xavi666”, who has just won over a million dollars in the PokerStars Guaranteed Sunday Million tournament. He is the 200th poker millionaire created on the online poker site.
The other is the personable young player Charlie Carrel. He proved a good ambassador for the game of poker when he was interviewed on a Channel 4 series in the UK called How’d You Get So Rich? It’s not often poker stories cross over to the mainstream media, but many national papers reported on the TV programme’s featurette on how Charlie Carrel turned his initial online stake of just £10 into £3 million.

The reason these stories have attracted so much attention is that they feed into a common dream about poker: that it’s an easy way to get rich quick.

The most famous example in poker history is when humble accountant Chris Moneymaker turned a $39 investment on PokerStars into $2.5 million in 2003. He entered a $39 satellite tournament, which got him into a $600 satellite, which won him a seat in the Main Event at the World Series of Poker – at which this gifted amateur won the whole thing.
But the truth is, all these players have put in a lot of work behind the scenes that you don’t see. I touched on this subject before in my blog on The Iceberg Illusion. Take young Charlie Carrel. He told the TV presenter Katherine Ryan that he started off at very low stakes, playing for 16 hours a day to improve his game, while living with his grandmother. Having studied Maths, Further Maths and Physics at A-Level, he made a detailed study of all the odds. He applied sensible bankroll management, only moving up to a new blind level when he was sure he had mastered the one he was on.
As to Xavi666, after winning his PokerStars million he said that “finally everything came together”. In other words, he had been working and playing hard to reach this point.
There’s a couple of old sayings that I find very insightful. One is, “It takes years to become an overnight success.” The other is, “The harder I work, the luckier I seem to get.”
What they both mean is that every time you see an actor, musician or poker player suddenly become famous, or seemingly “get lucky”, the chances are they have been perfecting their craft, unnoticed by the general public, for many years before that. When opportunity knocks, they are ready for it.
Certainly when I started at poker, I treated it as a challenge, something to work at. I had fun, of course, as I love the game, but I also had the desire to learn and improve. I regularly sat down to marathon high-stakes cash games with some of the world’s top poker pros, not because I felt I would “get lucky” against them, but so that I could learn from their strategy. That was nearly a decade ago, and I still analyse every big hand at the end of a big poker session to see if I could play it better if faced with a similar situation in the future.
So think about it. Are you going to play poker just for fun, staying in more pots than you should do with poor odds of success, in the hopes of getting lucky? Or are you going to play for fun and for profit, improving your game and learning new strategies over time so that, when you do get your shot at a big tournament, you have the skill and experience to become the next “overnight success”?
If it’s the latter, there is good news: some of the poker pros I often play with have kindly agreed to share their top tips and strategy advice with you, my loyal Paul Phua Poker School followers. There’s quite a line-up to my new video series. We have two big Dans (Cates and Colman), as well as Phil Ivey. Discover the full list of names and watch the trailer here.
So if you do dream of becoming the next Xavi666 or Charlie Carrel, a good first step is to go to the Paul Phua Poker YouTube channel and subscribe, so you don’t miss any Paul Phua Poker School videos. It’s free!