If you type "poker vlog" into YouTube, in languages other than English, who knows what awaits you. One of the channels that may pop up is Artem Timsk's, from our international forum. He began his career as a vlogger in the summer of 2022. The description of the first video reads:
"I live in Canada. I work like a mule during the week, and on the weekends I play live, dreaming of becoming a poker pro. What a fool. Subscribe."
Since then, almost 25 thousand people have subscribed, and several videos have received more than 100,000 views.
Recently, Artem made every poker player's cherished dream come true – he flew to Las Vegas for the first time and brought back fresh video and a lot of impressions. We talked to him about this trip, vlogs, the prospects of online and live poker – and other important things.
The Vegas vlog was deleted by YouTube, so Artem re-uploaded it to an alternative channel. The video is fully in Russian, but we've interviewed Artem to spread his interesting story to the English speaking audience.
— Hi, Artem, welcome home! In one of your recent videos, when you were talking about the tickets you bought to Vegas, you said: could you have imagined 10 years ago, sitting in a cheap house and playing a tournament for three bucks, that you would end up in the poker Mecca. As far as I understand, the idea of making money with poker didn’t come to you right away? How did the game become an important part of your life?
— Hi! I started playing at 16, at friends’ home gatherings. That’s when I learned about online poker, but it didn’t really grab me. I always wanted to play live, but I was a schoolboy and didn’t have much money. Once every few months, I could save up and play some freezeout for $30. I didn’t have anywhere near enough money for cash games. I played $1-$3 tournaments online. I never studied theory, I just played based on my gut feeling. I won small amounts and withdrew everything for expenses and small tournaments in the live poker world.
In this photo, Hiro is 16 years old!When I found out that I was moving to Canada, I decided that it was stupid to play poker there, because the country has a high standard of living and normal salaries. So, essentially, at 19, my career as a player ended before it even began. Poker almost completely left my life for 7 years. But I didn’t see any particular prospects in my work as a logistics dispatcher. People in the CIS greatly overestimate salaries abroad. On average, people here earn 4-5 thousand in an office after taxes, which is not enough for a comfortable life with good housing.
3 years ago I was inspired by the examples of American live poker regs. I learned that you can play for $50+ per hour and earn $10k per month. That's when I started to seriously play poker, because this is exactly the life I always wanted. Live poker still doesn't feel like work. Playing a 10-12 hour session is not difficult for me.
— By the way, how did you end up in Canada?
— My father moved here when I was 4 years old. And at 20, I got a residence permit through him. As I remember now, I landed in Canada on August 1, 2014. I tried a bunch of typical migrant jobs: factories, construction sites, washing dishes. I studied for 2 years at college in event and media production. I worked part-time filming weddings, but never went to work in my specialty. In 2018, my father opened a transportation company and suggested that I try working as a dispatcher. I worked for him for 2 years, another 2.5 years in another company — until I was laid off in September 2023. At that time, I had already been playing NL50 online for 2 years.
At that time, my province of Ontario was already on the reservation, the wait was probably 2 times higher than in the global pool. When I got fired, I already had savings and a YouTube channel, I was beating NL50 in 5-6 BB for 100 – so I decided not to look for a new job and to devote myself entirely to poker.
— In your latest posts, you have hands from NL200. Tell us how you moved up in limits.
— The main stimulus for growth was the fear of eating up all the savings that were so hard earned and returning sad to work in the office. Literally right away I went to NL100 and started working on the game almost every day. I sought out training, software, subscriptions. I invested maximum time and money to rise quickly.
After six months I started playing NL200. Now I play a mix of NL100-200 and NL500 for fish.
— If you become an live pro, is it strictly in Canada or do you have to travel?
— This is especially relevant now. Due to the terrible rake conditions and problems with finding a game in Toronto, I am forced to play online. There is no point in playing 25 hands per hour $2/$5 when the rake cap is $20.
And $5/$10, where the rake is not so high, is played with a mandatory straddle, so in fact it is $10/$20. For me, this is still too expensive. Unless you sell 50% of the action, if there are people willing. And Niagara is too far away, and $2/$5 games don't form daily either.
I would go to the States for 3-4 months, but I live with a girl now, she has a job here and doesn't have an American visa. All that's left is to ride online and go play live poker sometimes.
Heading to Las Vegas
— In your blog after your return you wrote about Vegas : "The most awesome rake on Earth and top service in poker rooms" — can you give some details? Is the rake lower than in Canada? And what was the first thing that caught your eye in comparison with Canada?
— Specifically, the rake at Niagara is not bad. There you pay for the time, 30 minutes — $7-$9 depending on the limit. But on average in Canada the rake is much higher. In Vegas the cap is $5-$6. In addition, there are also free drinks and rakeback on the player's card of $1.5-$2 per hour, which you can use to eat in the casino. I have not seen anything like that in Canada.
I will also note the very good work of the managers. They quickly find a seat for you, quickly open tables. I have never waited longer than 15 minutes. In Canada, it used to be 3-4 hours.
— During the WSOP, dealers are always being criticized. Were there any problems with this during quiet times?
— Overall, the dealers are good. There were some slow ones, but there were no obvious screw-ups. The fastest dealers are in the poker clubs in Toronto, where they have the motivation to deal more hands to get more tips and commission.
— As far as I understand, you didn’t like the lineups very much. We recently looked at the story of a young American reg, and he said that if you want to be a poker pro in the US, it’s better to play in the provinces or Texas, but not in Vegas or Los Angeles. Are there many European regs in Vegas? How are they different from American ones?
— The lineups aren't great, but I think it's just a trend of our times. People have started playing better on average, at least preflop. At $2/$5, I just haven't seen any fish who play with a VPIP of 70% and beat 3 streets on 3rd pair. I think the main category of people at $2/$5 are advanced amateurs and semi-regs. I don't know about Texas, but in Miami at Hard Rock, I saw the same thing, plus or minus.
But unlike Texas, Vegas is always very active, and there are $5/$10+ almost every day. In Texas, according to the Bravo and Poker Atlas apps, it's mostly $1/$3 (though, admittedly, in deep games).
There were 1-2 Euro regs per table on average. They play better and have online experience. Unlike an American, who may well have a day job, a Euro reg most likely only earns money by playing. If he wasn't good enough, he wouldn't be there.
— Tell me about the average weak opponent. You write that people don't give — how do we get the edge in this case?
— In general, this is what I like about live poker more than online. Here you play 25-30 hands per hour, not 400-600. I feel it like this: I have a certain limit of concentration and mental strength to play a hand well. And, naturally, by playing fewer hands, you can spend more cognitive effort on each one. And this should be used to get the maximum edge and win rate.
And if online, due to even a small edge, selection and rakeback, you can beat the game in a pair of BBs by 100, and everything is fine with you, then in live poker, you need to try to play every hand to the maximum in order to reach a normal hourly rate and level out the dispersion.
You need to follow the game, watch showdowns carefully and draw conclusions. Make tags on players in your head and look for the best adjustments to them. Unlike online, hard exploits and leveling work better here. You can go far beyond the basic strategy, because there are few showdowns, there is no mining on each other.
The average weak opponent is very predictable and passive. People give away a lot of information in multiway pots, especially on dynamic boards. Everyone is digging, they don’t know how to call a small bet with a set on a board with a flush draw. They bet too often with draws. They get caught with sizes. They bluff only with equity. They under-bluff the river. They overbet very rarely. They play their hand, not their range. They never check with the nuts out of position on the river. The top of the range will go into check-raise on the flop-turn, only bluffcatches will check-call. They will never turn their hand into a bluff on the river. In essence, they are similar to weak passive micro-limit regs, only here we have more time and information to think and find the best solution.
— How do you rate the expectations of playing in Vegas? What limits do you need to play to cover expenses?
— I think that everywhere in America at the $2/$5 limit the wait will be around $40-$50 per hour. I don’t think there’s any point in playing any lower. Renting a hotel or an apartment on Airbnb is $50 to $100 per day. Plus food, Uber, restaurants. It will definitely cost 3-4 thousand per month.
— Is the atmosphere at the tables different from Europe and Canada? What is an American amateur like? Is it noticeable that the game is in their blood?
— I wouldn’t say that Americans and Canadians are any different. Maybe some southerners with their rural accent. In general, for me, the portrait of the average white resident of North America is a moderately well-fed man who likes to watch sports, drink beer, eat tasty food and drive his pickup truck.
They seem to me like freedom-loving collective farmers who can have some kind of business, earn decent money – but look sloppy. Buy a lot of unnecessary things, but at the same time walk around in a stained sweatshirt. Anyone who has been to America has probably noticed that their cars are never parked in garages, because the garage is filled with all sorts of junk.
But the fact that gambling is in their blood is 100%. I think the people there have a genetic drive for adventure and risk. After all, they are descendants of immigrants who explored the Wild West. Poker is definitely a part of the culture to a greater extent than anywhere else.
— A few words about Vegas itself? How do you feel about the city if you leave the casino and move away from the fountain near Bellagio? Do you want to go back there?
— Vegas is cool in terms of climate. It almost never rains. It seems like a desert, but an hour's drive and you're already in the mountains, where there's snow and a ski resort. Plus, compared to other cities with a lot of gambling (Los Angeles, Miami), Vegas is much cheaper.
The main problem is that, apart from the strip and the center, it's just a one-story backwater filled with homeless people, freaks and prostitutes. There's a seedy porno theatre on one corner and a big billboard across the street that says "Jesus Loves You". Such are the contrasts.
But at the same time, you still want to come back. The city captivates you with its originality and seemingly total indifference to what you think about it.
— The main poker dream is different now. What is your dream at the moment?
— For the last couple of years, I've been dreaming of playing on the Hustler stream. I think if things go a little better with the English-language channel, there's a chance to get into such a game. The rest are not really dreams, but just creative plans. To travel to all the cool poker spots in the world and make cool videos from everywhere.
Vlogs
— Let's talk about your channel then. In the video from Vegas, you say that the dealer almost kicked you out at some point, saying she needed permission. Does this happen often? How is filming regulated in the casinos where you usually play?
— It depends on the place. The first casino where I started filming was Niagara. It’s strictly forbidden there, so I started as secretly as possible. I turned down the brightness on the screen, put the phone on a stand — and pretended to watch something. But it’s very stressful. There are people walking around, someone might see, get indignant, say flora, etc.
It's easiest to come to an agreement with regular clubs, gambling houses. In casinos there's always some kind of bureaucracy. In Bellagio they forbade me from filming: they said I had to get permission from MGM. I wrote to them, and there's been no answer for over a month.
That's why in the casino I act on the principle of "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission." If you don't get too cheeky and don't show off too much, you can withdraw without permission. Usually, dealers and floor managers don't care until someone complains.
— Do opponents often express dissatisfaction? What do you do in such cases?
— There has never been any negativity from players. If a neighbor asks, I can tell him: yes, I am filming, and give him a link to the channel. In the katran where I have been filming lately, everyone knows about vlogs. They want to get into them, sometimes they can even give action for this.
— What inconveniences does filming create? What is -EV?
— It distracts attention. You can't film a session continuously for 6-8 hours. Every time a hand comes in that I'm going to open, you have to turn on the camera. And if you film without permission, it adds stress, because you have to do everything covertly. After the hand, you have to record the board, the effective stacks.
But that's not the worst part. The biggest -EV is the seat at the table. To get the best picture, you need to sit at the edge of the table, where you can see all the action. That is, when I shoot content, I will always try to sit there. Often I can get a good seat in the VIP position, but I leave it for the sake of content.
If I have already got to one of these boxes, I will play and shoot until the end. I will not change the table, even if it becomes bad. Because there is no guarantee that at another table I will get to one of the necessary boxes.
— Vlogs are very popular in the English-speaking poker world. Why do you think foreign players hardly work in this genre?
— Probably because it is not so profitable financially. The English-language segment has a larger reach and there is good payment for views. The biggest American vlogger, Brad Owen, said in an interview that he earns more than $100k a year from YouTube's built-in advertising alone. In the Russian-language segment, our reach is lower, and views from Russia are not paid for at all now. In my case, it is a couple of hundred a month, which barely covers the editor's work.
Therefore, the only monetization left is advertising integrations, referrals to software, rooms. My club in the app is also doing well. But again, this is not some huge amount of money. At the moment, I definitely cannot cover expenses only by creating content. Online and live poker remain my main source of income.
— How did you start filming, who inspired you? What motivates you? Do you think that you can make a big splash with this kind of content?
I was inspired by the first vloggers: the aforementioned Brad Owen and Andrew Neeme. Before them, I had no idea that live poker pros existed. But one day, I came across this video in my recommendations:
This video basically changed everything. At that time, I was 25 years old, I worked as a truck dispatcher and got $20 an hour. And then the face on the screen told me that not only can you make a living playing live poker, but his dollar an hour is also an order of magnitude higher than mine. I began to study this issue in depth, watch and read all the bloggers – and I was convinced that these were quite real numbers. As a result, I just came up with the perfect formula in my head. I will become a live poker pro and at the same time I will shoot poker vlogs in Russian!
It didn't work out to get there quickly, but in June 22nd my first vlog from Niagara was released.
– Why do you do this? What brings you the most pleasure?
— Content creation closes a very serious gap in earning money from the game. Many people feel a certain emptiness from the fact that, apart from money and hand history, they create nothing. Some people start training because of this, some produce content. I really like making these videos, because, apart from the hands played and the money won, there is also some kind of product. This is especially noticeable after very negative sessions. They are much easier to bear if you filmed them, and you can reassure yourself that at least the video turned out well.
The growth of the channel, views, positive comments and in general attention to your modest person were very motivating at first. Plus, the process itself is not so boring at the early stages, you are ready to work hard for free. Over time, the production of a regular vlog ceases to be felt as something creative, and along with this, there was stagnation in views. I realized that the cap for poker videos in Russian is about 100k views, a couple of my videos got that much. But on average, you can probably count on 30-50k if you make good entertainment content. Now I want to make videos a little less often, but on a larger scale, like the same vlog from Vegas. Go to interesting places where there is a good reel, and make videos. Maybe even documentaries.
It is clear that it should pay off financially and at least be comparable to the hourly rate in the game with such a large time investment. Let's hope that in the future some poker room will sponsor this business. It seems to me that vlogs and live poker streams have done a lot to popularize poker in the last 5 years and brought in many new fans.
— You said that you’re thinking of starting to make content in English too?
— There are a lot of vlogs in English, and you have to try hard to stand out. And in the Russian segment, I have an advantage: there is little such content, plus I live in Canada and can travel to play in the USA. Our people are always interested in how they live in the West, and poker content is no exception. But there are a couple of interesting ideas, I will try them in the near future.
The Troubles of YouTube and the Future of Poker
— What do you think about YouTube's attacks on all gambling-related content? I see it's hit you too.
— There is essentially no alternative to YouTube. There is no other platform where a no-name can create quality content and build an audience from scratch. It is very sad that with all its advantages, it has such a disgusting system for detecting violations, strikes, bans of videos and channels. The system can see a violation where there is none, delete your video, and you cannot discuss it with anyone. Everything is automated.
After I promoted my club in the app a few times, the video was deleted. I stopped mentioning the club in the videos, but I continue to get random strikes with time codes where nothing happens, just distribution. The same thing happened in the last video from Vegas: it got 25,000 views in the first 2 days, and then it was deleted. I had to re-upload it to the second channel, there are no problems there yet. But if the system considers something a violation, then it will start seeing problems out of the blue. As a result, 3 strikes can fly in overnight, and by the morning you will no longer have a channel.
All that's left is to create backup channels and actively manage social networks so that you always have something to push off from. In general, the meta of social networks is such that subscribers mean nothing, and the level of your media success should be measured only by the last few videos. There are a lot of absolutely dead channels with millions of subscribers, where videos get a couple thousand views. Cool, catchy content is a trump card now. You can upload it to a new channel, and then a small push from Telegram or a forum will start a chain reaction of algorithms.
— You made a fortune in Vegas, but the vlog still ends on a sad note. Does poker have 2 years left, or, on the contrary, as some say, are we on the threshold of a new live poker boom? What could trigger it?
— Honestly, I think public online is pretty much dead. Even in my reservation, the wait has gotten a lot worse in the last 2 years. You can't do this for the rest of your life.
I have been actively reading the forum for 4 years, mostly cash players. And the lack of new faces is very telling. All popular cash players playing NL100 and above are 30+ years old, I have already read all of them 4 years ago. That is, people are just leaving, new ones are not coming.
I have much higher hopes for live poker, there is much more entertainment value for an amateur. He plays slower there (there are few hands), and the regs are weaker, and there are a lot of perks in the form of socialization, free drinks, and so on. Well, how can you compare a trip to a cool casino with virtual gambling addiction at home within 4 walls?
Judging by the success of streams and vlogs, it is clear that the main request for fans is live poker. Zoomers from TikTok, YouTubers, and young people play on streams. That is, even the generation of 15-second content is interested in live play.
I think all this suggests that live poker will live. But there are real questions about online. Gambling on the Internet is growing primarily due to slots and bets, not poker.
The only problem is that everywhere except America the rake is high and continues to grow. I think that rake and inflation are our main opponents in the near future. Money is getting cheaper, but the game is not flowing to higher limits. Just like 10 years ago, the main limits are $1/$2 and $2/$5. And $5/$10 and higher will not be available in every place and not every day.
Apart from that, I'm generally optimistic about live poker.