— All right, welcome everybody. The man joining me for today's podcast needs no introduction, but I'm going to do it anyway. Alex Foxen's got over 50 million in career tournament earnings. One of the absolute legends of the game and someone I'm happy to call my friend.
Thanks for joining me, brother.
"What's up, man? Happy to be here."
— You want to jump right in? Anything you want to say?
"I'm happy to be here. I always love doing podcasts like this. I don't do it very often, honestly, because I do think there's an element of poker where sharing your thought process, even on anything, gives away a little information to some of the sharper observers. So it's one of those things that maybe feels a little bit minus EV to do, but I really do enjoy the conversation. It's a lot of fun, so I'm happy to be here."
— Well, I feel even luckier that you do content with me at Chip Leader. Let's jump in.
Tell me your beginnings in poker, your background before you got into poker, all that jazz.
"Yeah, so for me, my interest in poker began probably around 2002 or 2003 like so many others, around when Moneymaker won. I can remember watching Greg Raymer. That's the WSOP Main Event run that I remember vividly. I can still see the couch I was sitting on and the background of the room where I watched it. I had so much fun watching that run.
Moneymaker increased the interest, and then Raymer had a pretty iconic run. He was a cool and interesting guy. He had those crazy glasses and the fossil on the table."
— Yeah... the fossil thing.
"I didn't really understand the game at the time, but I enjoyed the competitive aspect and the intensity of it. My real background and passion for my whole life was always sports. I played just about every sport under the sun.
— You played sports?
"Certain ones, yeah. I played all of them as long as I could. I played soccer, hockey, football, lacrosse, basketball. Those were the ones I played in organized leagues, and I kept playing all of them until I had to pick when I got to high school and the seasons started overlapping. My three sports were hockey, football, and lacrosse. I dropped baseball, basketball, and soccer for those. Hockey and football were my two favorites, and the two I really considered pursuing after high school.
It was always my dream to play a sport professionally. That was what I was after. I remember when I was a kid, sleeping with my hockey stick during hockey season. I've always been a very obsessive person. I’d get into a mode, and that would be all I cared about. I just loved that sport more than anything.
I’d actually say that’s the closest thing to a regret I have in life. I don't like having regrets. I don't feel like I do have regrets, but not playing hockey after high school or not pursuing it is probably the closest thing to one. I chose football instead, and that took me down a different path."
— I knew when you got grounded as a kid, you’d get locked in your room with a dictionary. Were you still allowed to sleep with the hockey stick?
"Yeah, actually. I think that’s where some of the obsession came from. And it kind of segues well into poker. My parents — I was a little bit of a troublemaker. Nothing terrible, but I talked back to teachers, didn’t always listen to what my parents told me. That kind of thing."
— A little Dennis the Menace type?
"Yeah. I remember my third-grade teacher called my parents in once and told them I was going to end up in prison. I was maybe nine or ten at the time. Somewhere in that neighborhood. My mom was pretty upset about that — not at me, but just in general.
It's interesting because I think a lot of the qualities that led her to say something like that are the same qualities that helped me be successful in the things I went after. I had a low regard for other people’s opinions. I didn’t really care what something might look like to others. I was very obsessive and very determined to do things I enjoyed.
I found myself grounded a lot as a teenager. And one of the things I did — which coincided really well with the Moneymaker era and watching Fossilman — was I’d sit in my room and deal poker hands. I'd deal out an eight-handed or nine-handed table, and I’d put every hand face up and play every spot."
— Street by street?
"Street by street. Every position. I’d try to think, if I had this hand, what would I do? If I’m in this seat, how does my hand compare to the rest? I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was trying to think it through. I spent a lot of time doing that. Probably hundreds of hours just dealing hands in my room and playing them out.
So I would get to effectively play nine hands at once and be like, "All right, this guy's gonna do this. Well, then if he does that, I'm gonna do this." That was really how I first started learning poker. I think it was a pretty cool introduction to learning the game because it's something very few people get to see.
When you play, obviously, you don't see what people fold. You don't see what they fold on the turn or preflop. So getting an understanding of how often people have bad hands was something that really revealed itself to me at an early stage."
— Were you around when PokerStars would have final table replays like a week later with face-up hole cards? I used to watch those, which is kind of similar.
"I wasn't watching them live at the time, but this was later on. So fast forward to 2014 — I had been playing football in college, but I got a bunch of concussions and had to stop playing. That kind of ended my sports career. I needed a competitive outlet, and poker was the perfect one for me. I really enjoyed the game.
My studies in school were mostly in math and finance. I also took a lot of classes in physics. The theoretical and mathematical aspects of poker were really interesting to me on an intellectual level. Then you have the competition and intensity, which replaced that void from not being able to play sports. It was kind of the perfect thing to dive into once that moment came.
I remember the PokerStars EPT Super High Roller final table replays. That was one of my first methods of studying. I would play the Bovada and Carbon Poker online schedule at night, then wake up and watch EPT replays all day. Just like I was with everything else, I was obsessed. I spent many years either playing or consuming poker for 12 to 16 hours a day. It was all I did."
— That makes sense. And for those of you who don't know, Alex played tight end at Boston College for three or four years.
"Three. I had to stop playing in my third year."
— So happy for us that we found poker. This next question — I have a version of it in my head, and I've told this story many times. But I'm really curious to hear your perspective on how we met and how you got involved in Chip Leader Coaching.
"That's a good one. First of all, I feel like when we met — or right before we met — I was at a very interesting juncture in my poker career. I always had a high level of confidence in my ability to play well and compete. I was one of those people who just believed, whether or not I was right, that I could do anything I set my mind to."
— Just kind of delusional confidence?
"Yeah, exactly. That’s actually a very valuable trait. Obviously, you can take it too far and it becomes detrimental, but it helped me a lot. Poker is a weird form of competition."
— Do you think poker is a sport?
"Yeah, I mean — yes and no. I think there are a lot of things that make it very close to a sport. I would say it's a sport. I really do. I think it's a mental sport. I hesitate because I'm not 100% sure, but it carries so many characteristics of things that I would classify as a sport."
— I feel the exact same way. Like, yes… but no… but yes.
"Exactly. I think poker is more of a sport than chess, personally. The interpersonal aspect is huge. In chess, obviously, you’re responding to your opponent's moves, but it's a little more methodical and repeatable. Poker is so situational, and execution is actually really difficult and important. Some people are just clutch performers and others aren't.
I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t know enough about chess and that’s where my comparison falls apart.
I believe it or not, I probably played less than ten games of chess in my entire life."
— Oh, I used to play a bunch when I was little, but probably haven’t played a game in 25 years — maybe one or two.
Read Read"It’s so interesting to me because I’ve always loved strategy games. I loved board games as a kid. I remember playing Settlers of Catan. I have a box somewhere from the last three years and never opened it.
There’s a fairly high skill cap. We would play the expansion version — I believe it was called Cities and Knights. It adds layers of complexity. I’d play with four people, and I’d win like 75% of the time."
— So you actually had ROI in Settlers of Catan.
"Yeah, my win rate — my BB per hundred — was really high in that game. But I feel like I got off topic. You originally asked..."
— What's your version of how we met.
"Back to that. I was at a crossroads in my poker career. I felt like I was improving. I was playing bigger stakes than I ever had. But I knew I was missing something. I knew there was some element of the game I needed to figure out.
I had so many runs in tournaments — 16th, 7th, deep runs — but I didn’t have that closer instinct. That X factor to know when to put on the gas or when to press the brakes. A couple things contributed to that. And you saw one of them firsthand, pretty early in our relationship."
— The first time we played together was in a $2,500 at the Venetian. You, Alex, cold four-bet folded to a five-bet three times in two orbits. And honestly, I wasn’t even sure if you had a good hand. At the time, we were still doing coaching for profit at Chip Leader. I was looking for one more guy. And I remember thinking — the fact that I didn’t know if you were bluffing or not — I was like, this kid’s got it.
"Yeah. I definitely remember that vividly. That was a cool moment for me. I had some friends in poker, but very few — and none who were very successful.
You had already had some success. You were a name I knew. So to have someone like you approach me like that was kind of like — whoa. I turned this guy’s head. Not that I doubted myself, but it definitely added a layer of confidence. Like, okay, I’m onto something."
— So tell me about your rise to the high-stakes scene. Now you play everything — I’ve seen you in $500K buy-ins. We were both lucky enough to play and cash one last year. But you used to grind really low stakes. What was the breakthrough moment?
"I kind of get chills any time I talk about this. It still feels surreal. But at the same time, it felt inevitable. I don’t know how else to describe it.
I remember one day I was playing $50 buy-ins on ACR, back in 2014 or 2015, living at my mom’s house. I went upstairs for dinner or something, and I told her: 'I’m going to play the highest stakes. And I’m going to crush them. I know it.' And that’s not really like me. It was weird to say something like that, but I meant it."
— ...What are you talking about?
"Maybe it does more so now, but to say that to my mom? I guess maybe I’d say it to a friend or something, but to my mom — that wasn’t the kind of person I would say something like that to. It was a weird moment. I just felt very compelled to say it.
But yeah, I just loved the game so much and loved competing so much that the combination of the two — once I got to the point where I was like, all right, I’m going to do this full time, I’m going to commit my life to this — I felt like I didn’t have a choice but to do well. I couldn’t accept anything else. I was just going to keep trying until I did.
Whether that meant playing 18 hours a day or finding a way to add extra hours into the day.
o for me, it was this experience of finding people to have confidence in me and invest in me. I remember when we met — I had a network that helped me play 5Ks and below. I was also kind of a degenerate with my bankroll. It was never money that motivated me, so I didn’t really care if I lost all my money — as long as I had ways to play the next tournament, that’s all I cared about.
I remember one time I had 20K, and I went and played a WPT 3,500 with all of myself. And I was like, well, I still have 16.5K left. What’s the difference between 20 and 16.5?
But yeah, I just really wanted to move up in stakes constantly. And I think that’s probably one of the things that helped me the most — I never saw myself as a 1K grinder.
A satellite was always kind of like, "Okay, I’m playing 500s today, I’m playing a 400 today, but when I win this, then I can play that 5K." That’s what I wanted — to run into the bigger games.
And it wasn’t even from a financial standpoint. I just wanted to play. I wanted to battle these people. And I think that mindset was really helpful in the process of moving up in stakes, because the gravity of the money never affected me.
The tournament that sticks out in my head is the Seminole Hard Rock 2,650 that I won. (In 2017, the first prize was $204,600 – GT.)
— But you won it two years in a row!
"Yes, but I'm talking about the first one."
— I remember it well because I had 50% in the first one, and much, much less the next year.
"I just remember so many things about that tournament. First of all, with 27 people left, I had one big blind. I was devastated. I made some stupid call against a guy who always had aces. I had top pair and lost a 100-big-blind pot in a button vs small blind spot where I called a three-bet I probably shouldn’t have, because the guy was so tight. And I knew it at the time. I just couldn’t get myself to fold."
— Didn’t you have king-queen or ace-queen or something, and it came queen high?
"I think it was king-queen. It came queen high and I just... I just called down like a donkey. I felt so stupid."
— I can’t remember people’s names, but I remember a hand you played eight years ago.
"That’s amazing you remember that. But yeah, it was such a transformative moment for me. Winning that tournament was not only validating, it was just such a crazy experience.
Financially, I probably had sub-$50K — maybe sub-$30K, even. I might have had even less than that. And I won for like $200,000.
You had half. I had the other half. And I was just like, wow.
I remember going up to my room after that and crying. And I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve cried in my life. That was one of them."
— I know three of them.
"I'll keep the other two a secret.
I can’t reveal them all. But yeah, that was probably the biggest catalyst for me. When that happened, it was like... some people started to pay attention to me from a poker perspective. Some already had, but that was a big breakthrough.
It still gives me chills right now. I've had chills running through my body for the last 30 seconds just thinking of that moment. It was so powerful.
I just remember right after that, hopping on a plane to Barcelona for the EPT and losing like a third of my money there. Had some close calls. Whatever. It was fun. I was grateful. But I was like, man, this can go fast. A hundred K isn't as much as I thought it was.
So that was, I guess, 2016. Then 2017 comes along, and I had a very good WSOP — or by very good, I mean I remember being in the running for Player of the Year at some point. I had a bunch of cashes."
— I remember a picture you sent me in the 1,500 deuce-to-seven single draw.
"I had never played the game before. I’d say that was a pretty good encapsulation of my approach to the game. I was like, I don’t know this game, and this buy-in represents like 2% of my net worth. All right. Let’s do it."
— I remember having a Triple Leader Coaching get-together during the WSOP. You decided — this is how hard he grinds, by the way — that you’d rather play a $600 deep stack as your third tournament of the day than come to the meet-up.
"It was the $200 Deepstack. More precisely, the $235 Deepstack."
— During your come-up, your meteoric rise, you actually had the pleasure of battling with the Germans in the early solver era. For those watching who don’t know — the Germans were at the very top of the game for a few years. They just seemed to crush everyone because they were working with solvers before anyone else was.
What was it like battling with those people?
"First of all, I want to say that saying they were at the top of the game is a ridiculous understatement. They were so dominant during that period — it was ridiculous.
I can remember at one point I’m pretty sure the top five on the GPI were all German. They were so dominant. It was like Fedor, Rainer, Dom, Vogelsang, I think Koray, maybe. "
"They were the first to discover solvers. The first to really implement them. And it was very interesting for me to play with them.
This was actually one of the biggest motivators for me — all of these Germans. I really strongly believe that... I’ve never spoken about a poker hand with Dominik Nitsche in my life, but he is responsible for a large portion of my success in poker, because he motivated me so much.
I just remember the condescension that I felt from these super nerdy German kids who saw this big, jock-looking kid come in and do what they thought were stupid things. They didn’t like it. I was way too aggressive, opening too many hands, betting too many spots.
They’d snicker at me. I could tell they were excited to have me at the table — literally laughing at me, openly, handfuls of times. And I see in hindsight that this was all out of insecurity on their part.
I really do believe that. It was one of those things where they saw—"
— All right, Dr. Phil...
"They saw that I was winning and didn’t understand why. Didn’t think it made sense.
So they wanted to—like—it was easiest to just laugh at me instead of be like, “What is he doing that’s working?”
That’s something that we’ve both always been really good at. People might say someone sucks, but they win. And instead of just saying they suck, it’s like, what are they doing that’s good?
Poker is such an interesting game in that sense. This is something that, to go back to how I learned to play, I think was always very clear to me: there was no “answer” in terms of the right way to play.
When I was dealing hands nine-handed face up, one of the things I was doing—this was like—I guess I kind of made my own solver in a way. I would get to a turn spot, and I’d look at what I thought their range would do to a certain bet."
— Exploiting.
"Exactly. And the difficulty that many people have with that strategy is that you open yourself up to making mistakes—and being very, very wrong sometimes. And that’s uncomfortable.
And when you’re playing for a living, and the money matters to you, and maybe you have someone who’s really critical of your game and thinks about poker in a more robotic way—it’s a lot easier to just say, “Well, I’m not going to take it upon myself to create a strategy. I’m just going to do what this thing says.”
Because that’s an authority figure, basically. And they’re telling me what to do. And I’ll be forgiven if I do what it told me."
— It’s justifiable, right? Like, a lot of these people have a backer who’s going to ask some solver nerd if the play was good, and the guy’s going to be like, “No, solver does this.” Then they’re going to be like, “You don’t play the next tournament. Sorry, bro. You’re out.”
"No, that’s what I was about to get into. I think that’s why—part of me believes in like cosmic, you know, plans. And I kind of feel like that’s why we met.
You were the perfect person to help me not only quell that self-doubt that naturally comes from playing this style, but to have someone who’s established and successful say, “That’s okay. You’re on to something here.”
And also someone to help refine that thought process. One of the things I so vividly remember was the word “should.” You were probably the first person to take “should” out of my poker vocabulary. Because I would get very frustrated.
It’s like, I keep running these bluffs and I’m like, “Well, they should fold this because blah blah blah,” and it’s like, yeah, but you just raised every hand for like an hour and a half. I don’t care what they should do. They’re not going to fold anything to you.
And I’d be like, yeah, but they should. And it’s like, no. Get rid of this “should” and ask, what will they do?
Yeah, exactly. That was such an unlock for me. And it’s one of the things that separates people who play a solver method versus people who play more exploitatively. I’m not going to play a strategy that’s based on my understanding of what someone should be doing. I’m going to try to manipulate my strategy in a way that profits from what they are doing—not what they should do.
The elimination of the word “should” was really powerful in that sense. Both from a peace-of-mind standpoint and from a performance standpoint."
— You've had many victories. Which one is your favorite?
"Hmm..."
— You have to think?
"What is it for you?"
— My first bracelet win—the 5K PLO. Nothing felt like that. But it was also different because the fans were right there in these bandstands. And the turn came and I had like 95% equity, and my friends all rushed in, and I was like, “Wait, wait.” And then I got lifted up. I was the first one of my friends to win a bracelet.
I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
"ou know, it’s harder for me to identify a tournament. I think I’d have to say it was Five Diamond. And probably the year that I got second, actually—not the year that I won. Because when I won it, I had already done a lot of other things. But that first year..."
"I’m not just trying to list off things I’ve won, but the 250K—my first bracelet in that—was another really powerful one. It was one of the biggest tournaments they had ever run, and it was my first... you know, it just felt a little more monumental."
— I can see why that wouldn’t be number one though. Because it took you so long to win a bracelet that you had already won a lot of stuff before that.
"Yeah, I didn’t luckbox one right away in a game I barely know like PLO."
— I was grinding PLO. I was very confident.
"I know. I know. That was a bad joke. I could’ve done better than that."
— All right, I got a few rapid fire ones for you.
"Wait, hold on. Before you start this, I do want to go back to that question. Because what I was trying to set up was that to me, the year I won the GPI Player of the Year award—that overtook all of them.
I think a lot of that is because my belief is that anyone can win a tournament. Well, it’s not just my belief—everyone knows this. Anyone can win a tournament. But prolonged success is very hard. Longevity is the proof of performance in poker.
You can’t say, “I played great,” just because you won. For me, that was the moment where I was like, 'Okay, I know I had a great year. I’ve been playing great. This is proof.'"
— Rapid fire. Are you ready?
"Yes."
— Hero call or big bluff?
"Hero call."
— High roller tournaments or tournaments with large fields?
"That's really hard."
— You can expand on them. They’re just not 10-minute answers. Do you want to expand?
"Hero call is just... there’s something about it. First of all, I think it happens less often that I hero call correctly than I get bluffs through. And also, there’s just a feeling. I don’t know how to explain it. The feeling of, “You tried to trick me, and I didn’t let you.” Whereas sometimes you bluff and they just don’t have anything, or they’re just too tight, or whatever. It doesn’t take as much discernment to bluff someone as it does to call them with nothing.
Speaking of, I had a seven-high hero call heads-up in the second year I won that 2650. That was one of my proudest hands ever."
— Yeah, sounds pretty sweet.
"Against Blair Hinkle. I think he still thinks about it."
Foxen during HU with Hinkle— Can you rapid-fire it?
"I had like 7-3 on 6-6-4-4. It was check-call flop, check-check turn, then the river was a deuce and he bet big. And I was just like, this guy has deuce-three or something. It was heads-up in the tournament. Limp-check pre. It wasn’t a huge pot, but I just remember being so confident he was bluffing. Maybe he was bluffing with eight-high, but I don’t think he was. I can’t remember the hand specifically to reverse-engineer my thought process, but I was so sure I was going to win the pot. That was one of the most confident hero calls I’ve ever made."
— Let's have big fields in the Main Events. It doesn't have to be WSOP Main Events, but $5,000 tournaments with a couple thousand players are also possible.
"Of course, finishing deep in a thousand-player field is much more enjoyable than in a High Roller tournament, but High Roller tournaments are, on average, more fun to play."
— Okay. Cash games or tournaments? Simple question, right?
"Tournaments. The biggest psychological difference for me is that in cash games there's no winner. You can win money, but there's no official winner. And I've always wanted to win. I love competing."
— Emotions in poker. Should I endure everything stoically or show emotion?
"Something in between. Stoicism is generally preferable, but sometimes you need to show emotion. If I have to choose, it's stoicism."
— The next one is a bit odd, but I'll read it anyway. Luck or skill?
"What if being lucky is also a skill?"
— Uh-uh...
"I just gave a stupid answer to a stupid question."
— Okay, back to more normal questions. Let's talk about variance in MTTs.
"The longer you play tournaments, the more you realize that losses are inevitable, but victories bring so much joy that they make it all worth it. Every time I bust or suffer from a travel emergency, I simply make up a little for those moments when everything went right. Variance is huge, but when you play a lot, it can be overcome. If you play five tournaments a year, each with two thousand people, you can live your life without ever taking first place. But if you play a good volume of games and are always at your best, luck will definitely come, and all the bad beats will be forgotten. I don't remember my bad beats, but I do remember my wins."
— Do you remember any interesting hands you played against me?
"Well, yeah, there were a lot. Most recently, when you were trying your best to give away our money to the other players in the WPT Choctaw Main Event, which you won."
Foxen at WPT Choctaw before clashing with friend– Let me explain for the channel viewers. There were 24, maybe 30 people left. I 3-bet with , and Foxen moved all-in with We had 50 blinds each, I called and won a big coin, eliminating Foxen from the tournament. I also had the incredible luck of eliminating his wife in 5th place.
— That's how I won my first and only WPT title. Yeah, great hand. Thanks for reminding me of it!
"Considering I finished 19th, it was deeper than you said. (Actually, 21st) My wife is in the tournament with a great stack, and I'm also about 1.7 times the average stack – the average at this stage is usually 30 blinds. And you're doing well, and I'm starting to dream about the three of us making it to the final table. How fun that will be! And then I snap and 4-bet all-in after you reraise my open from UTG."
— I just wanted to make sure one of us won.
"Yeah, you did pretty well. The winner of that coin immediately became the big favorite.
— Is that all you can remember?
"No, of course not. It's just one of the last ones. Although, in general, I usually remember the hands I lose and forget the ones I win, so you can probably recall many more of our encounters."
— Ha-ha-ha!
"Another memorable one took place in Australia. A tournament for $1,600 or $2,000, something like that. We were sitting in the corner of some closet, not in the main building. Wait, did you win that tournament?"
— Yeah.
"It's true. Now I remember. It's funny. Maybe we found a way to manipulate tournament reality."
— Jokes aside, I had incredible luck against you for the first five years, both in all-ins and just in how the cards were dealt. In the last three years, you've been confidently taking revenge.
"Yes. I remember for a while, I couldn't even figure out how to win a single hand against you. And it's not like I didn't try!"
— So tell me the details of that hand in Australia!
"Well, I don't remember it that well. Maybe you can recall the details. I only remember that Chrissy happened to be at our table at that moment (she was playing at a different table) and was shocked by what we were doing."
— Last hand before the break. I three-bet KQo. You cold-four-bet ATo. I think about it. The break starts, Chrissy comes in. And I push all-in. You have 65-70 blinds. You sit there, thinking... and call! I think I made a full house.
"Yeah, I was already dead on the flop. Instantly, it swung from Yeah!! My crazy call went to "Well, right on target."
— And the way Chrissy looked at all this!
"Yeah, I remember her reaction best of all."
— Tell me about your experience playing in Tritons. Expensive tournaments, strong fields. Interesting?
"Tritons are how I always imagined high-stakes poker. A feeling of extreme prestige. An incredible level of organization. The best players in the world. Very wealthy poker fans. Everything is thought out down to the last detail. A very pleasant experience, I must say. I was lucky to show good results, which probably influences my opinion of these tournaments. It’s difficult to play there, but for me it’s the greatest joy, because I love competing against the best in the world. Competing with them and beating them is the most fun there is in poker.
Tritons are the epitome of high stakes. We're incredibly lucky this series exists. I don't know how long it will last, but I do know that nothing like this has ever existed before."
— Since you mentioned it... Poker has given you so much, including a wonderful wife. Tell me about Kristen.
Read Read"Yes, I'm incredibly lucky, and certainly not because I win all-ins. Perhaps the luckiest person on Earth? Personally, I think so. I'm afraid I won't be able to stop, control myself, I'll look stupid, but thanks to Kristen, I've taken a huge step forward both as a person and as a player. Physically, emotionally, psychologically... Her contribution cannot be overstated. She's a special, amazing person, and I say this from the best possible position of an objective observer in such a situation. I am endlessly grateful to her for everything. Incredibly hard-working, incredibly caring, smart, funny, loving... If I were to crash out of all future tournaments without making any money, I would still consider myself the luckiest person in the world.
I warned you that my answer would look stupid, but it's true.
— To conclude our conversation, tell us about your goals in poker today.
"As I've already said, I place great importance on a long, successful career. Many are capable of taking a year or two off. Remaining among the best for decades is the absolute pinnacle. Success can't be chalked up to luck when it comes again and again."
However, I have goals beyond poker. I want to have kids, maybe take a break for a while, and not grind every tournament. I want to spend some time coaching. I really enjoy teaching! I want to give others a chance to experience the joy poker gives me and change their lives for the better.
I see poker as a great field for self-development. You encounter the most unpleasant emotions, the imperfections of your worldview, your misunderstanding of other people's psychology... Poker tests you in every way. And the better you understand the game technically, the more valuable its lessons become.
I love conducting training sessions. Individual or group – it doesn't matter. I guess I just really enjoy talking about this game!"
— I agree. What a teacher feels when their students succeed is incomparable! It's amazing.
"I'm drawn to philosophy again. Our purpose on Earth, I think—well, mine certainly is—is to serve others. That doesn't mean I have to build people new houses or anything like that, but helping them become better at something is important in itself, and brings immense, incomparable joy.
Before anyone asks, "What about all those people who lose money playing poker?" I especially like the fact that almost everyone who loses money playing poker can afford to do so. There are exceptions, but for the most part, this is true. If you look at all the lives poker has changed, more often than not, it's for the better. Poker is, in essence, one of the best mechanisms for wealth redistribution."