Russian Artur Martirosyan is considered one of the best tournament players today due to his outstanding results, both online and live. On the live circuit, he has won $29.4 million, and his titles include three WSOP bracelets, three Triton victories, and an EPT Main Event win in Sochi. He is the most successful Russian player in history, and his biggest prize was a second-place finish in the 2023 WSOP $250,000 Super High Roller for $3.2 million.
In online poker, Artur has amassed $27 million in winnings and holds the record for most titles (12) in the GGMillion$ tournament on GGPoker. He also holds the records for most cashes (92), final tables (49), and winnings ($10.5 million) in that event.
— So how did you build your bankroll from seven-dollar Spin & Gos to the point where you could play 25Ks on GG? Were you severely under-rolled? Did you get into the first one with fifty thousand?
I’ve told this story so many times in Russian, but this is my first time in English. I started playing when I was about 16 years old. I played on PokerStars, but it was illegal. I just put the wrong date of birth, and it was okay at that time. I think there was no real verification process, or maybe I missed it. I don’t know.
I played small stakes, small blinds. Before that, I played with friends of my father. That was the first time poker really opened up for me. I liked the game and started to play more. I played until I was 18, but of course I wasn’t professional. I was just playing for fun. I liked to play.
Then I went to university, and I had a very, very tough schedule. I studied at university, then came home, played all day, slept, woke up, and went back to university. I lived like that for about a year, maybe a year and a half. It was pretty crazy.
At some point, I realized that I didn’t really need university and I didn’t really enjoy it. At the same time, I started to earn some money from poker, so I left university and started to play professionally. But honestly, I think I was already playing like a pro while I was still studying.
My first main game was Spin & Gos, and I was pretty successful at small buy-ins. I played seven-dollar and fifteen-dollar Spin & Gos, and at that moment I earned maybe ten or fifteen thousand dollars over half a year. That was a big amount at that time, especially for me as a student. It was big money.
After that, I discovered MTTs. When I started, I played terribly. I didn’t study at all. I just played, played, played. Then I started to work on my game, and my results improved.
I think my first big success was in those private games, the 25Ks that we played every day. I remember we played four tournaments a day.
— How did you manage to build up the bankroll to play in those tournaments?
I got staked for those tournaments. I was fully staked. So money wasn’t a problem.
— Nice. Did you already have a big network from the Spin & Go days?
Kind of. In Spin & Gos, it’s very easy to calculate your EV. A lot of regular players join one big organization or community. I don’t know the perfect word for it. They track your EV and your actual results, and they compensate for the difference. If you understand what I mean.
I think it still works that way, but Spin & Gos aren’t really alive like they used to be. I miss the period when I moved from fifteen-dollar Spin & Gos to the highest stakes. It took one or two years. It was a very long process.
I stopped at forty-dollar buy-ins for a while, and that was a very tough time. But it’s interesting how Spin & Gos are kind of emblematic of variance. On one hand, they’re extremely high variance because of jackpots. On the other hand, when you join a community like that, it becomes almost zero variance because they pay out the difference.
— There’s a lot of negativity around people selling a very high percentage of themselves in high-stakes MTTs. At the same time, Spin & Go pros are essentially selling everything. They’re just playing for EV, and no one seems to criticize that at all.
Any thoughts on that from either of you?
I mean, I think that there’s just a lot more ego with tournament players, right? So, if they see someone that’s selling over 90% for a tournament, there’s this feeling of, “Oh, maybe this guy doesn’t deserve to be there.” You know, maybe they just got lucky to find a backer or whatever.
I would argue, often it means they deserve even more to be there. I mean, if they found a backer who we think is not sharp, sure, but if sharp players are buying them, it’s more indicative that they belong. Because anyone could, if they have whatever the buy-in is, decide to gamble on themselves.
— Did being backed add pressure to you? When you went from Spin & Go’s to the GG 25Ks without that much MTT experience, and then you had some sort of backing or staking deal, was there a lot of pressure that you felt emotionally on yourself?
No. I think just the guy who staked me trusted me, and maybe it was too much trust, because I started to play MTTs when I wasn’t ready to play them.
So, yeah, I lost some money before I start winning, and I could avoid this. Yeah, if he can just offer me to take some lessons or coaching, he can lose much, much less money if he did this.
— Arty took home his 12th GGMillions title.
— I'm the Jason Koon of the GGMillion$ tournaments.
I think GG Millions is actually one of the softest high-stakes fields.
If we’re talking about high-stakes tournaments, say $5K buy-ins and above, there are tournaments that have no VIPs, or maybe one VIP. Usually it’s just regulars, with very different skill sets. They’re mostly playing for respect. I play those sometimes as well.
But honestly, I also play because I don’t really respect some of the players, and I truly believe that some bad regs can lose more than some VIPs if you know how to exploit them.
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— You’re a very high-volume, prolific player, and I wanted to ask about motivation. Everyone has a different reason for being at the table, and of course it’s never just one reason. Are you waking up thinking, “This is exactly what I want to do today,” or are you motivated by wanting to be the best, or by glory goals, money goals?
I think I just like to play. I don’t force myself to play. I don’t really remember ever needing motivation. I don’t like to set money goals or goals in general. I just want to be one of the best. I work on my game, I like to work on my game, and I like to play. That’s it. Everything feels simple.
— After Jeju, all three of us were there, but John left early because he doesn’t play the tough games. Two cards only. We stayed the whole time. It was a very long trip, and I was completely exhausted afterward.
What did the few days after you got back from a really long trip like that look like for you?
I was exhausted as well. I noticed that short deck was running, and in hindsight, I think I should have left earlier. But that might be result-oriented thinking. Short deck is definitely my worst game, and at the time I didn’t realize that not many points were on the line. Initially, I started playing short deck because of POY considerations. Then I realized there really weren’t many points for it.
— What is your usual poker routine like?
If the game is running at a good time for me, why not? I play under very specific conditions sometimes. But now I’m trying to be more selective. I play when the conditions are convenient. When there’s no big online series, there’s nothing to play, so I usually just play on Sundays.
When there are good games and a lot of tournaments with at least $1K buy-ins, I can play more days, maybe three, four, or even five days a week. In the past, I had periods where I played for a month and a half, twelve hours per day. I did nothing else. I just played every day, and on some days I reviewed my play.
— What do you do on those other days when there isn’t much poker going on? How do you spend your time?
Sometimes I spend time working on my game, but I also play a lot of tennis. Over the last few months, I’ve been playing tennis a lot. I feel very motivated there as well. I play with kids now, but very talented kids. I play with a guy who is ten or eleven years old, and he’s very solid.
— Are you playing chess as well, by the way? We talked about tennis, so I’m just curious. You have the Magnus Carlsen avatar on GG.
Yeah. Surprisingly, I get a lot of questions about my avatar with Magnus, but there’s nothing special behind it. I just really love Magnus in chess. For me, Magnus is the face of chess. He’s a legend, almost like a god of the game. I think he’s the best chess player of all time. I put him as my avatar because when I look at him, he feels like the face of discipline. He reminds me to be more disciplined.
— Do you play chess yourself?
Yeah, a few years ago, when I watched The Queen’s Gambit, that show influenced a lot of people to start playing chess or studying chess. I played during that period. There was a time when I played a lot of chess. Not with very good results, but my peak rating was around 1500 on Chess.com.
I played on Chess.com. And then, for some reason, I just stopped playing. Now I might play sometimes with friends, maybe once every couple of weeks or once every few months. But now I’m not following chess news and I’m not really playing at all. Still, there was a period when I really liked chess.
— Do you not need decompression through totally different activities? Do you feel continually renewed by poker?
Read ReadSometimes I feel the same, but playing two series in a row isn’t something special for me. But WSOP is different. For me, WSOP feels like a vacation.
In WSOP tournaments, I don’t really need to think deeply. I have a basic strategy, not many exploits, and you’re playing against random people. For me, it’s much easier. It’s easier for me to play one and a half months of WSOP than to play one Triton series.
— What do you see as your strengths as a poker player compared to other regulars? What do you think you’re particularly good at?
I think one of my main skills is changing gears. I see a lot of players, even high-stakes players, who can’t do that. Some players are chip leaders, and then when they drop to an average stack, they continue playing like chip leaders. That’s a big mistake.
You need to be aware of your stack every hand. Things change constantly, and you need to be ready to adjust your game. I think I’m very good at that.
Another strength is theory. I know a lot of theory. Of course, not everything. No one knows everything. In some aspects of the game, other players know more than me. But in other aspects, I know more than many players. I’m always trying to improve, but I think my theoretical understanding is very strong.
I also think I know how to play against VIPs better than most of the field. There are many hands I would play completely differently against VIPs compared to regulars.
— What about weaknesses?
Yeah, I know one thing, but I don’t want to say it.
— Have you had any colossally bad downswings?
I think every new downswing, I handle better than the previous one. I’ve never really had huge problems with downswings because I think I’m mentally strong. I’ve played a lot of online poker, and I’ve never broken anything or lost control. I’m usually patient.
Sometimes I talk to myself and say bad things about my opponents in my head, but that’s the worst of it. I’m also working on not doing that.
— How much does it affect your mood with other people? If you’re on a downswing, do people around you notice?
It depends on how big the downswing is. But usually, people don’t notice anything. I probably look the same. Maybe I talk a little less. If we’re having a normal conversation, they might notice, or they might not. It depends on whether I want them to see it or not.
— When you have doubts about some hands you play and they eliminate you, does that lead you to stop playing to analyze the hands or does it motivate you to get back to playing as quickly as possible?
Usually, you have hands that will disturb you mentally, even if you played them correctly. Sometimes it’s two indifferent decisions where you could choose one or the other and not bust the tournament. Those thoughts are stupid, but you can’t avoid them.
I remember when I made the final table of a big 10K event in Vienna, the WPT Main Event. It was a huge tournament with around 4,000 entries. I think it was day seven or day eight. We were down to the final six. I had a short stack, but not really short, around 15 big blinds. One double-up and you’re back to an average stack.
I finished sixth. Before that, I had spun it up to an average stack. Then I put all my chips in a spot where the decision was very close. I later calculated the hand, and my decision was slightly worse than the other option.
After I busted, the interviewer clearly didn’t understand what was happening. When you make the final table, you’ve already locked up sixth place, and when you bust, the interviewer said something like, “I think you’re happy now. Tell me about your emotions from the final table.” She was smiling.
Maybe I was rude in that moment, but I was like, are you kidding me? What are you asking? It was in Russia. It felt like, “Congratulations on playing for three hours today and finishing in the worst place possible. You must be very proud.” That’s exactly how it felt.
Artur at the final table of the 2023 WPT World Championship / Photo: WPT.com— What does working on your game look like today?
Right now, it’s mostly about ICM decisions. I look at chip EV, but not a lot. I’ve studied chip EV spots enough in my life, I think. Sometimes I’ll still look, but mostly it’s ICM spots.
I label hands, and when I have a day off, I review all my hands. Not only my hands, but also hands where someone played something strange at my table. If I think it’s strange, usually it really is strange, but sometimes I can be wrong. In those cases, I explore new strategies.
— Going back to the beginning, when you were starting with Spin & Gos and then moving to MTTs, were there specific people who helped you the most in your career? Are those people still around now?
To answer that question, I was never coached by anyone. When I started playing, there was no one I could talk to about hands. I was completely alone.
And now I have a few students that I can discuss the game with, but it’s not like I have players that I’m regularly reviewing hands with. For me, it’s enough to review the hand myself and understand how to construct exploits in that spot. I usually don’t need another opinion.
— Are there people in your life where, if you made a mistake or they think you punted, they would just tell you directly?
Yeah. With Aleksejs Ponakovs, he’s maybe the only person I really discuss hands with. If I play something badly, he’ll tell me directly. Maybe not immediately after the hand, but definitely after the day or after the tournament. He’ll say it.
— Do you think it’s important, or even mandatory, to have relationships like that?
I think it’s nice to have, but it’s not the main thing. Sometimes we discuss hands during live series, but when we’re playing online, maybe it’s one hand a month or something. Almost nothing.
— What do you think we’re in for strategically over the next year or two? Do you think there are new strategies that aren’t common now but might emerge? Do you think ICM is mostly solved, or is it moderately or heavily flawed?
Read— I think yes, there are things coming. I even have a few examples, but I don’t know if I should say them, because people might start playing differently after hearing it.
I think limp strategies are underestimated, especially in ICM spots. We don’t see many limps. Usually it’s just big raises. It’s very hard to calculate limp strategies, so people default to raising. I think we might see more open limps in the future.
Also in ICM, I think we’ll see more leads. Right now, there aren’t many, but there are a lot of ICM spots where leading should exist on certain textures, and people just don’t use them. They play everything like chip EV. Even if a player understands that a certain texture is good for leading, say 20% of the range, they’ll often skip it because they don’t want to play a strange spot or look strange to others. I think that matters to some people.
— So, something different. We’ll do a little PLO breakdown. A fun hand that we played. It was fun for you, not fun for me until the very end, and then it was fun for me and not fun for you.
I'd like to talk about this hand we played in a Pot Limit Omaha tournament. I’m the cutoff. I open, and you defend with .
The flop was , and you paid my continuation bet.
Yeah, I know roughly my strategy on this board, but I don’t know how to explain my entire range and full strategy here.
— Did you consider a check-raise?
No. In this spot, this hand is for sure not in my check-raise range. It’s a very weak draw. So we call once versus one-third, and then if we don’t improve, we just give up. We need better blockers or a stronger draw to check-raise the flop. Non-nut draw, bad visibility. So no check-raise on the turn.
— The turn was a , and we both checked. The river was a , and you went out betting.
I think the best bet size in that case is 1/3 or half a pot at most, to be able to get value from worse hands like straights, two pairs or sets.
— I decided to raise and you had to make a difficult decision.
At that moment I realized that my hand wasn't the strongest and that I was losing against a larger color like , , or . I don’t have a ton of experience in Omaha, but I’ve played enough to know that in spots like this, you need a very specific opponent to show up with a bluff. Most players have no bluffs here. I have all the straight flushes, so a lot of value combos. I need to have bluffs, and I need to use them. Otherwise, I can just fold to your raise and forget the hand.
— Let's look at another hand, at the final table of a $100K Main Event at Triton Jeju. There are 8 players left and the blinds are 125K/250K. You raise to 500K with and a stack of 8.8M. Sam Greenwood (11M) called in one of the blinds with and the flop was .
The preflop action was fairly standard, but things got interesting on the turn. The turn was a . He bet 775K into 375K. I think here it’s already close. Versus some players, maybe I can fold the turn. Versus some players, I’m happy to call. Against a neutral opponent, I decided to call.
The river was a and bet 2M. One option I have is to go all-in to represent the flush, since in my range I have hands like , , , , and , I rule it out. and —I would have continued on the flop with those hands. But his bet size was almost 70% of the pot, which made me think he could have either value hands, bluffing hands, or bad draws. I had a tough decision to make and decided to call. After analyzing the hand in depth, I concluded that it was sometimes better to fold or go all-in than to call.
— You’re at a Triton final table tomorrow. Everyone has 30 big blinds. Name the three players you’d least like to see at the table.
Aleksejs Ponakovs, Juan Pardo Domínguez, Adrián Mateos, and Mikita Badziakouski.
— If it wasn’t for poker, what would you be doing?
I’ve thought about this recently. I think I’d have a few options. I could be a journalist or a photographer, maybe a commentator, not a popular sports commentator, or a dolphin coach. And maybe something in business. I think I have some skills I could develop.
— Our final question is always three recommendations of any kind.
- Be balanced in life, not only in poker. D
- Don’t force yourself to play if you don’t want to. Do what you actually want to do.
- If you start playing poker and want to be good at it, understand that it’s not easy and not always fun. It takes a lot of time and effort, and you might end up with nothing. You really have to believe in yourself and in what you’re doing.
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