Online legend Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and company discuss the current state of online poker
We rounded up four of the best online players in the world to tell us why winning a WSOP bracelet means nothing to them, the nosebleed stakes are about to get bloodier and why there’s no magic formula for beating the online game
Online poker is easy. Discuss.
DAVID BENEFIELD: It’s not as easy as it used to be. Six months to a year ago, there were a lot more $ 25/$ 50 no-limit games. Now you can make some good money, dropping down, multi-tabling 12 tables at smaller stakes but it’s mind-numbingly boring and I can’t do it anymore. Leatherass is the king of that. He’ll 12-table all day, every day at $ 5/$ 10 and make $ 800 an hour – that’s a ton of money. It’s tough, there aren’t really any mid-stakes no-limit games anymore. You either have to play $ 10/$ 20, $ 25/$ 50 or $ 200/$ 400. When you play the $ 25/$ 50 level, it’s almost all the best players that don’t want to play $ 200/$ 400. At $ 200/$ 400, there is occasionally a fish, but it’s such high stakes and high variance that it’s really hard to do.
ERIC LIU: It definitely isn’t as good as it was 6 months to a year ago, but 80% of the time I sit down at a $ 25/$ 50 table and feel like I have a pretty significant edge. I think most of the edge comes with tilt control, bankroll management, lifestyle; just being able to keep that clear head and not tilt off $ 300k a night when you’re drunk.
TOM DWAN: It would be easy for me to make decent money but to make the most I can is still a task. I could definitely go to $ 5/$ 10 and make a few hundred bucks an hour without thinking too much.
BRIAN TOWNSEND: The edge against other good players is pretty small and the difference between the top players in the $ 25/$ 50 games isn’t that far off from the guys playing much higher than that. There’s a big jump in limits but not necessarily in skill levels. People are so specialised. Even the best heads-up limit player is different from the best six-max limit player. You can’t be the best at more than one specific thing in my opinion, just because there are so many people playing so many hands.
Aren’t a lot more people playing PLO now?
EL: It’s still relatively new and there’s a lot of room for everyone to improve which is why people have been playing it a lot more. A lot of the recreational players who aren’t professional like the gambling aspect of any poker game.
TD: People have got a lot better at PLO in the last few months. They still mess up more in PLO than they do in no-limit though.
BT: I found my variance in PLO was twice that of no-limit hold’em. That’s why it’s such a popular game. Somebody can sit down with two or three buy-ins and have 10 in a very short amount of time. Things can go the other way. There are days playing PLO when you just don’t win a pot. You lose with top set and you just want to throw your computer through the wall.
A few weeks ago we had two of the biggest online pots ever. Are we going to start seeing $1m pots as the norm from now on?
TD: I’d say it’s likely that we’ll see a $ 1m pot in the next 12 months. The games have gotten extremely big and there are a lot of people with a lot of money online.
EL: The top players are definitely making more and more and are therefore willing to gamble with higher and higher stakes. I think people have been asking for $ 500/$ 1k for a while. They’ve been playing higher than that live – and whatever they’re comfortable playing with live, they’ll definitely be comfortable playing online. There’s going to be people rolled for it and people not rolled for it but there’s always going to be people playing as high as it goes.
BT: If they had a stake where all somebody had in their account was one buy-in, they’d still play it. It’s just the way poker players are a lot of the time.
EL: There was a specific player about half a year ago – I don’t want to call anyone out – he was a very good limit player and he ran up a really big roll and he decided to play durrrr heads-up one day. It was two tables of limit and two tables of no limit. There’s no way this player had an edge on durrr in no-limit. It was very obvious to everyone watching that he was tilting and that eventually he would lose his whole roll if he kept on playing. But he kept going. Even though he was a talented limit player, he ended up losing $ 200k on the session. You’re always going to have people who gamble with you. Someone like David Benyamine likes to play all games and he might not be a favourite in all of them.
How many people are actually rolled for the highest levels?
EL: I don’t think any of them are!
BT: Except for Guy (Laliberte). It depends what you consider properly bankrolled and what your risk of ruin is. Some people are fine playing that game with ten buy-ins.
EL: No one really plays $ 500/$ 1k as their standard bread and butter game. In order to have something as your bread and butter game, you need to have 40 buy-ins at least. The variance is just so sick that I don’t think anyone would want to be doing it all the time. I can play that game and lose $ 100k and not play until I’ve made that $ 100k back.
BT: Eric doesn’t have a family or kids right now so taking that $ 100k shot is probably the right thing to do.
Are there still things that surprise you when you play?
TD: Yeah, I think the second you think you’ve got nothing to learn is the point where you’re going to lose money. Even playing against people that you’re definitely better than, you can still learn because at high stakes – even if they’ve got a lot of money through businesses – they’re usually still going to be really smart. Bad players still take cool lines.
BT: There are always people doing different things. Just yesterday, I was playing a hand in a tournament, but it was early on, so more like a cash game. I was bluffing by giving someone the opportunity to show down easily. I checked on the turn having bet the flop. That’s a line that would never have been used a year ago.
The old school live pros are always critical of the online guys’ lack of feel and instinct at the table. Is that a fair observation?
TD: I think online players might initially miss things that live players see, just like live players might miss click tells online. But people can learn and I would say that there’s not much stuff that online players won’t pick up on live if they’re good.
EL: Feel and instinct isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something that happens over time. So what they say may be true simply because we don’t have the experience that they do. I also feel like our fundamentals are so much better than theirs.
BT: I guess I don’t really feel like instinct exists. When I go into a game, I’ll think I have it down but six months later I’ll think, ‘Jeez I did not know what I was doing.’ So I don’t think it’s instinct but more like your skill level increasing.
Is the average online player better than the average live player?
DB: It depends on what you’re talking about. Heads-up no-limit definitely. Nine-handed tournaments? Maybe not. It’s just such a different thing. If you look at the high stakes limit games, the H.O.R.S.E games, I don’t think there are too many online guys who are doing well in that just because they don’t have any experience in it. But in the games like heads-up and short-handed no-limit, I think they definitely have an edge. They have more experience, they’ve played higher stakes for a longer amount of time. In terms of big field live tournaments, I think there’s definitely a bunch of stuff that the live pros do better: taking money from less- experienced players, more situational stuff. We shouldn’t take anything away from them, it’s just a different world.
TD: If you compare similar stakes, yes, the average player at $ 5/$ 10 online is definitely better than the equivalent live player. Online you’ll play more games against tougher people.
What’s your motivation like to win EPT titles, WPTs and WSOP bracelets?
BT: I have no motivation to win any. That sounds really bad but I just don’t really feel like a WSOP bracelet would impact me in any meaningful way.
EL: I actually am quite motivated to win a bracelet because it’s something that I want like a car or a house. But it’s not something that you can really buy. It’s not really for status, just for myself.
BT: Don’t get me wrong, if I was to win one that would be great. But the amount of work it takes on average is actually quite high. You have to put in a lot of time during the summer. You’ve got to be in Vegas for two months on end and play every tournament. It would take a few years even if you are a top player. I just don’t have the desire to put that effort into that aspect of my game. I’d rather put it into business or cash games.
EL: I think the risk-reward is very bad financially for players like me and Brian who play a lot of high stakes cash.
DB: Ever since watching Rounders, where he had the dream to win the WSOP, I always wanted to win it. There’s something to be said about the thrill of victory in a big tournament – not that I’d know! It’d be pretty sweet but it’s not one of my primary concerns.
TD: I’d like to win them mainly so I could get a better sponsorship deal and to attract people to play me who don’t know much about poker but just want to play me because I won one tournament. Other than that, I don’t really have much desire to. Although, making a final table is pretty fun
Would you guys say you’ve got a good concept of the value of money?
BT: I think there are definitely some people who try and burn through as much money as they can, bottles of Cristal wherever they go. I really don’t have that much desire to do that. I’ve made a few extravagant purchases where I look back and think, ‘That was pretty dumb’, bought a pretty nice car (Porsche Cayenne turbo S, $ 125k) that didn’t really add much to my life. It broke down a lot!
EL: I’ve been pretty conservative with my roll. I haven’t bought a car yet. I drive a Mazda RX-8. I bought a watch – that’s pretty much it. I spend a lot of my money on travelling and good food. I guess my value of money has been reduced a little bit. Every poker player that plays high stakes is going to have a skewed concept of money. Winning or losing $ 100k a day is going to do that to you.
DB: Obviously the value of money is different to a normal 22-26 year old who grinds it out in a 40 hour week, making $ 30k-$ 40k a year. I’ve always been nitty-ish. I’ve bought a couple of nice things; I have a couple of houses, bought some nice-ish cars but like Brian said, the cars and stuff haven’t added that much value. But I do like getting in a really nice car, driving around, pulling up to the valet, leaving it out front if I’m lucky. I’m big into investing and making sure my money lasts forever so I don’t have to be tied down or working to make a living. I think there are a lot of players who do spend a lot of money at least initially until they grow as a person. I was definitely like that. When I had a $ 20k roll, I’d drop $ 15k playing blackjack. I was 18, it was like, ‘Cool, I have money, let’s go get rid of it!’
EL: It’s interesting because I know a lot of $ 2/$ 4 grinders that spend much much more than I do. I find it really surprising because they really don’t have the roll to be doing that.
BT: I think a lot of poker players live hand to mouth. They live by whatever they have in their pocket, that’s what they play with and that’s what they spend.
TD: I’ve never been in a situation where I wanted something but couldn’t get it, like new trainers or new clothes. My parents were upper middle class so it’s not that big of a change
Is poker a fulfilling occupation?
DB: I think the whole premise of poker – which is to take money from another person – isn’t very conducive to leading a fulfilling life. I’m just trying to find other things that I can do. I’m not quitting poker. The money is great, I like travelling, seeing all my friends all over the world. That’s why I like playing live tournaments. As far as fulfilment goes, I don’t think that I’m going to find it in poker – I don’t think anyone is. Phil Hellmuth might!
EL: I’m a little bit different. I really like the game and I like the competitive aspect more than anything. I like being able to outthink someone and dominate them in a heads-up match. In terms of fulfilment, it makes me happy. But it’s not really constructive. I find that in other things. I like to do community service, helping people out.
DB: I guess the key is balance, you just can’t be playing poker all the time, all day every day. I think that’s what I got into doing for a couple of years. It just really wasn’t good for me mentally. I let it consume me and that’s not really a recipe for long-term happiness.
TD: It’s kind of a means to an end. I enjoy a lot of aspects and there’s nothing I could do which would make me anywhere near the money without putting in a ton more work.
BT: I love playing games. Just last week I started playing backgammon for the first time. I was getting all into it playing online. I don’t think poker is something I would do as a profession if there wasn’t money in it, but this is something I would enjoy doing on my own. I think sometimes we don’t realise how lucky we are to be doing something that we really enjoy and that we’re successful at. It gives us so much freedom to do other things.
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