Yevgeniy Timoshenko tells PokerPlayer magazine “What I’ve Learned From Poker”
My edge in tournaments was biggest when I first started out in 2006.
I kind of figured things out on my own before other players did. But I think the edges are getting smaller and players are getting a lot better. It’s a lot tougher now to do anything that would make myself a lot better. At this point doing a lot of studying is mostly just going to improve my game in very marginal ways.
Without online poker it’s really tough to be super sharp and be confident about your game and be sure about all your decisions.
Since Black Friday I’ve pretty much only been playing live. I’ve mostly been travelling to the biggest tournaments. I have a few friends in Mexico and I think I will set up residence down there and fl y down twice a year for events like SCOOP and WCOOP.
Online poker gives you the ability to see a lot of hands and you are constantly in new situations and that keeps you sharp.
When you are only playing live there are a lot of situations you don’t get into and you start to get rusty and lose your feel for the game.
I always want to win, and I was disappointed with my second place finish to Jake Cody in the WSOP heads-up in 2011.
But I have to look back on it and just be thankful I even got that far. Jake Cody is a really good player, but I played a lot of highstakes sit-and-gos and high-stakes cash so I think I had an edge on him. I think I played well, but the cards didn’t fall my way. Towards the end it was a pretty even match as we both had 20 big blinds and it was about who would cooler who first.
The Epic Poker league was a good concept and having a tournament like that is great for poker.
Having a system that recognises the best tournament players in the world is good for the spectators. But I don’t think they had much of a business model. They overrated their ability to get mainstream sponsors.
I get a lot more satisfaction from winning tournaments than I do from winning money.
But I need to make money to support myself. And while it’s nice to play against the best players in the world, if I can’t make money it’s not worth playing.
If you’re just starting out then start online.
The best way to improve your game quickly is by playing online. I would say be smart and treat poker as a business, be patient and study. You can still come up from nothing and become one of the biggest players today.
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