Ben ‘Milkybarkid’ Grundy

Despite his boyish looks, 30-year-old Ben Grundy has been a constant feature in high stakes online games and on the European tournament circuit for many years now. Having had his interest in poker piqued by chance when neighbour Mansour Matloubi won the 1990 World Series of Poker Main Event, he gradually moved up the levels until a bankroll-boosting deep run at the EPT Grand Final in 2005. Sponsorship from Betfair followed, but he recently relinquished it in favour of a Badbeat deal, where he’s now bankrolled to pit his expert pot-limit Omaha skills against some of the best players in the world at nosebleed stakes.

Early learning

‘I started playing at about 11 years old after Mansour Matloubi won the 1990 WSOP. He lived around the corner and his son was a friend of mine. He used to give us £50 notes to go ten-pin bowling and play fruit machines, which was very cool and made me look up to him. After he won we started playing poker a fair bit and that continued through my teenage years where I made a bit of money in private games with friends. We mainly played Omaha as it was more fun, but I moved into Hold’em later.’

‘I started playing internet poker on Paradise Poker about six or seven years ago. I think I was mainly playing $ 1/$ 2 and $ 2/$ 4 PLO, and I remember I used to play a lot against Kirill Gerasimov (a very successful Russian player who has won over $ 2m in live tournaments). From 2003 to 2005 I played mainly to supplement my income, as I was working full-time as a computer consultant and project manager for some large NHS projects. I was also playing regularly in the Vic casino in London as there were some larger games there.’

From Monte Carlo to pro

‘Over time I started doing really well at six-max PLO online, and in 2005 I decided to quit my job to mainly play online poker. I played $ 2/$ 4 and some $ 5/$ 10 for a while, then I final-tabled the EPT Monte Carlo for €79,500, which meant I had a much bigger bankroll and could play $ 10/$ 20. I remember finishing one session with a stack of $ 44,000 and thinking I had cracked it!’

‘I’d been playing a lot on Betfair and soon after Monte Carlo the site decided to sponsor me so I was able to properly “go pro”, which was lucky as I had to take a sick day to finish the tournament in Monte Carlo! I was doing very well online at this point and started taking shots at much bigger games, both in NLHE and PLO. In 2006 I remember winning and losing $ 200,000 in a day playing $ 200/$ 400 PLO, which was a ridiculous swing considering my bankroll at the time.’

Tourney travels

‘I’ve played the tournament circuit for about three years now, including most of the EPT events since Season 1, and I’ve done okay. I missed a big opportunity at the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final in Season 2 when I felt like I was going to win the tournament. I played my best poker for three days and was chip leader with 14 left. But I played badly for an hour and finished ninth for €56,000 when first place was €900k. I was gutted and it took me a long time to get over it as you don’t get many opportunities to win such a big tournament. The fields nowadays are much bigger and the standard is a lot higher than two or three years ago, so who knows when my next shot will come.’

Ups and downs

‘For most of 2007 I played $ 25/$ 50 and $ 50/$ 100 PLO – the stakes where I’ve had most success. When I play any bigger I tilt far too easy, as it’s hard to play your A-game when you have bad beats for over $ 50,000.’

‘My biggest downswing was in early 2007. From January to June I lost about $ 500,000, most of it playing $ 100/$ 200 no-limit Hold’em. The second half of that year was amazing though, and I won about $ 1.5m at PLO. I decided to do something sensible with the money rather than risk it all disappearing in nosebleed stakes games, so I used most of it to buy a house which left my bankroll a lot lower than I would have liked.’

Enter Badbeat.com

‘Because my bankroll was much smaller I agreed to join Badbeat at the start of the year. It’s a staking site that finances my online play in return for a cut of the profits. I get over $ 50k a day to play, which suits me perfectly and helps me control downswings more easily. It’s definitely helped improve my bankroll management, too. When I’m playing on my own money and things go very bad I usually just cut up all my bank cards so I can’t deposit any more and have to wait a few days for new ones to turn up!’

‘2008 has been pretty good. I did extremely well between February and July. The last two months haven’t been so great but I’ve only lost back about 15 percent of what I won, so I’m really happy with how the year has gone. Also, thanks to the new regime, I’ve been able to play higher games with more regularity, including the $ 200/$ 400 PLO games on Full Tilt.’

The future

‘Hopefully I’ll continue doing extremely well online, and in a few years I’d like to be in a financial position to just play poker for fun, so I can do some other things, like open a restaurant. I’m also going to play less tournaments as I’m no longer sponsored and don’t want to be travelling every other week. I’ll just play ones where I really like the city – Budapest, Prague, Barcelona – which are great destinations. I’m not even sure if I’ll go to Vegas for the WSOP next year, but we’ll see!’