Where do you call home?
Waterloo
Where did learn to play poker?
From my chess coach
How did you first start playing poker as more than just for fun?
Started playing micro stakes limit on party and ultimate bet in an attempt to win a set of free poker chips
When did you decide to play poker for a living?
Was looking forward to playing the big live tournaments and knew that my edge in them would be pretty large, so I decided to take some time off school and see how it goes
What is your most memorable poker experience?
After meeting 2 guys at my university who played(Steve Paul-Ambrose and Aaron Coulthard), I was playing small-mid stakes limit, 2/4 - 5/10. I had about a 10-15k bankroll and had a +$800 session that day(one of my best sessions to date). Aaron and Steve played a monthly 250r(that they 1-barreled) on Empire poker with a huge amount of overlay. We agreed to all play it and go splits 3 ways, 200k guarantee, 54k for first. I ended up bubbling, but stayed up since Aaron was still in and he finished 4th for 16k, and I got 5300 of that. It was very memorable since it was my first introduction to tournament poker and it was super-exciting to have a good chance of doing well combined with a good chance that one of my friends do well.
What is your biggest poker tournament win?
EPT Dortmund (Editor note: Mike won 933,600 Euros at this event)
Do you have any favorite professional poker players?
Phil Ivey
What is your #1 strategy while playing poker?
Play as your opponent wouldn’t expect
What advice would you give a prospective professional poker player?
Run good
At a final table, would you rather play against a pro that you understand or a lucky rookie who doesn’t understand the game?
Rookie
Do you gamble much on non-skill games or games that have a house edge?
No house edge games, but I’ll flip coins, make prop bets etc
If you could sit down and play a game of poker with any five people in the world (living or deceased), who would you pick?
The 5 worst people with the most money I guess(Andy Beal etc)
How did you go about developing your poker face so that others couldn’t read your unintentional body language?
I try to always act the same when in a hand, and constantly ask people who I know if they’ve picked anything up off of me
What skill is more important in Holdem: discipline in the range of hands you play, or the ability to read the other player?
I’d say discipline in hands you play, very few people who play too many hands are any good at this game, but lots of people who can’t read people well are decent. It just comes from experience I guess, its tough to teach something like that. If you teach them the basic EV calculations(ie. if your hand wins a larger % of the time than the pot odds are laying you, then call, if not fold) that doesn’t hurt)
Is it better to play aggressive early in a tourney where the blinds go up quickly — or should your style of play stay consistent no matter how quickly the blinds go up?
You need to pay attention to inflection points etc, but it depends a lot on the goals you want to accomplish. When I’m playing against observant players, I’ll often play very tight at the start when pots don’t matter as much so that I can take advantage of that tight image when pots matter more, or vice versa
Who do you think the top five N.L.H. cash game players are in the world right now (including online pros)?
I haven’t followed this too closely in like a year, probably like jman, genius, urindanger, durr, antonius or something like that
When you decided to turn pro, what type of bankroll did you start out with? What stakes did you play?
I guess about a 1.5m roll and was playing mostly big live tournaments, with some online tournies and online cash mixed in. I had the luxury of running good before turning pro, so even just off of investment income I could make an ok living
How often do you play online poker?
It varies, I haven’t played any in the last week but often will play 5-6 days a week. I probably log less hands than 80-90% of online pros.
What impact do you feel online poker has had in regards to big live tournaments?
It added a lot of fish at first, but now as the online players get better, its making the fields tougher
What’s your favorite hand?
AA
What is your favorite type of poker game?
Lately 6-max PLO games |
