Tillerman iview on his poker career

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Inside Poker Magazine Interview

The following interview was published in the January 2008 issue of the magzine "Inside Poker". I think it is far enough out of date to publish the interview in text form here! Also, if you read the interview in the magazine, you will see from below that all my negative comments about poker were erased entirely from the magazine =)

Age? Location? Family? Single/girlfriend? Education? Background?

32, Glasgow, Scotland, Single, University.

What’s the story of the ‘TillerMan’ handle?

I had an original gaming handle of Phoenix but when I bumped into another gamer with the same handle I tilted and changed it to a more unique one. The name came from a Cat Stevens album called “Tea for the Tillerman”, an absolute classic album and highly recommended!

You were originally a pro gamer who moved to poker because of the increased financial opportunities and the rapidly change landscape of the gaming world – presumably you are very happy with that decision now but did it seem high risk at the time? Have you ever had a’ real’ job or considered having to get one?

I’ve only had a couple of real jobs, one was in a Casino in Glasgow as a Croupier dealing games such as Blackjack and Roulette. This was way before the poker boom so I had no exposure to poker during this time at all. My first real exposure to poker was through the Channel 4 show - “Late Night Poker”, I watched it with great interest at the time but it would still be several years before I tried the game myself. My interest was sparked just before the World Cyber Games in late 2003 when a good gaming friend who was doing well at online poker persuaded me to try poker thinking I would do well at it. I started off with $50 borrowed from him which I managed to lose in only one evening to his great annoyance. I then managed to lose $50 again borrowed from another gaming friend. It was only after the completion of WCG that I took a real shot at poker depositing $500 myself. I have never deposited again since this time.

Can you provide a brief rundown of your gaming career and how that world compares to the poker one? When did your interest in gaming begin, and at what point was it overtaken by into an in poker?

I played computer games to a high level from 1996 all the way through to 2003. The games I specialized at were in order – Duke Nuke’em 3D, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Starcraft – Broodwar and Warcraft 3. My biggest ever money cash in gaming was $5000 for winning I2E2 USA in the game Warcraft 3 which seemed like a lot of money at the time. I travelled to various parts of the world to compete in tournaments such as San Francisco, Seoul Korea twice and several tournaments in France and Spain. I got very well known during my time as a Warcraft 3 player. Even though I played the game to a high level for only one year I had a very popular website at the time with all the latest news and my views on the game. I was even the first person to start charging money for lessons in gaming similar to the Cardrunners website in poker. I made a lot of money from this in relative terms to the prize money you could earn from the actual gaming. I was pulling in $3000 a month from training and audio commentaries at this time.

Similarly, how did your rise up the poker ranks take place - were there any limits that you 'got stuck' at for a while before moving higher or was the progression pretty smooth... did you have to move up and back down much or have any big downswings? Was the gamer ethic helpful in terms of your overall dedication/productivity?

My rise from the micro limits to the highest limits available must be one of the fastest ever especially now when I reflect back on it. I have tried to help various people at poker through the years and now I can see how much of a struggle it can be to break through the various limits even with good advice and support. It took me exactly five to six months to go from the mico limits all the way to the biggest No Limit games available on Pokerstars which were at the time the $600NL buy in games. These games obviously attracted the best players on Pokerstars and they had a lot of well known faces that you see playing the biggest games online to this day. I did all this with no risk as I withdrew thousands of dollars weekly to my bank account whilst maintaining a bankroll online of no less than 20 buyins for any level I was playing at. There was also no rakeback at this time but the games would also have been substantially weaker I assume but since I have never played $50NL again since this time I can’t be sure. The $200NL games certainly look tougher than I remember them when I watch my friends play sometimes. I’ve never had to move down from my regular limits, I consider myself a $2000NL to $5000NL regular and will be maintaining this level of play for the foreseeable future.

A lot has been written about the progress of Magic players in poker, but what about those coming across from gaming, like yourself from Warcraft? What skills have you found most transferable and what are the similarities between professional gaming and professional poker?

There must be at least 4-5 ex professional gamers who have pulled in more than seven figures from poker. My good friend Kirderf (ex Broodwar WCG Champion) is one of them and in my opinion is one of the best and most consistent online players in the world, he certainly meets this criteria many times over. Other ex gamers who I know have had some success in poker are Elky, Rekrul, Nazgul, TheBusDriver, Ackbleh, Bushman, Lakerman, 4K.Kaj, NTT, RainKhan, Maynard, IceGod, Groinal, Daishi, Xds’Grrrrr, Nitemare and scores of others whose names escape me right now.

The skills that are transferable from gaming to poker are probably the qualities of obsession and dedication. You can’t reach the highest tiers of competitiveness in gaming without a regime of several hours of practice every day. The same dedication is required in poker. Another advantage for ex gamers will be the ability to multi task more naturally than non gamers thus enabling them to play more tables more easily and deal with multiple decision situations more competently.

One part of gaming that is not easily transferable to poker is the competitive angle, the feeling of being able to sit down at your game and “own” your opponent because you are better. This satisfaction of being able to see instant results is completely missing from poker and is something that I miss. I am also sure it is something that many ex gamers struggle with probably having contributed to them leaking thousands of dollars before it is programmed into them that this feeling can no longer be satisfied from poker.

Also, is there something in particular about Starcraft/Warcraft or can this be extended more generally to people who put lots of time in with computer games of other types? Would you recommend they try poker as something they might have natural aptitude for?

I am not sure how transferable the skills are because for every one gamer I can name that has managed the transition I can name ten others who either fail or struggle. I don’t recommend poker to anyone any more as I believe it is an incredible struggle and hardship for 9 out of 10 players who attempt it. I don’t want the likely outcome of my encouragement to be failure for that person.

Who do you regard as the most successful to crossover besides yourself and do they share similar attributes?

As I said above it is almost certainly Kirderf. We play virtually identical styles and I think have similar thought processes and approaches to the game. This makes sense as we have discussed and talked about poker strategy together for several years. He epitomises Discipline, the single most important skill for a poker player to master. One day I hope to achieve this level of discipline with no leaks from tilt or frustration whatsoever. I am getting closer all the time =)

What is your technical setup and schedule for playing poker? Do you have several screens running at once and utilise programs like Poker Tracker and PAHUD religiously, and how many hours/screens are you currently playing or when you started out. ?

I used to have a dual screen set-up but now I just use the 30” Dell screen that is quite popular right now. I have no need to play beyond six tables at once anymore because of the limits I play at. Playing less tables is also very important for your growth as a poker player so that hands can truly be analyzed even if it is only some more thinking time after the hand is over instead of this time just being replaced by robotic ABC clicking at one of your other 20 tables =) This is obviously much more important as you get to the super high stakes as your edge shrinks to minute proportions. I use Poker Tracker to input my hands into but I don’t analyze the data as often as I should using it mostly just as a record of my results. I also don’t use PAHud as I find it more distracting than useful preferring to get my reads on players from how they are playing in that particular session.

You’re known as being very conservative in bankroll terms – can you give us an idea of your approach and what stakes you are currently playing?

Well, I technically have enough bankroll to play the highest games available on the internet so in that respect I guess you could say I am very conservative in still playing $2000NL and even $1000NL still sometimes. I am very soon going to be purchasing a house outright which will remove a large chunk of money from my bankroll. This will likely be the single biggest purchase of my life and after it once I am secure for the future I can entertain more adventurous outings in the higher stakes games.

I think people should have around 20 buyins available to them at the micro limits and this should steadily be increased as limits are increased. As limits are raised so to does your overall variance.

Something like :-

100NL - $2000 (20 buyins)
200NL - $6000 (30 buyins)
400NL - $16000 (40 buyins)
1000NL - $50000 (50 buyins)
2000NL - $100000 (50 buyins)
5000NL - $250000 (50 buyins)

This would be a sensible amount to keep online for any of these particular limits you played fulltime. I also don’t count offline money as part of my roll. Once it is in my bank account I don’t consider it contributing towards my poker bankroll at all. If I’m playing $2000 NL full time then I need $100,000 in my online poker accounts!

Much has been made of the hi-stakes US cash players – do you think there is a lot of home-grown talent in the UK (or Europe too) and which players would you highlight? Do you think playing on the European sites is preferable for players able to do so and which do you recommend?

I think Europe is at LEAST as strong as the USA as far as online poker is concerned and proportionally I would be surprised if Europe was not stronger. However, the opposite is almost certainly true of live poker. I would just highlight the most obvious name - Patrik Antonius, probably the biggest winner in the history of online poker hailing from Finland. There is a nearly endless list of great Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Danish players. There is not at the moment however a similar never ending list of great “online” UK players =) Don’t ask me why, it is a mystery! Coincidentally, this was also true of professional gaming, for every one good UK player, there was 100 good Swedish players =)

Do you play other games besides NLH? What’s your favourite and favourite format?

The only other game I play to a reasonable standard is Pot Limit Omaha which is a natural game for a NL Hold’em player to progress too. I came close to trying to learn the various Limit games but then Limit died on the internet so I gave up =(


Any tournament results, and how do you view tourneys vs. cash in general terms?

I have barely played any tournaments but I have done reasonably well for the amount I have entered at least the ones I have played live. I play online ones for fun so don’t always take them seriously which hurts my results. Cash games are several times more profitable than tournaments for equally skilled players in both disciplines. A fact which naturally makes me not want to waste my time playing tournaments too much.

Can you give us any idea of what you’ve made from poker? And what have you done with the money you've made.? Are you particularly 'balla' or more down to earth away from the poker world and just living a normal life? Any nice purchases?

I have made seven figures from poker but am very far away from eight! I am not the least bit ‘balla’, my single biggest purchase being a second hand Honda Accord! The house I will be purchasing soon will make up for that as I have already discussed earlier.

What are the biggest pots you’ve won and lost and how did they go down?

The biggest pot I’ve won was around $50,000 with a set vs a flush draw at $16,000NL buyin. The biggest pot I’ve lost is around the same with a 3 barrel bluff with air going wrong vs top set of kings =)

You’ve had some security issues recently – can you talk about what happened, and what implementations would you like to see in future from online sites to prevent these breaches? Do you regard them as essential for the progress on online poker as a whole?

I can’t talk about that too much but basically I had $30,000 stolen from one of my online poker accounts. It was not a result of being hacked nor was it a result of negligence on my part. The site in question in my opinion has some major security flaws in how they deal with forgotten passwords; they have assured me that over the coming months a lot of that stuff is going to be strengthened. I agreed not to publicly talk about my situation too much in particular the naming of the site and since they did eventually refund my $30,000 out of their own pockets I feel obligated to retain that position.

A good security measure would to be able to lock account access to a single or range of IP addresses. No site I currently know of does this. Some players have more money in their poker accounts than they do in their bank accounts. It is very important that poker sites continually strive to make their security practices at least as good as online banking.

As someone whose seen the rapid development of both gaming and online poker where do you see yourself and poker in ten years time - will you still be playing and still be at the top? Do you think the game still has a long way to evolve and that the players of the future will be far more advanced than those today?

I’d hope I wasn’t playing poker too much in ten years time and only doing it because I find it fun. It is really hard to predict changes over such a long period of time but I would suspect that the players of the future will not be much more advanced than the players of today. I used to have this small fear that everyone would get so good that perceivable edges may disappear in the future but I am now convinced that this will not be the case. If only because once you get to the highest limits in poker a lot of your edge comes from Tilt control alone and some people are always going to be weak in that department even if it is only occasionally.

Strategy

What do you regard as the key skills required to win at high levels in NLH cash games?

The most important one is Discipline. I know a lot of people who think they understand this concept fundamentally and that they have got it nailed but they are kidding themselves. I feel I am in the top 0.01% of players with this type of control and even then I feel I have tons of room for improvement. I still have not completely solved random emotional reactions to bad runs or other such leaks that stem from a drop in discipline levels. As I said above a lot of perceivable edge in these higher games comes from the money dumped on the tables by players on tilt or leaking money due to discipline issues even if they are unaware of it at the time. It is not so much a case of a fundamental lack of basic theory but loss of control or patience in most cases.

You’ve written in the past about the optimal style for HSNL players to adopt – do you still agree that both TAG and LAG approaches are valid, and are you still in the former camp?

Yes, I absolutely do. In fact I believe the truly correct approach is neither to be TAG nor LAG but play each of your opponents with a mixture of both these approaches.

Example:-
NL Table, your opponents are :-
1. A very good Lag.
2. A very bad Lag.
3. A very passive Tag.

Versus player 1 you may play much tighter than normal. Versus player 2 you may play much looser than normal and versus player 3 you may do something in between. In other words your style changes on a hand per hand basis depending on who is at your table and what you feel the optimal play style is vs each of them.

My overall style is probably directly in-between TAG AND LAG.

How do you handle the swings of poker and what strategies have you developed to do this? Do you take breaks or try to blast through bad runs?

I try and blast through bad runs. I get motivated to get through them usually and start playing more than normal, adjusting and working on my game to improve.

Many hi-stakes player are quite lazy – how hard are you working/have worked in terms of hands per week/month and study outside of play? Presumably you regard volume as one of the vital aspects of being a pro player?

Volume of play is one of the most important keys for the lower limit players to escape the gravity of living expenses on their growing roll. Once players reach the $600NL and $1000NL games they will be able to play very little to make a very good living. Players stuck at $100NL and $200NL will find it very difficult to grow their roll if they don’t play a lot. I have been playing a lot recently, probably in the 60,000 hands per month range. This is variable though, there was a time not so long ago where I was barely playing at all.

How have you seen the poker landscape change in recent years and how have you adapted? Have you noticed the games getting much tougher and is game selection/exploiting regular opponents now more important than ever?

The games have overall got tougher over the past few years as more good literature and advice from forums and sites like cardrunners has become more available. Game selection becomes a more important skill as you increase in the limits you play. I wouldn’t game select at all at $50NL for instance but I definitely would at $5000NL and above. There is just no point wasting a huge chunk of your time in games where your perceivable edge may be tiny if in fact there at all. A game may be so bad at $10000NL for instance that it may be more profitable per hour for me to sit in a $500NL game. Crazy but true. There are still reasons to sit in these games but you have to acknowledge them for what they are, usually for self improvement or for the challenge.

Are there factors outside of poker that you think are important to success, such as emotional stability, having other interests, fitness etc?

All three that you mention there are very important. Too many poker players have zero interests outside of poker/gambling. A balance is very important in my view, I’ve seen too many people who lose interest in everything they once found fun because of gambling/poker. Fitness is another one that is key, if you are fit you will be able to play longer hours with a higher degree of concentration - a direct boost to your EV and your overall quality of life. Emotional stability is part of discipline and obviously a fundamental perquisite to conquering poker; this is the biggest stumbling block for most people who attempt poker.

Who are your strongest adversaries online and what particular strengths do you think allow them to be at the top? Is there anyone you won’t play HU?

Anyone who regularly beats $5000NL and above would be my strongest adversaries but in essence it is mostly revolving money in the ring games between the strongest players, each of them taking their share in the profits from the weaker players. This changes drastically when you get to heads up play only, when a huge emphasis gets placed on your discipline levels. Even the best players crack often in these heads up games once they are stuck a few buyins. Heads up can be a very emotional rollercoaster ride especially if beating a particular player means a lot to you. There is a lot of ego involved and to master all the discipline issues in this particular format is probably the pinnacle of poker mastery. There are plenty of people who I won’t play HU including players I feel I have an edge versus. I have to be in the mood to play heads up if it vs. a competent player because I must shut down some tables to be able to play well thus reducing my overall hourly rate. I can really only justify heads up vs. a good player as a learning/training experience.

How have you developed your skills? is it just experience or are there specific books/sites/tools that you have found useful?

95% of my poker skills have come from experience and just playing the game a lot but I did get useful advice from various books, forums and discussing poker with my friends.

Are there any particular hands that you recall which really advanced your game or that you’re particularly proud of? Could you talk us through one briefly?

Any interesting hands I have had that I thought worthy of sharing are available in the archives on my site :- http://www.tillerman.net