High-stakes tournament pro Stephen Chidwick brought his expertise and his fantastic handlebar mustache to Reddit for an Ask Me Anything session, on Monday, and the members of /poker brought their A-game by asking the $76 million man a bunch of great questions.
The English superstar who sits in second on Hendon Mob’s all-time poker cash list is a coach at Octopi Poker. He was on Reddit to answer questions and give away a bunch of subscriptions to the site.
Here are some of the highlights:
Q: Hey Stephen! With 76 million in winnings, how much is profit?
Chidwick: I donāt have exact numbers from the earlier part of my career but somewhere in the 5-10 million range
Q: Whatās your pre-game rituals look like? Do you listen to any music or podcasts? Study a little bit before you play or do you just try to get a good nights rest and play your best when itās time?
Chidwick: I try to prioritize sleep. If I can, I get sunlight and exercise before I play — thatās ideal but not always possible.
If I know my table draw (day 2+), Iāll usually go through any notes I have on my opponents and formulate a general plan for how Iām going to approach common situations.
Iāll virtually always do some kind of meditation or breathing exercise just prior to playing. Sometimes music, sometimes philosophical or inspirational content depending on what I feel like I need in the moment.
Q: As someone whoās played before and after widespread solver adoption, what important skill has become undervalued in modern MTTsāand how should serious players train it today?
Chidwick: Good question. Probably the skill of putting people on ranges and thinking through the hand from first principles/incorporating intuition into your strategy.
Itās easy to look up the “answers” in a sim and not go deeper into how people are actually playing/adjust for the myriad factors the sim doesnāt take into account.
I like to challenge myself to put people on specific hands when Iām watching them in pots Iām not involved in and seeing how often I get it right or am completely surprised by what they show down.
Q: Is studying super specific spots in a solver mandatory for success in today’s poker climate or can you still get by with solid fundamentals and vibes?
Chidwick: I wouldnāt say itās mandatory — there are successful players at the highest stakes who donāt put in much solver time — but you need to have good vibes in that case.
It depends what you mean by super specific versus solid fundamentals. You definitely need a baseline understanding, although it also matters what youāre playing and what kind of aspirations you have. You can always get by as long as youāre playing better than your opponents.
Q: What was your “Aha” moment that completely changed your game to know you will be a winning player and what was it (at that time )?
Chidwick: I canāt think of a single “aha” moment that completely changed my game. More just a progression of very many small changes. I guess one moment that stands out was the first time I used piosolver when it was very newā¦I recognized right away how powerful it was and how much could be learnt from it and at that point kinda went all-in on study to try to get ahead of everyone else knowing that sooner or later it would become widespread.
Q: How do you decide whether to play a GTO strategy or play based on āgut feeling?ā How do you exploit GTO players in MTTs?
Chidwick: Itās not really either/or. Iām always looking to mix the two in the appropriate degree based on how strong the gut feeling is, how good my opponent is, how big of a deviation I would be making/how exploitable it would be, etc.
Nobody plays close enough to GTO that you canāt find weaknesses, but in the spirit of the question Iāll say that in a GTO output you will frequently run into situations where youāre indifferent between two or more options. eg. calling or folding with a bluffcatcher on the river.
But if thereās any piece of information throughout the whole hand that either increases or decreases the chance of him having any one part of his range (eg. timing tells, physical tells, an unconscious bias, etc.), now I can pure call or pure fold.
If I know my opponent is purely trying to play GTO and wonāt adjust, I will look for any small reason to go for an exploit, knowing that the EVs are theoretically the same anyway, so Iām not risking anything.
There’s so much more in the AMA, so check out the whole thing on Reddit.
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