GambleAB Interview

Personal Information

Name: Aaron Bartley

Age: 22

Born: Hartford,CT

Resides: Cary,NC

Occupation: Professional Poker Player

Q: How long have you been playing poker and where did you get started?

A: I’ve been playing recreationally since I was a little kid, seriously
for about 1.5-2 years now. I first learned the game from my dad, who
taught all of us kids a bunch of card games from when we were really
young. I played in little games at school and home games through high
school, and started online when I turned 21 getting my bankroll from my
birthday trip to AC.

Q: What are your strengths and weaknesses as a player?

A: Strengths are my ability to read other people and situations, being
able to apply pressure to put others to the tough decisions, and the
math side of the game, figuring out what is the best EV move, pot
odds, implied odds, ect. My weaknesses are that I don’t always bring
my A game to the table, and when I don’t, I’m usually somewhat
inpatient and put my money in too many coin flip situations.

Q: How many hours a week do you play?

A: Easily over 40

Q: Do you play many cash games or do you play tournaments full time?

A: Other than my 5/10 table on Full Tilt, I only play cash games
when I’m looking to blow off a little steam.

Q: What is your favorite online site?

A: Full Tilt. From top to bottom the best site I’ve come across (and
I’ve played them all, heh). The best part is that they are growing
every day, so the games keep getting better and better.

Q: Tell me about some of your major online tournament wins.

A: I’ve placed 1st in many of the larger
tournaments online, chopping several heads up and three handed. I
chopped the $150 on Stars one week heads up, which was big. I of
course won the Super sat on FTP for the WSOP Circuit AC event, which
was big.

Q: Tell me about that tournament, you finished in 5th place there back on January 18 of this year.

A: I pretty much played my game the entire way. I outline some key hands
on my blog at the time. http://web.archive.org/web/20060523031327/http://www.gambleabinac.blogspot.com/ The first day was pretty uneventful, I got up to
around 35k in chips by days end which was above average. Day two I
took a bad beat when a guy hit his 3 outer after I put him in preflop
and busted me down to around 22k. Luckily the break came soon and I
was able to go up to my room, listen to some Pantera, and refocus
myself. When I came back down, I was super determined to play this
like I played every other tournament from a short stack, 10k buy in be
damned. I was on my horse and muscled my way to winning a few pots,
was able to bust the guy that sucked out on me (AT vs. A9, he couldn’t
hit two miracles in an hour, heh), made a great read with AK against a
guy who held KQ, and built my stack back from one of the shortest to
an above average stack by the time we were down to 2 tables. I would
say that that hour or two, from the time I was busted down to 22k to
the time I had a healthy stack of over 100k was the best poker I’ve
ever played in my entire life. I was completely fearless, and knew my
moves were right. I stuck to my reads, trusted my abilities, and
never let any outside source corrupt my line of thinking. Playing
several tournaments online prepared me for that situation 100%.

Q: You sold a percentage of your play in this event to RGP Members. How much did you end selling?

A: 7%

Q: There was some discussion among the investors about future winnings derived from this tournament. How did that work out?

A: I gave my backers part of my action in the 2 million dollar free roll
event at the end of the summer that I earned by placing so high in the
AC tournament. I figured this was the fair thing to do.

Q: This Free Roll Tournament was never discussed with the investors and you included them in any winnings you may obtain there only because you thought it was the right thing to do, correct?

A: The 2 Million Dollar free roll was never discussed beforehand with my
investors, simply because I didn’t know about it. Once I was told
that I had placed high enough to go to the free roll, I knew it was one
of the first things that I would touch on with the investors when I
got back home. I figured that since the seat in the free roll was
earned entirely from my tournament finish, then it was only fair to
give my investors a part of my action in it, since they invested in my
profits coming directly from the tournament itself, of which I saw
this as one. They all retain the same % of my action that they
originally invested for in the free roll.

Q: Do you plan to use the winnings from this event for your poker bankroll or some other purposes?

A: I paid off my debt, set money aside for taxes, and now have a full
bankroll to work with. I plan on playing a full schedule of live
tournaments this year, which the winnings certainly helped make
possible.

Q: What are your goals for the future as a poker player?

A: My goals are to always get better. Knowledge is the best tool you can
use, so I am always actively trying to increase mine, be it by
discussing poker with highly skilled players, playing constantly and
looking at my game to try to find weaknesses, or thinking about poker
constantly. I plan on playing full time, online and live events. I
plan on playing in many of the major events across the country.

Q: What do you enjoy doing besides playing poker?

A: I like to do normal 22 year old stuff, basically, hang out, listen to
music, go out, hit the bars, party it up, just have a general good
time in life.

Q: Do you like to gamble on anything other than poker?

A: I’ll do a little sports betting occasionally, just to make the games
more exciting, nothing big though.

Q: Any tournament strategy advice or book recommendations for our readers?

A: Use books as a starting point, not a final say. If there was one
specific correct way to play tournament poker, and you could find that
by just picking up a book and reading it for a few hours, then the
game would be dead in a day. There isn’t. There is the best way for
YOU to play, and the only way you can figure that out is constant
play, practice, and most importantly thinking about the game. Getting
involved in online discussion boards and usenet groups (RGP, 2+2, UPF)
was the best thing I ever did for my poker career. Yes, there is
drivel and yes it is tough to wade through sometimes but knowledge
rarely comes easily and the payoff is huge for those willing to wait
it out and stick to it. Thinking and talking about situations and
strategy is much more important, in my mind, then simply reading about
them. Get active in your learning and you will learn so much more,
and be able to actually put that knowledge to use.

Q: Is there anything that you would like to add before we wrap this up?

A: Ladies I’m single and I’ve got a car.