VIP Featured Player

Alex Bowler 'Alexdb'

We caught up with one of our seasoned Pro’s this month and had a chat to try and gain an insight into the life of a poker pro. Read on and watch the video footage of 'Alexdb' to see how you can become a professional poker player and still receive the benefits of being a Ladbrokes Poker VIP.

Make sure you have plenty of evidence that your win-rate is high enough, assume you’ll play fewer hours than you initially estimate, and then only do it when your expectation for the month is twice the amount you need to pay yourself.

I keep poker money separate from savings and pay a fixed ‘salary’ from my bankroll to my current account each month. For moving up and down in stakes, I’m very conservative at the lowest level that I want to play – say I’ll move down from the level above if I drop down to 50 of the lower buy-ins remaining – this is to make sure I can always keep playing. But I’ll play a higher stake with fewer buy-ins since a loss isn’t as risky as I can always drop down and play lower again.

I’ve been running terribly this summer. It really helps to have Hold’em manager showing winnings adjusted for all-in expectation because this way you can check to what extent your results were out of your control. My last 3 months have been only slightly above break-even, but I’m €24k below expectation, so I can stay confident that I’m still playing a winning game. If it gets to the point where I feel like I’m not winning I take a day off, go to the gym more often, accept that my bankroll is smaller and I’m not trying to get out of a hole, and then play a stricter timetable of shorter sessions until I feel like I’m back into it again.

The rakeback element is similar to most of the market, so it’s at least as good as playing elsewhere in that respect (and I think that places that offer more rakeback tend to have more multi-tabling nits and therefore poorer game selection), but it’s the VIP events that I really like. I’ve spoken to people with great careers in the city who are still jealous when they hear about suites in Vegas, flying helicopters, and boxes at Ascot as perks of this job!

Not my playing style, which would depend on how the opponents actually play. It can help with table selection from the lobby and probably does influence how long I’ll stick heads-up with a player that otherwise looks pretty solid, waiting to see if he makes occasional mistakes. I think everyone knows what to look for these days – Latin Europe, Northern Ireland, England, all seem good at Ladbrokes, and generally avoiding ‘Scandiland’.

I think it’s much easier to get distracted and make expensive mistake online, so they would be tips about concentration. I remind myself to make sure I’m taking lots of notes, and to take frequent breaks. I try to stop every hour unless the particular players at a table make it really expensive to leave.

I suppose mainly from online forums. I like Adam Noone’s Poker News Roundup on ‘The Hendon Mob’ forum, and I think 2+2’s ‘NVG’ is like they describe the tabloids in the film Men in Black – there’s a lot of rubbish but it’s a good indicator of what’s really going on in the community.

When I made a training video a lot of viewers thought I had a really tight style, but the stats say I’m playing a fair amount of hands aggressively, and I’m finding I can get 99 all-in in front preflop. So I guess I’m probably a super-tight LAG or super-LAGgy nit, or something like that.

It depends what you mean. With some opponents, when they bet it’s a huge tell that they have the nuts, and that’s easy to spot. Some people make their bet sizes transparent. Obviously all that is available live as well, in addition to the body language, so it’s harder online, but with many opponents it’s just not hugely relevant.

I suppose I’d pick three that have never player poker before and don’t seem too smart! How about Tim Westwood and a couple of rappers? I bet they’d want to appear cool with giving their money away, so it would probably be a good game.

I’m trying to get fit, learn to play the guitar and learn Japanese at the moment, but I’m not doing particularly well in any of them. Contrary to what I think is popular belief, playing poker full time is actually pretty draining because of the concentration needed, so I spend a lot of spare time just watching films, eating out, going to the pub with friends, things like that.

To make sure you are a lot better than at least one player at the table. So either table select well, or get better at the game, preferably both.

Thank you very much to Alex for giving up his time and letting us into his trade secrets and tactics. Keep a close eye on Alex and his progress on his website: www.alexbowler.com.