You would probably think I was joking if I told you Alan Goehring plays poker just as a hobby. After all, he is a two-time World Poker Tour champion and the 1999 World Series of Poker championship runner-up, and has socked away $5 million in tournament winnings.
But the successful Wall Street wizard, who just worked over 692 players to win the 2006 L.A. Poker Classic championship and nearly $2.4 million, is just a part-time pro even though his results indicate otherwise.
While Alan is soft-spoken, his fierce and unpredictable play has earned him a reputation among poker's top talent as a great deep-stack player and one of the game's great chip accumulators.
I recently sat down with Alan to learn more about the man whom many fear, but few know much about.
Justin Marchand: Lots of our readers don't know too much about Alan Goehring. Where did you grow up, what was your upbringing like, when did you make it out to Vegas, and, beyond poker, what are your interests?
Alan Goehring: I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, played all sports, including football, baseball, and basketball, and had an ideal childhood that was safe, clean, and perhaps a little boring. I have lived in every part of the country, including New York City for 11 years, Los Angeles for three years, and a year in Chicago, Dallas, and West Palm Beach, Florida. I have been living in the Las Vegas area for exactly five years. I spend a fair amount of time traveling internationally and doing investment analysis. I also like skiing and would like to get to the gym, but I'm not betting on it.
JM: Is it true that poker is still just a "hobby" for a player who has raked in nearly $5 million in tournament winnings?
AG: Yes, I view poker as a recreational activity. I like to play about 40 to 50 days per year, which works out, on average, to about one day or less per week.
JM: So how did you get into poker? How did you learn the game, where did you start playing, what games did you play, and how did you get to the level you are at today?
AG: I first got into poker when I was living in Los Angeles in 1988. I started playing $2-$4 and $3-$6 stud at the Commerce and Bike. I started playing hold'em when there was a list for the stud game. I played a lot more poker when I moved back to New York City in 1992. They were typically shorthanded (four to six players) limit hold'em games in the backroom after work, and we played almost every day. People on Wall Street love to gamble. Once, there were two games going during market hours on the trading floor where I worked, so the partners had a meeting and had to ban all games during market hours.
I got to the level I am at today by reading several poker books and through a lot of experimentation. I have used smaller (two-day) events as a laboratory to see if different things would work.
Based on my results, I would say that 80 percent of the advice in poker books is good, and the other 20 percent I either ignore or do the opposite. I believe Phil Hellmuth got it right when he said something like, "Alan is doing something different. I don't know what it is, but it seems to be working." So, I don't consider myself a totally "by the book" player. I took a quiz in one of the books I have, and I scored about 30 points out of 100 points – rating my play as poor/needs improvement.
JM: So, what is an example of "something different" you are doing?
AG: When I won the WPT championship, I would say that 98 percent of my opening raises were for exactly two times the big blind, and in the recent LAPC I won, I would say that 90 percent of my raises were exactly two times the big blind, with the other 10 percent being, at a maximum, two and a half times the big blind.
I have never read a poker book that suggests regularly making such a small raise, and in fact some books explicitly state that this is poor play. On occasion, a player who doesn't know me will advise me to raise more, saying I will not be able to get the blinds to fold with such a modest raise. My response is, well, maybe I don't want the blinds to fold, because if the blinds fold, I am not going to win much. So, it doesn't matter what I have or if I am in early or late position, it is going to be two times the big blind. Maybe it works for me because of the range of hands I play or how I play after the flop – but I would say, get used to it, because there is no way I will ever change that part of my game.
JM: Some people argue that the skills necessary to be a winning poker player and businessman are very similar. Do you agree?
AG: Basically, yes. In the final analysis, it is all about cost/benefit or risk/reward. Other concepts, such as option theory, also come into play.
JM: Who has been the most influential player or personality in your poker career?
AG: The most influential person on my poker play is not even a poker player. His name is David Matlin, the guy I worked for on Wall Street. The key concept I learned from David was to maximize in all situations and never leave anything on the table. He liked to call it the Earl Weaver philosophy of baseball. This means that when you are in the third inning, you go for the bases-loaded home run to put the game away, and forget about the sac fly to take a one-run lead.
JM: Nearly seven years ago, you made the final table of the World Series of Poker championship event (1999), and wound up taking second. Since that time, how have your own personal approach and feelings about the game changed?
AG: After I got second in the 1999 World Series championship event, my play deteriorated. During 2000-2001, I started playing more conventionally, trying to emulate some of the great players. It was a big mistake. I learned that I should do what I am comfortable with and what works for me. The first-ever Bellagio poker tournament (2002, $3,000 no-limit) was a breakthrough for me, because I did all the things I did in the 1999 World Series, and they worked. One of the beautiful things about poker is that there can be more than one winning style of play.
JM: You've been seen at the table wearing some pretty wicked sunglasses. Is it true that you still wear the same shades you wore at the 1999 World Series final table?
AG: No. I retired my "LASIK sunglasses" after the 2004 WPT championship. I wore them in a total of five or six events. If there is a good $50,000 event at some point, I plan to bring them out of retirement.
JM: The first WPT championship you won, the 2003 $25,000 WPT Championship, was unique in that it was one of the first events in which players started out with a monstrous amount of chips ($50,000). Do you think events like this, in which players are allowed a ton of play, are vastly superior to others?
AG: I think it is important to have a reasonable amount of "deep-chip play." To be able to utilize all the tools available in a game, you need to have the average stack at 200 times the big blind. Almost all the skill in no-limit is after the flop, and the game is complex when you are forced to play every street well. The game is still pretty good when the average stack is 80 times the big blind or more. However, when it drops below 80, "Kill Phil" strategies start to become relevant – and I don't view that as great poker.
I love playing the first two days of a four- or five-day event. However, when we are playing with the average stack at 25-35 times the big blind, I don't enjoy playing, as most of the play is out of the game. When it's reraise all in preflop, or all in on the flop, it is relatively easy to play close to optimal strategy.
In a nutshell, I believe there are fewer than 10 great deep-chip players in the world, but there are hundreds (possibly thousands) of players who play extremely well with an average stack at 30 times the big blind. In my opinion, the six best deep-chip players, what some would call chip accumulators, are Michael Mizrachi, Barry Greenstein, David Pham, Patrik Antonius, Fabrice Soulier, and myself.
JM: As someone who is not a fixture on the grueling tournament circuit, how do you choose which events you play?
AG: Blind structure is absolutely the most important factor for me, as I have many strong and explicit views on this issue. For an out-of-town event, if the structure is not posted on the casino's website, I will request that the casino send me the structure via e-mail. I have tried to be a little proactive, as I have sent a 12-page letter to the World Poker Tour (WPT), outlining all of my views and stating why it is critical for WPT events to have better structures.
I feel so strongly about a good structure that I won't even consider playing a regular full-table no-limit (or pot-limit) event that starts at an average stack of less than 100 times the big blind.
JM: So, what do you think is the perfect structure for big buy-in tournament poker?
AG: I don't think you can have a perfect structure, since it would require play to be maintained at 200 times the big blind. A close-to-perfect structure would be to start with an average stack of at least 200 times the big blind and eventually flatten out and oscillate between an average stack of 80-100 times the big blind.
JM: Well, unfortunately, with TV production dictating structure, this probably won't happen soon. But, I know you are passionate about this topic, so what criteria make a good structure for real-world big buy-in events?
AG: Basically, I believe the quality of structures deteriorated significantly in the second season of the WPT. The casinos' response to the massive increase in field sizes was to shortchange the structure by reducing level lengths, when the correct response would have been to add a day.
To me, good structure is not about separating good players from bad players; it is about separating great players from good players. I strongly believe that as the buy-in increases, players should get a better structure and more play. A quick way to analyze structure is to look at the amount of time it takes for the big blind to reach the amount of each player's starting chips. On this basis, a "reasonably good" structure would have 25 hours for a $5,000 event, 30 hours for a $10,000 event, 36 hours for a $15,000 event, and 45 to 54 hours for a $25,000 event. A "great" structure would have about 20 percent more play, and would never see the blinds increase more than 33.33 percent after the $150-$300 level.
JM: So, are any favorable changes on the horizon?
AG: The good news is that many WPT events – such as the World Poker Open, the L.A. Poker Classic, Mirage, Bike, and Borgata – have had improved structures over the last year. But further improvement is needed. The bad news is that the World Series $10,000 championship is going to 100-minute levels throughout, making it even more difficult for the best player to win. With $10,000 in starting chips and no $75-$150 level, play will be at an average stack of 60 times the big blind after only 200 minutes of play. However, the World Series has done some things right. Namely, $5,000 events were extended to 75-minute levels, and they maintained the integrity of the smaller events by making many of them three days as opposed to going to 45-minute levels.
JM: Well, the recent Commerce WPT event had a pretty decent structure, and you were basically at the top of the leader board from wire to wire. Can you walk our readers through what it takes to not only win one of these megaevents, but get through six days of grueling play?
AG: There is something known as the "curse of the day-one chip leader," and I think the curse is partly real. Basically, adjustments need to be made as chip depths compress, so optimum play changes slightly as the tournament progresses. The best discussion of this I have seen is contained in Harrington on Hold'em – Volume 2. I think that a lot of times, the chip leader will fail to make the needed adjustments.
During the event, there were a lot of significant hands, but I never put a bad beat on anyone when all of my chips were at risk. The only time I doubled up before the final table was when I had A-4 offsuit and Jim Bechtel check-raised me all in on the turn with a board of A-Q-4-4. I suspect he was quite surprised to see that I had a 4 in my hand!
JM: It was a roller coaster final table for you. After you lost those first two pots, did you think it maybe wasn't your night?
AG: Yes. I lost about 40 percent of my stack on the first two hands. My strategy was basically dictated by the payout structure; to me, fourth place through sixth place were basically the same, with the money heavily skewed toward first place. I didn't want to get into a grind-down game, where I would eventually be forced to move all in out of desperation, given the rapid increase in the blinds.
JM: What were the key hands that went down and decisions you had to make on the TV stage to get to the winner's circle?
AG: I was very relaxed even though there was a huge difference between first-place and sixth-place prize money. I don't think I needed more than five or 10 seconds to make any decision at the final table, including the all-in call with K-8 offsuit for 90 percent of the chips in play.
There were two key hands. The first was my 5-5 versus J.C Tran's pocket aces. The second was the final hand (K-8 offsuit). Daniel Quach was moving all in about half the time when he was on the button, because the blinds were so large. I was prepared to immediately call with any ace, any pocket pair 4-4 or higher (I would need to think about 2-2 and 3-3), or any "decent" king.
JM: What was going through your mind after you flipped over your pocket fives with your tournament on the line and you saw J.C. Tran's pocket aces?
AG: Oops! I ran into the weapons of mass destruction. Time to get lucky.
JM: How about when one of those remaining fives peeled off on the river?
AG: Shock. It was unreal. I must be the luckiest player alive. I went a little crazy, proving white men can't dance. It was ugly.
JM: I overheard one of your opponents say, "Alan is a nut … I've seen him make a flush with an 8-5, a 7-2, and a 9-3." You have this image as a loose maniac who can accumulate chips like very few can in the game. What do you consider to be the three most important skills necessary for being a winning poker player, and why?
AG: You need to be a risk taker and have courage. If you play a safe, secure game, you're a sure loser. You have to have control and discipline. Without it, your tournament can be over in five minutes. And you need flexibility. Game conditions are always changing, and it is critical to make the proper adjustments when needed.
JM: Many of the game's top players give you credit for being one of the game's great chip accumulators. Have there been any tournaments in which you've raced out with huge chip stacks, only to see them tumble later?
AG: Yes. The first WPT event I played after winning the WPT Championship was the 2003 WPT Paris event, and I was the chip leader after day one. I thought it was a coincidence. It really struck me after the 2004 World Poker Open in Tunica, because I was either number one or number two in chips at the end of the first day in three of the six big buy-in events I played (after winning the WPT Championship). The trend continued throughout 2004, although I often blew off all of my chips without even finishing in the money.
In 2005, I did make some progress on retaining chips longer, as I was the day-two chip leader in the L.A. Poker Classic (with 54 players remaining), the chip leader in the Lake Tahoe WSOP event (with 24 players remaining), the chip leader in the Paris WPT event (with 19 players remaining), and second in chips (with 70 players remaining) in the Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic. Overall, 2005 was very frustrating for me, as my best big buy-in event finish was sixth place.
I usually have lost my huge chip stack due to bad play, not bad luck (although many times it was a combination of both). I made a resolution to try to play well throughout an entire event, not just the first two days when I am having the most fun.
JM: What is it about no-limit that you enjoy, and how does the way you approach the game make you such a hard player to play against?
AG: I love deep-chip play – because skill, and not good starting hands, will determine if you win or lose. I love to get tight, solid players at my table.
If I am hard to play against, it might be because I can be holding any two cards at any time, and the word fear is not really in my vocabulary.
JM: Most of your major-tournament cashes are in no-limit hold'em events. Do you play other games besides no-limit? If so, what other games do you enjoy and find yourself successful playing?
AG: The last couple of years have been 90 percent no-limit (hold'em, including pot-limit hold'em). I will be 100 percent no-limit hold'em this year. Since I want to play only 40 to 50 days a year, I don't feel a need or desire to learn other forms of poker. I have never played Omaha or any high-low game, and don't even know the rules for triple-draw and other forms of poker except seven-card stud high.
JM: So, if you could change one thing in poker, what would it be?
AG: I would like to see more events with buy-ins above $10,000. I just think there are too many generic $10,000 events, and I have no interest in playing 25 of these events every year. I am not an elitist. I like open events in which anyone can play, events for which there are tons of satellites and supersatellites available both online and live.
The second thing I would change is to somehow speed up play. It is not a joy to play the game when one player takes an abnormal amount of time, particularly if it is intentional stalling.
JM: You now have two WPT titles and are fourth on the all-time WPT money list. What are your long-term goals in poker, and where can we expect to see Alan Goehring five years from now?
AG: My goal is just to have fun and enjoy the game. If I win some money, great. Hopefully, five years from now you can find me on the cover of Card Player magazine again, after I win another WPT Championship! 
