Generation Next -- Corwin Cole

Corwin Cole was a StarCraft devotee while growing up, a gamer purist at heart. He discovered poker when rumors about StarCraft champion Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier pocketing tons of cash and playing five tables simultaneously spread throughout the gaming community. Cole was instantly mesmerized by a new challenge. He read a few books, and began to play limit poker at a nearby Indian casino.

His next step was to dabble online with low-stakes sit-and-gos, but then he quickly made the transition to no-limit hold’em cash games. To make the jump from penny games to mid-stakes games, he sought assistance from some StarCraft comrades who already had begun to make their mark online: Ryan Daut, PoorUser, and Dan “Rekrul” Schreiber. From these mentors, Cole extrapolated how to think about the game and, more importantly, how to remain calm and focused at all times, no matter how the cards fell.

“A lot of people have poor tilt control,” said Cole. “When they make a bad decision, especially for a large pot, they tend to feel bad about themselves and begin to play off their normal game. And that is a huge detriment to your overall win rate. It also decreases your motivation to put in a large volume of hands.”

In the past 12 months, Cole has begun to study tournament strategy — again, from some of the best in the game, including Steve “thorladen” Weinstein. It’s been a fun and profitable diversion from grinding cash games and teaching at CardRunners. Last year, he finished fifth for $189,311 in the $1,365 no-limit hold’em World Series of Poker event No. 52, and to date he has cashed in live events for more than $420,000.

By embarking on the journey to master his mind and his poker game, Cole inadvertently became a sought-after private coach, as he developed into the player’s player. There are many consistently successful players, but very few who can articulate why they do what they do, each moment, in every hand; and when variance causes a good run of profits to plummet, Cole remains tilt-free and a true gentleman at all times.

Craig Tapscott: You told me that your success is due partly to the way you think about the game. Please explain.

Corwin Cole: Before I make a decision, I create an entire list of possible results that can stem from that decision. I consider them all carefully, in terms of both their possible outcomes and their profitability.

CT: So, what misstep do most players make during this process?

CC: What I find in the thought processes of most poker players, both successful and break-even, is that they tend to isolate one particular result that they want to either achieve or avoid, and that one result doesn’t paint a clear enough picture of all of the possible results.

CT: How do you build that type of thought process?

CC: The structure of that system of enumerative thinking comes from a history of away-from-the-table analysis, by carefully thinking about each hand.

CT: So, you do an extensive review of hands after sessions?

CC: I’ll go through each possible result or course of action from the possible hands an opponent could have. I will consider the way I want to play, on balance, given the entire spectrum of possibilities. That work creates a multitude of general concepts, related to board texture, game flow, opponent type, and my own hand. That information can be drawn upon very quickly and subconsciously while playing. At the table, I consider all the different holdings that my opponent can have, and how I want to play against each one. Then, I determine a balanced decision in the end.

CT: How in the world can you do that if you are multitabling online … for each and every hand? Are you sure that you’re even human?

CC: (Laughing) The fact that I’m working away from the tables actually helps me not to have to think much at all while playing.

CT: How do players master tilt control?

CC: This may be esoteric and removed from poker strategy, but if you think about the realm of professional poker players, there are certain people who are winning very consistently and are killing the game every single month, over and over. And there are certain people who tend to be struggling, again and again. The consistent winners manage themselves very well, and they’re very honest with themselves. The point is to play well and to maintain your confidence and your sanity — and to play a lot.

CT: Thanks, Corwin. Card Player will have to come back and dive inside your head again another time. It’s scary in there.