Heads Up With Peter Eastgate

Peter Eastgate is the reigning main-event champion of the World Series of Poker. Last year he took down more than $9.1 million and the coveted gold bracelet. Since then, he’s been seen playing in the highest no-limit hold’em cash games on PokerStars, and also has appeared on the show High Stakes Poker on GSN. He stopped by the Card Player TV studio to talk about what his year has been like since his win, and what he’s learned from playing in the nosebleed cash games.

Kristy Arnett: Winning the World Series of Poker main event is every poker player’s dream, and I’m sure that you thought a lot about what it would be like to win during the time leading up to the “November Nine.” Is it everything you thought it would be?

Peter Eastgate: Yeah, pretty much. It’s whatever you make it to be. I’ve never really thought of it as something that would change my life in many aspects other than my financial status. You still have to work a lot on other interests, and on improving your poker game and improving a lot of other things in your life. It’s nice to win, but there are aspects of life other than just winning a lot of money.

KA: Fans have gotten to watch you play high-stakes cash games on PokerStars and the show High Stakes Poker. Have you stepped it up in stakes as a result of your main-event win?

PE: Yeah, I think I’ve been a little cocky and played against some of the best players in the world on PokerStars. They’ve beaten me up quite a bit. They are clearly better than me. Hopefully, I’ve learned a lot from playing them. My hat’s off to players like Tom Dwan and a guy called Ben Sulsky, “Sauce1234,” and a few others. They are really awesome players. I must admit that I’m not in the same category with them. They just show that poker is evolving constantly, and they are the new elite of poker. I’m the elite of live tournaments, but they are the elite of online poker.

KA: After playing so many hands heads up, that’s got to improve your game, right?

PE: Hopefully, if I can learn from my mistakes. I haven’t really learned as much as I should have while playing those guys, and maybe they are learning more as we play. The more we play, the bigger edge they have, I think.

KA: What are your long-term goals? Do you aspire to be a great high-stakes cash-game player, or are you still focusing on live tournaments?

PE: Poker, to me, is scouting out games that you can beat. I have to take responsibility for my losses and admit that I can’t beat the high-stakes games as they are right now, and I might not be capable of doing that in the future. I have no problem with that. I just need to find games that I can beat. That’s far more fun. Hopefully, I can do well in a live tournament again, but it’s not something that worries me at all. I’ve achieved more than I could hope for in this industry, and I’m obviously hungry to produce new results, but it’s nothing that worries me.