Generation Next -- Josh Gould

Twenty-year-old Josh “gouldy7” Gould is following in the footsteps of his father, Peter. The scenario is less “boots-to-fill” and more “dynamic duo” as recently the two have been taking to the same green felt with gusto. Gould has been making an impact on cash game tables in both the real and virtual worlds of poker, and has shown great potential as he attempts to carve out his own path. Next year, he’ll be old enough to hit the tables in Las Vegas but before then he has some time to show that he is an upcoming player in his own right who should be taken seriously.

Rebecca McAdam: When did you start playing?

Josh Gould: I started playing with my Dad when I was about 14, just playing $10 dollar sit ‘n’ go’s, trying to pick it up. Then I taught all my friends and we just started playing home games all the time.

RM: Did you go straight into poker after school?
 
JG: It was more like going straight into poker during school. As I started doing well and seeing that I could make big money in such a short time, I found it hard to stay motivated at school.
 
RM: If you weren’t playing what do you think you’d be doing?
 
JG: I’d most likely be at university at the moment, not sure what I would have been studying but all I know is that I wasn’t ready for an office job when I left school.
 
RM: Do you think if your dad didn’t play, that you would be playing now?
 
JG: It’s hard to say. I’m sure I would be playing but I definitely wouldn’t have started so young and definitely wouldn’t be as good.
 
RM: Would you have a similar style?
 
JG: Well I really started getting into poker when I was 18 — setting up my own online accounts etcetera — and I went to Vegas, just for a holiday. My dad was good friends with Ram Vaswani so I just watched him playing online and then he said he would start coaching me if I wanted. This was really good for me, so I’d say I adopted his style more.
 
RM: Would you play with him much?
 
JG: Yes, it wasn’t until the European Poker Tour Barcelona that year that I really started playing with him a lot. I would go round to his house and watch him play online and vice versa and he would just help me improve leaks in my game and obviously teach me how to pull off some of the crazy moves he is famous for.

RM: Do you find that having a dad who is a pro sometimes puts pressure on you to do well in the face of the wider poker community?

JG: I think I did at first, when I first started playing because I wasn’t known for being my own player but for being related to somebody else. There is always pressure on all players to get results, and it’s tough because in tournaments you need a lot of luck to get these big results. So once I got over the learning curve that you can’t win every time you play, I was more relaxed about it. But it does help motivate me because I always want to do better than my dad.

RM: I noticed at events that he sat near you watching you, is he a great source of strength and support for you, or does it put you under pressure and freak you out?
 
JG: It’s most likely the other way. When I’m playing live tournaments I prefer not being watched. I’m a very easily distracted person.

RM: Do you play more online than live, and which do you prefer?
 
JG: I try to play most big live events. I enjoy the traveling in a group and going to all the nicest locations, but I’m mostly a cash game player. I like to mix it up playing live and online. I would play live more if I wasn’t so lazy. Online is good because it doesn’t have to take up extra time like travel etcetera.
 
RM: Did you find the transition to live difficult?
 
JG: Yes. I had never played properly live in cash games until I was almost 19. It was in Dublin for the Irish Open. I had been playing pot-limit Omaha online and only six-handed, so when I first played nine- or ten-handed Omaha live cash games, I did very bad. I took a beating for the two days I played. I steered clear of that game for a few months, before deciding I had to figure it out, which I managed to in the end.

RM: Why do you prefer live cash?

JG: I like live cash for a few reasons — there are no distractions like facebook and msn when playing. It’s social to play live sometimes, and I just feel like I have a bigger edge live, and although people say I’m “too inexperienced” to have a good feel for the game, I seem to make a lot better decisions when looking at a person rather than a screen.

RM: What kind of stakes do you play online?
 
JG: Very mixed. Last year after spending a year and a bit building up my bankroll, I took a few shots in the big games on Full Tilt. It was typical that at this point I went on the worst run of luck I’ve ever been on. I was playing the best poker I’ve ever played, but it wasn’t much consolation. I think I lost about £200,000 during the summer. Before that I was only playing 10/20 and 25/50, after the summer I went back to lower stakes like 5/10 and 10/20.
 
RM: How have you been doing online/live in general?
 
JG: Tournaments have been very frustrating for me. I haven’t played a huge amount, but every time I went deep in one, it would end up with a bad beat story at the end. Although now I’ve learned not to tell them or care about the stories because they are all the same and nobody wants to hear a story unless it’s their own. Cash games have been going quite well online and live. I took a few months off after a bad run and I felt it has really helped my game. I’ve got my patience and discipline back, along with my hunger to do well, which is the main thing — you always have to really want to be playing, otherwise you wont be playing your best.
 
RM: As you’ve been travelling Europe playing, do you feel your game improving?
 
JG: Yeah, I’d say the main improvement in my game is just that by coming across so many different types of players in Europe, and people that travel over from America, that you learn how to deal with all different styles of play. You get a lot of players that can’t adapt well to different types of play and aren’t willing to learn.
 
RM: What are your poker dreams?
 
JG: Win the World Series main event like everybody else! My ambitions in the near future are to get a few good results in my first year in Vegas, and hopefully a few good results in the upcoming season of the EPTs.
 
RM: What is the best poker advice your dad or indeed anyone gave you?
 
JG: I think the best poker advice was probably from Ram. I would get really annoyed when I was running bad online and he kept saying that results don’t matter, getting unlucky is irrelevent because if you keep playing well in the long term luck levels out. Although I don’t believe it’s true (laughs), it does help me keep focus knowing that I can’t start playing bad just because I got unlucky a few times.