Heads Up With Tom Schneider

Tom Schneider is a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, and has almost $1.6 million in tournament winnings. Most recently, he went deep in the 2009 main event, finishing 52nd out of 6,494 players, for $139,000. He sat down with Card Player TV after playing day 2A.

Kristy Arnett: In the beginning stages of a tournament, when you have a table full of players you don’t know, is it profitable to try to run bluffs?

Tom Schneider: As good poker players do, I try to assess the players at the table and see who I can and cannot bluff. There were a few players at my table who I felt I could bluff pretty easily. If I thought they were coming into a lot of pots, their holdings were going to be a lot weaker, so they’d be easier to bluff, since they weren’t going to have much of a hand most of the time.

KA: You ended day 1 with a pretty decent chip count, as you more than doubled your stack. How did day 2 start for you?

TS: Day 2 started great. I went from about 80,000 to 156,000 in two levels. Then, I played a hand with Pam Brunson and tried to push her off the hand, but she called. That was the start of my downfall. I kind of couldn’t get anything going after that. I wasn’t catching any cards, so I just kind of shut down for the rest of the day, feeling like I didn’t want to blow away any more chips. I was down to about 95,000, but fortunately, near the end of the day I had a big hand. It was a big call for me, because I was going to be down to 60,000 if I lost that pot, but instead, I won, and ended the day with 123,000.

KA: Tournaments are a lot about momentum, so if you went from 50,000 to 95,000, you would be OK and feeling good, but since you went from 156,000 to 95,000, it feels like you’ve lost momentum, so how do you deal with that mentally and keep yourself in the right mindset to play?

TS: That’s a great question, because I really do think that tournaments are all about momentum. When I feel like I’ve lost some momentum, I start folding a lot more hands. I want to get that tight image back so that when I do come back in, I can win my first pot. I think it is important to win that first pot that you play after you have something devastating happen. I think it’s good to take some time out. I play a little less aggressively, call less, do not take as many chances, and wait until I feel like I can win a pot. Then I’ll play, and then I’ll win a pot and feel like I have the momentum back on my side.

KA: That’s a great point. So, if you just lost a big pot, and a couple of hands later you pick up a hand like pocket fives in early position, are you letting that hand go to build your image and because it’s a marginal hand?

TS: Yeah, I might let it go, or instead of putting a raise in there, I might limp and be willing to fold it. I don’t want to bleed off a bunch of chips. I’m very likely going to fold it and just wait, but it’s more likely that I’m going to limp and say, “Let’s see what happens and see how the action goes.” I just don’t want to lose two big pots in a row. Mentally, it’s devastating. Plus, my chip stack has always been above average, so it’s a nice barometer to use to say, “Everything is fine.” The other thing I do is look around the table at other players with shorter stacks than mine, and look at how calm they are, how peaceful and in control they are. I say, “OK, this guy is in control with 40,000, and I have 95,000, even though I feel like I’m short-stacked.” I can look at him as a good example. Those kinds of things really calm me down, as well.