The Scoop -- Matt Hawrilenko

Matt Hawrilenko has long been known as one of the most talented limit hold’em players in the world, and is a regular in the biggest cash games online, where he plays under the name of “Matt Hawrilenko” on Full Tilt. He got his start playing poker while studying at Princeton, and blossomed under the wings of Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman during his short-lived career at Susquehanna International Group, an options trading company where the three players worked. Since then, Hawrilenko also has had his share of success in tournaments; most notably, he won a World Series of Poker bracelet this summer in the $5,000 shorthanded limit hold’em event.

Diego Cordovez: On your blog, you have a transcript of a session that you played three-handed against Phil Hellmuth. Phil is such a whipping boy in poker, it’s so easy to make fun, even though he’s a great person. This is a classic transcript. It was from a high-limit hold’em game. There are tons of hands and tons of beats, which is the nature of the game, and Phil just goes on obvious chat tilt.

Adam Schoenfeld: I want to say, I’ve studied this transcript, and I consider myself a connoisseur of chat tilt, and this was the greatest single incidence of chat tilt in the history of poker, just because of who’s involved and what’s said.

DC: Phil is in crazy tilt mode, saying all these things, and you insert these deadpan lines, which I don’t know if you intended, but they seemed to tilt him more.

Matt Hawrilenko: Yeah, to most people, you’d think that. Phil, and I’m sure you’d agree with this, is the most egoistic, self-centered person in the world. He probably wasn’t even reading my chat. He was probably just typing in his spew.

DC: You’d been joking around with him, and at one point you said, “Phil, I’m not kidding now. You really should do your breathing exercises. I don’t want you to have a panic attack.” It seemed sincere on your part.

MH: That one was honestly kind of genuine. Someone directed me to his blog a week before that, and he talked about having a panic attack after a losing session on UB [UltimateBet], and rolling around on the floor. I didn’t know if I should have deleted that part when I posted the transcript on my blog.
AS: This could be like the Frost/Nixon interviews. This could be a movie like Frost/Nixon. It’d be Hawrilenko/Hellmuth.

DC: I’ve recommended your blog; you actually get into shorthanded limit hold’em. The one thing Phil types, literally 100 or 200 times, is “OP” (overplayer). In a three-handed game, Phil is playing a no-limit strategy, like limping with aces and slow-playing hands.

MH: The thing is, he’s typing OP, OP, OP. Then, we play some hand where it’s four-bet before the flop three ways and the flop comes K-K-7, and I have K-J suited. We go four bets on the flop, I bet, he raises the turn, I make it three bets, and then he folds and types OP, OP, OP. “Who was overplaying there, me or you?” He responds, “Well, I had pocket sixes.” Well, that answers that question [laughing].

DC: The great thing about it is that there is a lot of irony that Phil is not conscious of at all. He actually had one line that I thought was fantastic. First of all, it was educational about limit hold’em, but also about Phil’s thinking. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but he said, “You moron. You are raising every time you are a tiny favorite.” [Laughing] If you could crystallize what limit hold’em is all about, it would be getting your money in when you are a tiny favorite, over and over and over.