Generation Next -- Christophe and Matthias De Meulder

Players are now seeing double on the international circuit due to identical Belgian twins Christophe and Matthias De Meulder. With firm heads on their shoulders, the two 21-year-old political science students add an interesting element to the game wherever they go. One company to stand up and take notice is PokerStars, as the twins have recently been signed as the first Team PokerStars Pro Belgium players. Card Player tried to get a word in edgewise at the Belgium Poker Championships in Namur, where the fun loving duo competed with and supported each other.

Rebecca McAdam: How did you get into poker?

Matthias De Meulder: I got into poker first when I was about 18 and a half, during my studies for my first exams for university. Someone told me, “Hey, you should try poker, it’s really fun.” So I ended up playing for play money and three years later here we are.

RM: Did you have to spend a lot of money to make money?

MD: Actually I started out with freerolls and then I got some starting capital from a training site — if you would complete a quiz then they would give you some starting capital, so that’s what I started playing with.

RM: You didn’t deposit anything?

MD: No, not at all.

RM: What about you Christophe?

Christophe De Meulder: I started playing about six months to one year later because at the time when Matthias was starting to get into poker I was doing some other stuff and I wasn’t really into the game yet. But then he said, “You should really try it out,” and I noticed he was putting a lot of time and effort into it and was actually getting some nice results, winning some tournaments, so I got interested, and the vibe got into me and never left.

RM: Would your game be similar then?

CD: We’re pretty similar in a way that Matthias has been my coach for a long time, especially the first year. Not saying that he’s coaching me a lot or anything, he’s not putting that much effort into it. He’s always asking me right after I play a two-hour session, “Oh hey, now come and sweat me.” And I’m like, “I just played two hours, the last thing I want to do is anything concerning poker.” We’ve got a pretty similar playing style because of that I think. I’ve seen him play and automatically you start doing the same stuff because you see it works.

RM: What is your playing style?

MD: In tournaments, it depends on stack size, but when I build up a stack I’m kind of a maniac. I play loose-aggressive. In cash games it’s more like a tight-aggressive-ish style. Just tight-aggressive when the stacks are smaller and when we get deep I tend to loosen up a lot because you have to put a lot more pressure on your opponents.

RM: Do you play tighter live?

MD: Well I do change my game a little. I start incorporating limping and stuff like that which I would normally never do online.

CD: When a guy limps online, it’s like, “Oh fish! Go after him!” He gets tagged immediately. In live, you notice yourself limping as well, but it’s just a different game. There is a lot of instinct and reads, a lot more than online play, so you can actually get away with more, and more accurately tell whether your opponents are weak or strong.

RM: When you started, did you play live as well?

MD: Both of us started playing online. Christophe wasn’t at first making any results, but live he was doing really well. The first one and a half years I was playing poker, I only played online — also because in Belgium you have to be 21 to play in live casinos. But then I went to the Netherlands where you only had to be 18, and I had my first live experience there.

CD: The first year I played poker, I had this thing called tilt, which cost me a lot of money. I could get pretty annoyed with stuff but most of the stuff was my own mistake. It was actually funny because when I played live, people would say, “Oh he’s an online guy” and I was thinking, “Online, yeah right.”

RM: That must have been really difficult with your brother doing so well online?

CD: I did really, really well live, so it compensated. I’m not saying I was losing money online but I wasn’t really making any big profits the first year. Afterwards everything changed and now everything is going well live and online.

RM: What stakes are you both playing online now?

CD: Well he’s playing a lot higher than me. I’m sticking to $1-$2, $2-$4 hold’em multi-table, like 12 tables plus. Matthias is playing $5-$10, $10-$20, sometimes $3-$6.

MD: My main game is $3-$6 and $5-$10. When games are good like $10-$20, $25-$50, I just jump in.

RM: What do you find the reaction is to you in live events?

CD: Well the first thing people always say is, “Oh you guys are working shifts. You just play for two hours and then you swap, or you just specialise in an area of tournament poker like the short stacking or deep stack, and you just switch up.” (laughs) We’re also pretty recognisable when we go to events because we are twins.

Actually, it was pretty funny, I was on the feature table the entire day 2 and it was so hot because of the spot lights. I was nearly passing out because I had a t-shirt and a sweater on, so I asked Matthias to switch tops. I was pretty short and I didn’t want to miss any blinds so we did it really quick to one side, and when I came back everyone was staring at me like, “Is it him? Or is it not him?” But no one said anything. Afterwards they realised it was still me.

RM: How do your parents feel about you playing poker?

MD: My dad is probably our biggest fan. At first they were sceptical but then they saw we were doing well, so they installed the game on their laptop and now they love it as well.

RM: What results have you been most proud of so far?

MD: I was actually most proud of my win in Dublin [mini-WSOP main event]. I’ve won some bigger tournaments than that online, but live, it just feels like a much bigger accomplishment. You get the recognition and people congratulate you, while online if you win a tournament it adds up to your balance and that’s it. Live, you actually see your opponents, and see how many you’ve beaten, while online, you’re just sitting clicking buttons.

RM: When you’re playing each other, do you know what the other is thinking?

CD: First of all we never really give each other credit for anything, so it’s more like bluff, rebluff, rerebluff, and then see if I have enough chips to make him fold. Sometimes if we’re sitting at the same table, people think we’re gonna play together. Then in the first hand they see this huge pot they’ve never seen before, and they see it’s between these two guys who are very similar, so they see then we’re not playing together.

RM: Have you ever considered switching places, even in smaller tournaments?

MD: No, we’re fair guys really.

CD: People ask us, in school did you ever switch for an exam or whatever? And no, we never did.

RM: What’s the plan — twin bracelets?

MD: Wasn’t the plan to win this tournament? (laughs) Mainly we just want to have a good time, put poker more on the map in Belgium, promote it in a positive way…

CD: And win some tournaments.