Player of the Year

Look Out:Miguel Proulx

More often than not, success at a poker table comes at the expense of other areas in a person’s life. Tournament poker is an endeavor that is not always conducive to school, family, and other careers. There are players out there who are good examples of balance, and one such player who had a strong summer in Las Vegas was Miguel Proulx, a family man and college graduate.

Proulx won the $2,500 pot-limit Omaha event at the 2010 World Series of Poker to take home $315,311 in prize money and 1,440 Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) points, but he wasn’t done. He made an even larger score when he finished second to Daniel Alaei in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha world championship to add another $482,265 and 1,750 POY points to his take for the summer.

He plans to use much of his winnings for his growing family. “I have a family in Quebec. I already have one daughter and another child on the way. The family is expanding. That’s a pretty nice gift for the family,” said Proulx.

He now sits in seventh place in the current POY standings with 3,190 points, and he’s proven himself to be one of the most savvy young pot-limit Omaha players in poker. He is a 27-year-old part-time poker professional from Saint Charles, Quebec in Canada. He earned a degree in computer science from Universite Laval, and he plans to return to school to earn his master’s degree in order to pursue a job in the high-tech industry.

Proulx is drawn to the WSOP by the cash games, but he said that nothing can compare to the feeling of winning a gold bracelet. “I usually come to the WSOP to play in the cash games. This year, I was tired of playing in cash games. So, I tried my chances in tournaments,” said Proulx. “I could have played more in the [other games], but I am better at pot-limit Omaha, and the fields are not as large, so I thought my chances to win a bracelet were better in those events, so that is why I played the pot-limit Omaha tournaments.”

He was also very happy to see the success of Canadian players this summer. Canada took home five bracelets in all, including a couple to Quebec. “We had a huge year here. This is the second gold bracelet we won. We have about 7 million people (the population of Quebec), so that’s pretty good,” said Proulx. “You always watch for your country and your province. So, it feels really great.”

Time will tell if Proulx will stay committed to continuing his education, earning a master’s degree, and pursuing a job in the high-tech sector, while keeping his time at a poker table in check. Having a child has a way of bringing out the responsible side in people, and with another one on the way, it is a safe bet that he will play in poker tournaments sparingly. But if they are pot-limit Omaha events, he could be a threat to go deep in all of them.

Online Player of the Year Spotlight: Casey ‘bigdogpckt5s’ Jarzabek
By Julio Rodriguez

The Card Player Online Player of the Year (OPOY) award honors the best tournament player across the major online sites in a given calendar year. Previous winners have included greats such as Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron, Alexander “AJKHoosier1” Kamberis, and Steve “gboro80” Gross. Here, we take a look at one of the current top contenders.

Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek had a breakout year in 2009, winning $665,453 and finishing in ninth place in the OPOY race. Despite that success, the 37-year-old from St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, is now on pace to shatter his previous marks, as he sits atop the current leader board. The man has flat-out dominated Sundays. He already has picked up six wins, including the Sunday Mulligan and Sunday Second Chance. Just seven months into the competition, he has managed to earn $562,256 in online-tournament play alone, taking his lifetime earnings to more than $2 million.

Even though he currently has the lead, Jarzabek insists that he’s not the odds-on favorite to win it all. His modesty aside, there’s no question that he has been this year’s most consistent performer to date, with 34 in-the-money finishes, including 21 final-table appearances. In this interview, Jarzabek explains how a sports injury brought him to the game and how he became one of the best players in the online community.

Julio Rodriguez: You’ve been playing poker for six years now. How did it all start?

Casey Jarzabek: Poker has always been a passion of mine. I started around the kitchen table with my parents and grandparents, playing games like Follow the Queen and Kings and Little Ones. As I got older, I played in various home games, but I never treated it as anything more than a hobby. Then, I had my accident. I was working at a job that I really hated. It was data entry and inventory control for a hot-tub factory. In my entire life, I’ve never enjoyed hearing an alarm clock go off, so I was looking for a change. One day, I was playing in a charity baseball game. While sliding into second base, I managed to break my foot in six places. After that, I had to have a couple of operations, and that left me laid up in bed for quite a while. With nothing to do, I decided to deposit some money online and try my hand at poker.

JR: How did that initial deposit go?

CJ: I won immediately. I started off with some cash games and did well, but then I won the Treasure Chest tournament on Paradise Poker for about $25,000. After bricking a couple of tournaments, I decided to make the transition to Absolute Poker to play sit-and-gos exclusively. I quit my job and made my living for two years grinding those out before I switched to multitable tournaments.

JR: What was your assessment of your skill level back then?

CJ: I think that I sucked, to be honest. But then again, everybody sucked back then. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been one of the most dominant players of that period. There were a few great players back then, but nowhere near the number playing today. The learning curve has become so accelerated that it’s getting tougher and tougher to make a living.

JR: When did everything click for you? When did you realize that you were one of the best players out there?

CJ: It might surprise you, but it wasn’t until about a year and half ago that I felt that way. When I first made the transition to PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, I was having trouble beating the better players. In my mind, I thought I was really good, but looking back, I realize that I wasn’t even close to where I needed to be. I learned a lot from guys like Mark “dipthrong” Herm and Daniel “djk123” Kelly, and I was able to plug some of my leaks, which enabled me to take my game to the next level.

JR: Tell me a little bit about your new poker training site, tournamentpokeredge.com.

CJ: I never really thought about doing training videos. I was approached by a couple of sites a while back, but they weren’t the right fit for me. Then, the guys at Tournament Poker Edge approached me, and they were made up of a bunch of players I really respected, like Jon “Wein” Wein, Charles “Hagbard Celine” Sizemore, Ryan “HITTHEPANDA” Franklin, and Derek “Killingbird” Tenbusch. I think what separates us from all of the other training sites out there is that all of the pros, including me, have a vested interest in the company. We’re not just paid to make videos, we all are owners. That gives us the incentive to get out there on the forums and really become more community-oriented. We spend hours and hours working with our players to get better. That personalized attention is what stands out from some other sites that just give you access to videos, and not much else.

JR: Let us have some free poker advice.

CJ: The biggest problem I see in beginners is that they don’t understand proper bet-sizing. It’s just a huge leak. When people make bet-sizing errors early on, they need to realize that those mistakes are compounded with each decision made for the rest of the tournament. The amount of equity they are giving away gets multiplied over and over again by the time the tournament ends. It all starts with the opening raise. If the blinds are 500-1,000, I see way too many people raising to 3,000 instead of something more reasonable, like 2,000 to 2,500. I know that it doesn’t sound like a big difference, but over the course of a tournament, those extra chips that you are putting in add up to a big number. Also, if you are opening smaller and are forced to continuation-bet with air, you get to make a smaller continuation-bet, as well.

JR: That sounds a lot like a small-ball approach. Do you see poker moving more into that direction in the future?

CJ: Absolutely. The min-raise [minimum-raise] is way more profitable than the three-times-the-big-blind raise. Think of it this way: If a player is facing a raise, the options that he has don’t change whether you min-raise or make it three times the big blind. If that’s the case, why would you want to needlessly inflate the pot? Another related problem I see is that beginners have trouble knowing when they should be betting for value or checking for value. Knowing when to extract value and when to check for showdown value is a very thin line. Little things like this can be corrected only with time and experience.

JR: You currently have a slim lead in the Online Player of the Year race. What would it mean for you to win?

CJ: It would be absolutely fantastic. I got off to a great start this year, and have managed to stay in front or near it through seven months of play. That being said, I don’t think I’m going to win it. My volume is starting to decrease on a weekly basis. Honestly, the grind is too tough. If I was to win a big tournament and give myself some breathing room from the rest of the pack, maybe that would inspire me to jump right back on the horse. Otherwise, I’m not too interested in playing 60 to 70 hours a week for the rest of the year.

JR: Well, if you don’t win it, who will?

CJ: I think Steve “gboro780” Gross is the best online-tournament player in the world. I think he’s head and shoulders above the rest of the field. The others who are high in the standings are obviously great players, but it’s Steve’s to win if he wants it.

Current OPOY Standings

You can check out more about the 2010 OPOY race and leader board by visiting http://www.CardPlayer.com/poker-players/online-player-of-the-year.