Capture The Flag -- Scott Seiver

!(right caption){height:255px;width:170px;margin:3px 10px;border:3px solid;}Image Location Here(Player Name Here)!Scott Seiver moved to Las Vegas as a poker
professional just before the start of the 2008
World Series of Poker. Unknown to him at the
time, he was about to win a coveted bracelet
that summer, fi rmly establishing himself
among the game’s up-and-coming stars. He
started the fateful Series by cashing in two events, and
then went on to win the $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em
event for nearly $756,000.
The 26-year-old New York native held a wide range of jobs
over the course of his life, but once he began taking poker
seriously, he knew that life as a cash-game professional was
beckoning.
Seiver began his poker journey after stumbling into a random
home game while at Brown University. He always had
been interested in poker after seeing his parents play, but
he didn’t fully know the rules when fi nding it in college. The
home game had a $50 buy-in, which, “to a college freshman
with no job, was pretty big at the time.” Seiver went on to win
about $300, despite playing “horrible poker.”
Seiver said he went from thinking that poker was incredibly
easy to quickly realizing how little he really knew about
the game. He met Isaac Haxton during his sophomore year, as
both soon-to-be pros were computer science majors. Unlike
Seiver, Haxton had been playing for a while before college,
taking limit hold’em fairly seriously and doing well. Through
him, Seiver was able to learn the nuances of the game. It
wasn’t long before he put some money online and began to
play limit hold’em on PartyPoker. With no bankroll management,
he quickly went from $2-$4 to $5-$10, and the professional
poker mind was born.
In 2010, the cash-game grinder told Card Player that he
had busted a six-fi gure bankroll several times in his career,
but he considered himself “risk-averse” after the experiences. Despite his skills and confi dence at the poker table, he said he
didn’t ever want to tangle with the likes of Tom Dwan, Patrik
Antonius, or Phil Ivey in high-stakes pot-limit Omaha and nolimit
hold’em cash games. Seiver, who has become a fi xture
in the big mixed games at Aria over the past year, has found
his post-Black Friday calling in a variety of disciplines and in
a structure that doesn’t lead to bankroll-busting swings. “In
any form of poker, you have to be conservative with your
bankroll,” Seiver said. “You have to treat the game like a job,
be safe, and be smart.”
Although he puts the majority of his hours in at stakes as
high as $400-$800, Seiver found the time to win the World
Poker Tour championship this past spring. Seiver bested a
tough fi eld to take home $1.6 million. He also had success at
the WSOP this summer, cashing four times and fi nal-tabling
the $50,000 Players Championship. In fi ve short years, he has
accumulated an outstanding $4.7 million in career tournament
earnings.
Seiver said that since his WPT win, he is still pretty much
the same player, and others in the poker community still see
him as the same guy with the same poker game. The former
online-poker pro has no plans to relocate to a different country.
He is content with his poker life and its community in
Las Vegas.
With longevity in both live and online cash games, as well
as tournaments, Seiver has quickly cemented his place as
one of the game’s best all-around players. Card Player caught
up with him on a break in the Epic Poker League’s second
$20,000 buy-in main event to talk about how things are going
for him post-WSOP.
Brian Pempus: How have the cash games been in Las Vegas
since the WSOP ended? Do you think the hard work done by
you and other players to build the game has truly paid off?
Scott Seiver: The cash games have really kept up strongly,
as there have been a lot of them around town. It’s been a
lot of fun and action, actually. It’s a little bit surprising, but
then again, there is a strong community here in Las Vegas.
A ton of people have been playing for the past year fairly
regularly, and it’s good to see that still going. It is defi nitely
important to get a core group of players, that way if you are a
non-regular and feel like playing, you can come in and pretty
much assume that there will be a game running. This helps
the game sustain itself, and I am very thankful that I’ve been
able to do my part in this process.
BP: There were some rumors about Andy Beal coming into
town recently and playing $1,000-$2,000 no-limit hold’em.
Were you a part of any of these games? Can you talk about
the process you go through when you notice a player is in the
room who you really want to play against, because they are a
fi sh and/or they give a lot of action?
SS: Lots of people come into town at all times. There
always are big games going on, and I try to play whenever I
can. There really isn’t anything different than a normal day
in the cash games, because you have the people you already
know and are familiar with. At these stakes, everyone knows
everyone, and people just pick up the phone and say, “Let’s
play some poker.” It’s a very social and tight-knit group here
in Las Vegas.
BP: If you’re all good friends and there isn’t this bum-hunting
mentality, how do you go about taking loads of money off
each other then?
SS: Basically, everyone realizes that what happens on the
poker table is different than what happens between us off of
it. You can still be friends with someone and try your hardest
to beat them. It’s just like sports, where you try your hardest
against friends. Poker is no different in my mind, even though
there’s a lot of money involved.
BP: Would you recommend that beginning players try to
develop poker friendships in order to have someone to talk
strategy with?
SS: It’s always good to have others who you can bounce
your ideas off of. I don’t worry about giving anything away in
these relationships, because I can’t even understand my own
thoughts. I feel I am pretty outside the box, mentally, on the
poker table.
BP: So, you had the big WPT win after all these years. I
assume that it didn’t change anything about your cash-game
play, but can you give some advice for an inexperienced
poker player who stumbles across a big score and wants to
move up in stakes?
SS: You have to avoid the urge to play higher than you normally
do. It’s important to consider your mental sanity and
not jump into the biggest game possible when you have a lot
of money available. You have to stay steady and not take any
unnecessary shots with your bankroll. That is what it takes to
stay in this game for the long term. For example, leading up
to my bracelet-win in 2008, I was tearing through the headsup
cash-game ranks online, beating everybody on my way to
occasional shots at $25-$50. So, when I won that tournament,
it was really just solidifying my place at those limits.
BP: A lot of people have talked about the invention of new
games at Aria and the interesting situations that come along
with fi nding a comfort zone. How has this been for you?
SS: I love the learning process and the feeling of having
my brain fi ring on all different cylinders. We have made up a
bunch of new disciplines recently. One of them we have been
playing a lot of lately is tentatively called “tri gow,” which is
seven-card triple-draw, and at the end, you set up a pai gow
hand. Half of the pot goes to the best fi ve-card hand, and the
other half goes to the best two-card hand. We will just come
up with things like this all of the time, because it makes things
fresh and fun. In the end, that’s what everyone in the game is
there for. It’s so fascinating to be at a table when everyone is
hearing the rules for the fi rst time and then seeing everyone’s
style and strategy for the game. I try to relate any new game
to similar nuances of games I already am familiar with. ♠