Engineering Stacks With Nelius Foley

Work hard, play hard. One could often apply that motto to the poker life. Do it successfully and along with wealth comes freedom. Freedom to work when you want, where you want, putting in long strenuous hours of concentration and unwinding afterwards in the setting of your choice. But what about the right balance? And what about those aiming for the top both inside and outside of poker. Those with love for the game but passions elsewhere. Could, for instance, a high stakes player also hold down a full-time job? Could an online pro chase an educational dream while simultaneously putting in the hours to maintain and increase his/her bankroll? How does someone like that face a job which pays them less in a month than they could earn in a day? And, even worse, how could they face it after a major downswing?
One man managing to juggle both is 29-year-old Irishman Nelius Foley, or “danceofddead” and “loldublinpeople” as he is known online. The Irishman has been playing poker for about seven years and in that time has moved from $.01-$.02 online to $25-$50 and $50-$100. With his main cash game $5-$10 online, Foley also works full-time in a research group as an instrumentation engineer, looking at environmental issues and monitoring greenhouse gas fluxes in grasslands and peat areas. Funny combo? Well maybe not so much when you hear that to get there Foley studied applied physics and instrumentation in the Cork Institute of Technology.

“The applied physics is mostly maths-based while the instrumentation part of the course is more engineering type stuff so would involve a lot of programming, problem solving, kind of mixed in with electrical engineering type stuff,” he explains.

It would make sense then to assume the Eco warrior has a mathematical approach to the game. “Yeah, especially at the start,” says Foley. “Once I started playing small stakes cash games online, my approach would have been to play a load of hands, find where I was winning money, losing money, playing different to other regulars in my game etc… and then adjust my game. Rinse and repeat. I’d have done this lots of times, over and over again, as I moved up levels. Also I’d have read hands posted in poker forums a lot, watch poker videos, and read a lot about theory. I’d say it was a very analytical way of getting better alright, and because I didn’t really play live much I never would have been a ‘feel player’ or basing plays on tells.”

Moving On Up

Foley’s time at the felt was very casual until after college, just a bit of fun with friends at the weekend and some micro stakes online. “Once I had finished college and was playing in the evenings after work it didn’t take long at all to move up from the micros to small stakes at all. I think it was only a matter of three to four months before I had a roll to be playing 100 no-limit hold’em, and then I started grinding small stakes tournaments along with that as well,” he says. As far as opponents he respects online nowadays, he says, “Of the guys I’ve played tournies against, some of the top grinders like Flush_Entity, 1banditpanda and ch0ppy are always in games I play and are always crushing. I think of the Irish, Jude Ainsworth and Bigmickg are probably the best about when it comes to tournies. In cash there are so many good regs [regulars] that I’d find it hard to pick the best out, one guy that I hated playing at six-max for sure was DrGiggy, but there are loads of guys that I respect playing high and nose bleeds, too many to mention.”

Tell All

But what about his live game? Foley answers, “Well to be honest I haven’t really played live much at all. Three years ago, I won a package to the WSOP main event and I had only played one live tournament that year for about two hours total and about four to five tournaments before that in total. So I had no live experience at all and I was playing $10,000 events. I think I adjusted OK though, live poker is so slow-paced compared to online that you have plenty of time to adjust and get used to it.” According to the online grinder, he has played about 20 live tournaments over the past four years including the last four World Series of Poker main events, some WSOP side events, the last three Irish Open and Irish Winter Festivals, and some UK & Ireland Poker Tour stops. With so much of his time playing poker being in the virtual world, Foley had to adapt when sitting down at the live felt. However it seems that for him live play means more time to focus on what those around him are doing, so in fact he finds it easier to pick up on things he may have otherwise missed. “It’s a bit easier to pick up on betsizing tells, timing tells, people will even give there thought process in a hand, so the main adjustment I try and make is to pick up on these types of tells. There can be alot of extra info that is not available online,” he explains. He does admit to nerves however in the first few big pots he played live where he was bluffing. “I was pretty aware of it and would have tried to keep my bet timings standard when bluffing or value betting. I’d say everyone will have some tells until they are comfortable with playing live and it definitely took me a few tournaments to get comfortable and just play as I would if it was online.”

Online Versus Live

He may pick up on more at the felt but it is clear where Foley’s success lies. “I have about $1 million in online tournaments results and only $20k in live earnings so a bit of a difference,” he laughs. The Irishman puts this down to the fact he plays way more online than live. “I have only played about 20-30 live events compared to thousands of online events so that’s mainly it, it’s hard to get around to all the big events with work.” This is the impressive part. As mentioned, Foley has made himself a millionaire via online poker but continues to strive for what he began in college. This is something many would like to find a balance to be able to do, but also something players would find it hard to do since poker is such an all-consuming lifestyle. “It’s tough to balance,” admits Foley, “Like I have had nights where I’ve won $80k or close to it and went into work the next day and also had nights where I’ve lost $45-50k playing high stakes cash and went into work the next day too. Actually the toughest thing is probably a Monday morning if I have gone deep in a Sunday tournament as I could end up not sleeping at all. That’s why I tend to grind tournies three nights a week, Sunday (for the big Sunday majors), Tuesday (for the Tuesday 1k on Stars) and Friday sometimes if I feel like it. If I play the other nights it’s usually cash games or one or two tournies.”

Resisting Temptation

With successfully playing online three days a week, it must be difficult not to be tempted to see what it would be like to play online full-time or, indeed, more live events. Although it is becoming more common these days to see players who have a focus outside of poker doing well during the times they turn their attention to the game. “I did consider going pro once or twice and may at some stage but nothing planned for the near future. I would like to maybe get some more live events in like EPTs and a few more WSOP events which is very difficult with limited holidays,” he adds. The discipline needed for this kind of lifestyle is something a lot of people would find hard to keep up. Limited time to play, long hours leading into work hours, emotional swings… with Foley making more money playing, there must be something keeping him in the field he is in and driving him forward. “Yeah, I have made more money from poker than working the last few years,” he responds. “But I’ve also got a lot of experience in work which is hard to put a monitory value on. If I had gone pro after maybe one or two years working I probably would have made more money but it would also have probably badly affected my chances of doing anything further in my normal career, so I think I have kept both options open for myself and I can always take a year out at some stage to give it a go and still have 4-5 years work experience behind me to fall back on.”

Aside from his obvious interest in what he does for a living, at least in his current job there is also no chance of him losing all the money he has worked for in just a few hours. Foley talks about going broke online, “Once after I had moved up from mid-stakes cash,I had done well up to $3-$6 and it was my first shot at $5-$10, it went really bad and I ended up busting whatever roll I had online. It was about a $40-$50k downswing at the time for me. I ended up dropping back down to 200NL and 400NL and starting again — I had money offline to just deposit and start again. I also had a massive downswing last year, running over 100k below ev [expected value] when taking my first shots at $25-$50 but just moved back down to 1kNL where I am now and I’m still taking occasional shots at softer $10-$20 and $25-$50 games.”

Love What You Do

It seems Foley has a very sensible approach to all things in life especially where he’s at in poker and in his job. It would take an awful lot for even the most practical, disciplined person however to lose this kind of cash and go into work the following day, but Foley knows where his priorities are and sticks to the successful balance he has so far created. This attitude comes through when he says, “You just get used to it I think, if I hated my job I’d say there would be zero chance I would go in after a bad or good night online. If I can’t face work some day I’ll probably know it’s time to pack up either poker or it, but for the moment I’ll probably just keep trying and balancing both until I come to that stage.” Whether dealing with environmental issues or sticky pots, Foley has the kind of approach that will keep him in the game for the long haul. Only when he’s done what he feels he needs to do work-wise will he allow himself to indulge in taking a shot at becoming a full-time pro. It will be interesting at the very least to see what happens if and when he does. For now it’s work all day, play all night, until one wins out. ♠