Capture the Flag: Duncan Smith

Poker pro Duncan Smith is the true definition of a grinder. He has put in hundreds of thousands of hands on the virtual felt, making a comfortable living at the low-to-mid stakes, and has played more than 5 million poker hands.

The 30-year-old is a Card Runners representative hailing from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Away from poker he likes video games and working out, but here Card Player picks his brain for some trips on carving out a career in the online poker world.

Brian Pempus: OK, so first off, what kind of online or live cash games do you play? What did you start off playing? How have you moved up over time?

Duncan Smith: Well, I primarily play $0.50-$1 and $1-$2 online both six-max and full-ring, with a pretty decent amount of heads-up. I started off playing six-max, probably for the first two years of my professional career. Then I hit a pretty big downswing, or what I considered to be a pretty big downswing at the time, and then started playing full-ring just to change things up and discovered that I could play a pretty aggressive style in those games and win at a pretty big rate without as much stress as I was finding in six-max games. I’ve played probably 200,000 hands of $2-$4 through $5-$10, with most of my action being at $2-$4. But $0.50-$1 and $1-$2 have always been pretty low variance free money, so anytime I hit a rough patch I tend to go back to where I know I’m going to pretty much just win every day.

BP: When did you start playing? How did you find the game?

DS: Six or seven years ago when I was still in the working world, a buddy had a pretty regular $5 home game. He knew I didn’t play at all, but invited me to come (I assume the game needed a fish), so because I wanted to understand a bit of what I was doing and not make a fool of myself, I did a little research, found [the poker forums] and PokerStars, and I downloaded the play money client. I probably played play money and one cent-two cent for the first year or so of my poker life. That time I was playing play money and micro-stakes was during the height of the poker boom. Whoops!

BP: Do you set any goals (monthly or yearly) in terms of hands played or amount won? How many tables do you typically play at once? How many hands lifetime do you think you’ve put in?

DS: I used to set profit goals but no longer do, really. My first losing month came after my biggest month ever (at the time), so I decided that if I put in X hands I should easily be able to make $X. It went very badly! So ever since I have kept my goals to volume only. My monthly goals are usually to put in 120 hours per month, which tends to work out to about 120,000 hands per month. I tend to play between 15 and 20 tables at once.

Last time I checked I was at around 5.5 million hands lifetime.

BP: Can you say about how much the best grinders at your stakes make per year?

DS: Well, I believe that each of the past two years the biggest winners at $1-$2 both made a bit over $100,000 — just at the tables. They both made [PokersStars] Supernova Elite as well, so that’s another $100,000, which makes for a pretty good year.

BP: So you started to get involved with the higher stakes when the game was already starting to get tougher?

DS: More or less. Nobody could really claim that $0.50-$1, where most of my action has taken place, is particularly tough, but considering the fact that people who played back then and still play now describe your average $25-$50 game [then] as pretty similar to a soft $0.25-$0.50 game nowadays, I definitely feel regret over having missed out on the golden age. On the plus side, a lot of guys who were crushing back then but didn’t adapt and keep up as the games quickly evolved found themselves bust without the skills to get back into the game and win. So maybe I’m better off for it. That’s how I console myself at least.

BP: So what about your game do you think works so well in today’s online cash game world? In other words, what are people still doing wrong?

DS: I think that it’s mostly thanks to some very minor things, or things that can be minor at least. People don’t game select enough, finding themselves playing games that are above their level of skill, for one thing. That is a small factor, because I’m definitely not a particularly selective bumhunting type, but for a decent number of rakeback/frequent player points (FPP) pros, that’s a pretty significant issue. I try to keep myself from spots where I can make big/costly mistakes on later streets as well. I try to avoid guessing games of any kind and also avoid situations where I’m likely to spew. When I’m playing well, I try to keep in my mind the concept of what a smart, solid player who makes few mistakes would do in any given spot.

BP: Can you talk about some of the first things you try to pick up on when you are facing a random opponent in a cash game, one who you aren’t familiar with? What types of things alert you right away that they could be a fish?

DS: In games where I’ve put in lots of volume, I assume anybody I’m not immediately familiar with is a fish until proven otherwise. Beyond that, there are some obvious signs like limping, oversized preflop raises, playing lots of hands (particularly playing them passively), calling too many opens and three-bets. You can also often tell, based on the lineup of a table, if there is a fish, and who he might be. If there is an unknown at a table, and a notorious bumhunter has position on him, he’s a fish.

BP: Can you talk about how Black Friday has affected you?

DS: Well, I’m lucky because I’m a born and raised Canadian, so I didn’t have to move or anything. I would have, and if Canada ever shuts the doors to online poker, I’m off to Mexico or wherever I need to go to keep playing. The main way it affected me is that it strained some of my friendships. Most of my friends are poker players, and American poker players, and a number of them had to give up the game because they were not able to move. The main thing we had in common was no longer viable. Guys with a job who miss poker don’t want to hear about the $1,500 I just won or lost.

BP: Have the mid-to-low stakes suffered as a result of all of this?

DS: Low stakes are, at least at face value, probably as good as ever, or at least close to it. My own win-rate over the past 18 months or so is higher than it was over the preceding 18 months, which contains pre-and-post Black Friday. Some of that is due to my own improvements, but largely the small stakes economy is thriving, while mid-stakes not so much. There’s not much action at $400 plus, particularly at full-ring, and particularly at off peak times. It has had a bad effect on those games. A fair number of mid-high stakes guys have just quit the game or moved on to the few U.S.-facing sites to be close to friends and family.

BP: Any plans for the WSOP?

DS: I don’t have anything set in stone yet, but I think I might play a couple $1,000 events and I’m hoping to play the main. Even if I don’t play I’ll probably go for a few days or a week and hang out. Most of my friends are poker players, now strewn about the world, and it’s pretty much the place to hang out with everybody. And I don’t play a lot of live cash. I live pretty close to Caesars Windsor, which has a nice poker room, but my hourly will be higher online and I get pretty bored pretty quickly playing live. That said, my live game is rusty so I’ll probably put in a bunch of sessions before heading down to Las Vegas just to get used to the feel of things again. ♠