Capture the Flag: Rep Porter

Name: Rep Porter
Resides: Woodinville, Washington
Age: 44
Years Playing Poker: More than 20 years
Regular Cash Game: High-stakes mixed games
Top Poker Accomplishment: First place in 2008 WSOP $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event for $372,843
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $2,761,465

Poker pro Rep Porter, winner of two World Series of Poker bracelets, has more than $2.7 million in career live tournament earnings. However, the University of Washington graduate and former equity options trader on Wall Street calls high-stakes mixed games his poker home.

The 44-year-old poker veteran is a lead content creator and instructor at ThePokerAcademy.com, a site that is bringing poker training to the next level. Card Player caught up with Porter to pick his brain about cash game strategy, as well as to talk about how he became a high-stakes player.

Brian Pempus: Can you talk about your cash game play over the course of your poker career?

Rep Porter: When I first started playing poker, it was all very low stakes dealer’s choice games. The games would play at people’s houses, relatives and friends. Then when I was in college, my brother, my cousin and I started going to public cardrooms to play. This was in the early ‘90s. In the Seattle area at the time, the biggest amounts you could bet were $5-$5-$5-$10 on each street. So there were funny limits all over the place. A lot of those games were dealer’s choice as well. But one place offered straight high Texas hold’em. It quickly became the game I played the most. Throughout the ‘90s, several Indian casinos opened in Washington and the gambling laws relaxed a little bit. So by the middle of the ‘90s, I was mostly playing $10-$20 to $20-$40 limit.

BP: Before you played high-stakes mixed games, did you grind live or online hold’em cash games?

RP: I left poker at the end of 1998 and went to work on Wall Street for six years. When I was there, I played a little no-limit hold’em in a home game and was introduced to pot-limit Omaha. But I didn’t really play much. Near the end of my time, I started playing some limit hold’em online—limits anywhere from $15-$30 to $100-$200. After I moved back to Seattle at the end of 2004, I continued to play those games online. I also started playing regularly in a $100-$200 and $200-$400 game in Seattle that was going regularly. In 2005, I was still looking for work in the Seattle area in the financial world. I hadn’t yet decided that I was going to play poker full-time, but I would make regular trips to the Bellagio and grind their $100-$200 limit hold’em game. I would also sometimes play no-limit if the games were good, games with $10-$20 or $25-$50 blinds.

BP: Can you talk about your progression up in cash game stakes? How was your bankroll management?

RP: Usually, if I was going to play a bigger game at some point, it would be because there was a really juicy game going. I would see a game that I thought was great at a limit that was above what I was used to playing and sign up for it. After you do this enough times, you start to feel more comfortable at a limit, or with the swings associated with that limit. It is one thing to tell yourself that if you are playing $400-$800, the swings are going to be twice as big as when you were playing $200-$400. But the first time you take a big loss, you aren’t prepared. As for bankroll management, when I was younger, I always used a 200 big bet guideline. I was comfortable regularly playing in a game if I had 200 big bets. I always felt like I could just move back to the lower game and grind it back up if I started losing. Now I use the “how bad will it make me feel if I lose a couple days in a row in this game” guideline.

BP: While live cash game hands always depend on the opponent, can you give some basic rules to follow for beginners looking to hold their own at a no-limit hold’em cash game table?

RP: The two factors that seem to be universal in poker are position and aggression. Getting to see what your opponent does before you is valuable in all games. You can play many more hands profitably when you get to go second. And aggression gives you two ways to win the pot. Your opponent can fold, or you can make the best hand. When you are the caller, you can only win with the best hand.

BP: Can you talk about the importance of position in the big-bet cash games vs. the limit cash games?

RP: Position is important in both structures. There are some limit games, such as the draw games, where position is strongest. In draw, there are two decisions each round, the draw and the betting. So you get to use your position six times instead of three. I find that players who are very good at both limit and big-bet games think position is more important in the games they play. I suspect this is because they actually have a good understanding of how to use it in their arena and not the other. Overall, if you forced me to pick, I would say position is slightly more important in big-bet games.

BP: In no-limit hold’em cash games, can you talk about the pros and cons of limping in? What about over-limping? Is it okay logic to limp hands that you feel you aren’t losing value with?

RP: I almost never limp in poker games. One of the most important things you can do in poker is to make it difficult for your opponent to understand your range. You are much tougher to play against when you make the same types of actions consistently in spots with many hand strengths. So, if preflop you are limping with speculative hands like small pairs and suited connectors, people will notice. Then how do you blend in some strong hands to disguise that? Limp with aces and hope someone raises and you don’t have to take the flop five ways? That creates its own set of problems. I feel pretty strongly that you should raise to open almost always when you are playing in cash games. I think it is okay to call an opening raise with a wide variety of hands, including strong holdings.

BP: Related to the last question, do you think it’s fair to say that in tournaments the goal should be chipping up with as little risk as possible, but in no-limit cash games you should be extracting max value when you can and playing for stacks a lot more often given the rebuy component? Or, do you think in some sense the difference in mindset/playing style between tournaments and cash is overstated?

RP: There is a huge difference in tournaments and cash game strategy. I actually think the difference may be bigger than people actually realize. To advance in tournaments, you need to win at a fast rate to keep up with the blind structures. In the early stages of tournaments, you need to be doing lots of aggressive things trying to win chips. Usually betting small amounts to try and win lots of pots. Then late in tournaments, once the survival value really kicks in, you have to think you have large amounts of edge to risk a lot of chips. The chips you lose from your stack are more valuable than the ones you are going to win. That very last chip is the one that actually keeps you in the tournament. In cash games, these things are never a factor. The only question should be is this bet or call positive EV?

BP: Would you advise someone looking to take live cash games seriously to first start off with a tight-aggressive style? At what point do you think it’s okay to begin exploring a loose-aggressive style?

RP: Tight-aggressive is almost always the right place to live in live games. I know some people who are able to play the loose-aggressive style, but that style has many drawbacks. You have much bigger swings. Your results depend very much on your reads. If you are off on a day, it can be very expensive. And I am not convinced that your risk-adjusted return is better. That is the hourly rate as a function of the bankroll required to play that style. ♠