When I Was A Donk – Ryan Welch

In this series, Card Player asks top pros to rewind back to their humble beginnings and provide insights regarding the mistakes, leaks, and deficiencies that they had to overcome in order to improve their games.

Ryan Welch is a poker pro from Brentwood, Tennessee who started his career online before moving to Las Vegas. The 32-year-old grinder reached a peak ranking of fifth in the world back in 2009 and has more than $4 million in career online earnings.

He has also done quite well on the live tournament circuit, having made two World Series of Poker final tables, including a bracelet win back in 2010 in the $3,000 buy-in triple chance no-limit hold’em event for $559,371. In total, Welch has $1.5 million in live winnings.

Here, Welch talks about a mistake he made during a WSOP tournament.

Back in 2009 I was playing in a tournament at the World Series of Poker. I ended up making a pretty deep run in a $1,500 buy-in event with about 2,500 players, so it was more than $600,000 to first place. I came into day 3 with about 30 players left, an above-average stack, and a decent shot at a big score.

At that time, I really didn’t have much hand reading ability. I had a lot of raw aggression. Just because of my online background, my game plan was just to apply a lot of pressure. Then a hand came up where an older guy opened, and I three-bet pocket eights, which is something I’d almost never do today.

He four-bet, and me being the crazy online kid, I decided to go for it and five-bet jam all-in. Of course he calls with pocket Kings and I bust in 23rd place. I just remember walking out of the room so disappointed in myself, wondering what the hell I was thinking.

It was a complete breakdown of my self-control. I was so locked into just one mode, which was the hyper-aggressive guy who wouldn’t back down, that it never even occurred to me to give the old guy who four-bet some kind of credit. It was a completely mindless move on my part.

I still get that aggressive itch every once in a while, but nowadays I’m much better at biting my lip and controlling the urge to be the table maniac. With the structures being longer, it just makes sense to shift gears and be patient every once in a while. ♠