Poker Stories Podcast With Matt Affleck

Poker Stories is a long-form audio series that features casual interviews with some of the game’s best players and personalities. Each episode highlights a well-known member of the poker world and dives deep into their favorite tales both on and off the felt.

Age: 30
From: Mill Creek, Washington
Turned Pro: 2009
Combined Live and Online Tournament Earnings: $3.9 million
Best Score: 15th Place – 2010 $10,000 WSOP Main Event — $500,165

The Highlights

On winning nearly $500,000 in one online tournament…

“Junior year of college, I made day 2 of a $2,000 SCOOP event. I was playing at my fraternity, and the internet was always a little sketchy there. The internet went out at the house, so I made the sprint of about a mile to the library and got one of those private study cubicles. I ended up playing the last four or five hours of that tournament in that room, won it, and then just kind of quietly slipped my laptop back in my bag and walked out… We went to the local bar and tried to run up a tab [to celebrate], but it was half off night and I think the best we could do was $240. We were like, ‘what’s the most expensive shot you have.’ And they said, ‘$8.’”

On why he prefers poker to the typical 9-to-5…

“I can’t work for anyone else. I don’t know if I’ll play poker forever, but I won’t work for anyone else again. I’ve figured out there’s enough ways in this world to make money while being your own boss, and that’s the most important thing to me. I’m not going to answer to someone else.”

On dealing with the inevitable variance of tournament poker…

“You look at the overall graph. It’s all part of the process, you’re not going to win every tournament. You have to look at downswings as a positive, as far as learning to identify mistakes in your game. It’s really hard to identify mistakes in your game when you are running really well. You have unrealistic expectations, you don’t analyze your game. But when I’m in a downswing, that’s when I work the hardest, that’s when I play the most. A lot of times it’s the little things where you are making mistakes that lead to the big things.”

You can check out the entirety of the interview in the audio player at the top of the page or download it directly to play on the go from iTunes or your favorite podcast app.

Catch up on past episodes featuring Daniel Negreanu, Nick Schulman, Barry Greenstein, Chris Moorman, Bryn Kenney, Mike Sexton, Brian Rast, Jean-Robert Bellande, Scott Seiver, Greg Raymer, Maria Ho and many more. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes automatically when they are released.