When I Was A Donk: With Benjamin Pollak

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.

Benjamin Pollak is coming off a fantastic year on the tournament circuit that started when he finished third in the World Series of Poker main event for a huge score of $3.5 million. The Frenchman followed up that dream run with a third-place showing at the PokerStars Championship Barcelona for $812,667, and a runner-up finish in the WSOP Europe €25,000 high roller for $538,928.

So far in 2018, he’s made six final tables and cashed for $1 million. He recently picked up a victory in a $25,000 U.S. Poker Open event for $416,500. In total, Pollak has cashed for more than $8.6 million on the live tournament circuit.

Here, Pollak talks about his early struggles with bankroll management.

“I’ve been playing poker since around 2006, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I became a professional. I remember playing in my first EPT (European Poker Tour) event, which was a €5,000 buy-in. The problem is that I only had about €20,000.”

“At the time, my thinking was that it was my dream to play in an EPT event, so I decided to go for it even though it was a quarter of my bankroll. I figured that even if I lost the €5,000, it wouldn’t change my life very much. But if things worked out, maybe it could change my life in a good way.”

“Of course, the problem when you do that, is that you can’t grind tournaments with just one shot. Tournaments are a way to win 50 times your investment, so I treated it like I was taking a shot. When you do that, you don’t play the same way as you would knowing you have another 20 €5,000 events left in the year.”

“The old school rule of having 100 buy-ins might be a little too much for everybody, but fortunately for me I am in a position these days where I can grind tournaments without worrying too much about the results in any one event."

“That being said, I still do like to take a shot every once in a while if I can. The $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl, for example, is a good opportunity for me to take a shot. But the goal is to treat every tournament the same way, and make the best decisions you can no matter what the buy-in is. When you have a comfortable bankroll to play from, it’s a lot easier to pull the trigger when you have to.” ♠