Tripp Kirk: Part-Time Player Yields Full-Time Results

Tripp Kirk has reached a new echelon of poker players in 2012. En route to cracking the top 80 in Card Player’s Player of the Year race, Kirk took down an April World Series of Poker circuit event for $190,000. His stock is rising as fast as his confidence, with this year’s casino winnings totaling $399,945.

Those numbers are pretty impressive. What makes them more impressive is the fact that Kirk doesn’t even play poker full-time.

Card Player had a chance to chat with the weekend poker warrior about his early days as an online player, booking last-minute flights to weekend tournaments, and why he thinks he will probably stick to part-time poker for the near future.

Logan Hronis: Talk about your poker beginnings and what made you enter the poker world. Being a part-time player, does having such a successful year change your thought process on whether or not you want to play poker for a living?

Tripp Kirk: I started out like a lot of the 20-somethings in the poker world. As a freshman at The University of Georgia, we started out playing $5-$10 [buy-in] late night games in the dorms. From there, I thought I was essentially a professional and started making small deposits on PartyPoker. I lost for quite a while before I met some guys who really taught me how to think about the game. The turning point for me was meeting some friends that I could discuss strategy with. By my junior and senior year of college, I was beating the small-stakes cash games online and had started to think about tournament poker.

When I got out of college, I became really good friends with Matthew Hankins (PokerSkiBum). He showed me the ropes of tournament poker and really how to think about the game. I spent almost every Sunday sitting behind him watching and soaking up as much as I could. Without those early years and his help, I’d never have experienced any of this success. Shortly after, I started to become a winning online player and started to play and have success live as well.

As far as wanting to play for a living, it’s funny. Before I was properly bankrolled to play for a living, I always thought that I wanted to. Now that I have the money necessary to play full-time, I’m not sure I want to. I only get to play live tournament once every few months, but when I do, it feels like a vacation for me. I look forward to it so much that it motivates me to take advantage of every spot and to make the most of it. If I was depending on poker to pay my bills, I’m concerned that it may feel like “work” and cause me to lose some of the excitement that I’ve always had for the game. That being said, it’s definitely an option if my heart ever leads me to play full-time.

LH: Tell us about your big win in April at the Harrah’s St. Louis WSOP Circuit event. How satisfying was it and what effects did it have on your confidence and outlook?

TK: Winning the main event in St. Louis was the most gratifying poker accomplishment of my life. Not only was it life-changing money to me at the time, but it also, in a way, validated all of the hard work and hours I had put in over the years. There were so many good players deep in that field. Prior to that, I hadn’t had much success in buy-ins over $500. So, being able to hold my own and go on to win gave me a ton of confidence going forward.

LH: If you had to choose one of the following pairs, what would you say is more important to the average professional poker player: A. Percentages and mathematics or B. Betting patterns and strategy?

TK: Can I say both?

On the Internet everyone is stressing “hand ranges” and “implied odds” that are more math-based strategies. This is mostly because, typically, online players are tougher and more experienced, so you have to learn the math in order to push every small mathematical edge possible. The smallest leaks online can lead to thousands and thousands of dollars in losses.

Live betting patterns and reading opponents are more important, to me, than the math. For example, in a typical $200 tournament online, it’s very rarely correct to raise-fold to a 12 big blind stack. Live, you can assign players narrow enough ranges to be raise-folding to a 10 or 11 big blind stack. This is because you just have so much more information live than you do online. I can’t tell online if the person behind the computer is a young kid with a $10,000 watch on or a 96-year-old grandfather. Having that type of information in a live setting allows you to depend on more than just the math.

LH: How would you describe your style of play?

TK: I like to think that I have the ability to change gears. There are a lot of successful tournaments players who have an extremely tight style and don’t really have the ability to open up and control a table. There are also all the young kids who are borderline maniacal and don’t have the ability to hit the brakes when necessary. Normally, I’m somewhere between those two extremes, but in the correct circumstances I can be super nitty or maniacally aggressive.

LH: How do you decide how much poker you will play in a given period of time? After such a successful year in 2012, do you plan to play more, less, or the same amount?

TK: My full-time job usually dictates when and how much poker I get to play. For important tournaments like the WSOP National Championship and the main event I plan ahead. But other than those, it’s typically booking last-minute flights and hotels to squeeze in a few tournaments on a weekend. As far as volume, I’m not sure I’ll be able to play more in 2013, but I will likely try and make it to some higher buy-in tournaments like the WPTs. Also, I have been contemplating a trip to Aussie Millions, so that’s a possibility in January as well.

LH: Obviously, poker is a game where your play is not the only factor in determining the outcome of a hand, tournament or year. Given this fact, do you think it is constructive to set goals for yourself in a given year? If you have any such goals, would you mind sharing them with us?

TK: I haven’t formally set any goals for myself, but I always have two or three things that I’m trying to improve about my game. One of my big things I’m focusing on right now is trying to bring my “A game” every time I play. After winning a tournament or making a deep run, I sometimes struggle to get up the next day for a $300-500 buy-in and really focus on playing every hand optimally. Other than that, I just want to continually improve and continually adjust my game as the game evolves.

(Photo via Kirk’s Facebook page)

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