Chris "LUHMAN" Martin left a lucrative career in real estate to pursue an even more lucrative career in poker, and he's not even old enough to get his over-25 discount on car insurance, yet.
The 24-year-old poker player from Chicago, Illinois, has had an indisputably successful romp in the online poker world, lately, but his poker career hit a peak (hopefully not
the peak) when he finished as runner-up in
event No. 9 of the 2007 PokerStars
World Championship of Online Poker (
WCOOP), a $200 no-limit hold'em (with rebuys) tournament. He barely missed earning himself a gold
WCOOP bracelet, but he snagged a $131,000 consolation prize, making for his biggest single cash of all time.
As of this writing, Martin is in 12th place in the
Card Player Online Player of the Year standings. He's made 28
OPOY-qualified finishes, including taking down the PokerStars
Nightly Hundred Grand tournament this past Monday, earning almost $30,000.
We caught up with Martin fresh off of that win to find out how he manages his bankroll, how he handles downswings, and which players he admires most:
Shawn Patrick Green: First off, congrats on getting so far in that
WCOOP event, although it must have been disappointing to get so close and not nab the bracelet.
Chris "LUHMAN" Martin: Yeah, it was a lot of fun playing in that tournament. I don't know what it was; from the start of that tournament, I felt like it was going to be a late night for me. That was just one tournament where I felt like I had a really good chance. I'm used to playing the rebuy tournaments, and things just kind of went my way from the start. I held a really big chip lead for probably two hours leading up to the final table. It was one of those tournaments where there was really nobody even close. We started getting a little bit more even in chips at the final table when we were probably fourhanded or fivehanded.
It was disappointing, for sure, to get so far in a tournament like that. I'm a tournament player, and I just want to win, you know? I was disappointed when I busted, but waking up the next afternoon felt pretty good. That was my first six-figure win.
SPG: You've already been mentioned in two other interviews that I've done. In
the first,
Frank "Round42" Rusnak said that he talks to you about poker and analyzes hands with you.
CM: Yeah, I met Frank - who is actually from the Chicago area - in the Bahamas last January. We were on the same flight and everything. We got to talking and realized that we were both from pretty close to the same area, and he actually went to high school with one of my college roommates, which was kind of funny after we found that out. Yeah, I talk to Frank regularly, and I actually just got back from Aruba with Frank and a couple of other guys that I play cards with.
And I did read that other interview. I hadn't actually read Frank's, but I did read
the one with
stpauli. I actually just met him in Aruba for the first time, and we were talking about it. I play against him on a regular basis. They're both excellent players.
SPG: About how often would you say you go over hands with other poker players?
CM: You know, it's really not that much. But definitely, when we're hanging out together, we'll get to talking about different tournaments or different hands. I'd say that I'm not really a person to talk about the hands as much as some other people do, but there are always some fun hands to talk about and go over.
SPG: So, you don't talk about your hands for analysis' sake so much as for entertainment?
CM: Yeah, yeah.
SPG: What tools do you use to improve your game, then?
CM: I think it's just experience playing. I've been doing multitable tournaments for two years, now. I think that one of the most important things is that when you're in a tournament, even if you're not in a hand, you need to be paying attention to what everyone is doing, watching what kinds of hands are being shown down, watch for who's playing the pots, then writing the occasional note on somebody as you see what kind of hands they're showing down and how often they're reraising and whatnot. I just think that the most important thing is overall awareness as to what's going on at your table.
SPG: You say that you take notes on players. What kinds of notes do you take then, specifically?
CM: You definitely want to pay attention to who's folding his blinds all the time, who's always raising in late position, who's always raising in early position, who's folding really quickly to a reraise, and stuff like that.
Another thing that I do is I read every kind of poker magazine or book that I can get my hands on.
SPG: In the other interview in which you were brought up, Scott "stpauli111" Hall said that you're the one player who puts him on tilt because he simply can't win a hand against you.
CM: [Laughing] I did start laughing when I read that. We were laughing about that in Aruba. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I do play a lot of pots with him, and I think it just kind of worked out that way.
SPG: So, did you apologize to him when you saw him?
CM: [Laughing] No. I shook his hand and we just kind of started laughing when he realized who I was and I realized who he was. We both just started laughing; we knew what we were laughing about and didn't even have to say anything. [Laughs]
SPG: [Laughing] Nice. So, what's the most important aspect of being a good poker player, as far as you're concerned?
CM: A couple of things that I'm good at are that I manage my money very well and I don't tilt like most people do - or, I very rarely do. The other thing that I do, besides the high-stakes tournaments, is I play high-stakes heads-up matches. I'll be playing a number of those every day, and you can't let one hand here or there affect your game or you may as well just quit, otherwise it'll be a downward spiral. But I've always been good with numbers, I graduated with an accounting degree. I've always been good with the percentages and whatnot involved in poker.
SPG: There's kind of a debate of sorts going on about whether or not luck is more influential in heads-up poker than at a full ring game. Which side are you on on that?
CM: I think, if you're deep stacked, heads-up poker is one of the games that you need to be the most skillful at to beat. For one individual match, yeah, there's definitely some luck involved. I would consider myself a heads-up pro, I guess, because I've played it so much. I've been playing heads-up stuff for probably six to eight months. I just kind of watch for people to register for any buy-in between $200 to $2,200, typically, and if it's a name I don't recognize, I jump in and play them right away. I'm looking for a little bit weaker competition. There're people I don't play. At the same time, just because I recognize somebody as being … not necessarily
weaker, but just not as familiar with heads-up play, I know that in any given heads-up match that I could get beat. But I'm definitely giving myself an edge over three, five, or 15 matches if I was to play that same person.
SPG: Well, so what do you think is so much more skillful about heads up? Especially online, where you can't really focus on physical tells and things like that?
CM: Well, online, whether it's heads up or a tournament, it's a lot about betting patterns. I'm a person that can pick up on that really quickly in a heads-up match. I understand if it's someone that I can reraise with nothing to get them off of a hand. I'm somebody, whether it's heads up or a tournament, who really likes playing big pots. I think that's one big advantage for me, because the people I play against know that and a lot of times they want to stay away from me for that reason.
SPG: You also mention bankroll management. A lot of people have been mentioning that, but what do you do, in particular, that helps you there?
CM: I cash money out right away. Typically, my accounts don't have more than $10,000 in them, which is pretty low considering that I'm one of the more regular players in the $100 and $200 rebuys and that I basically just play in the bigger tournaments. But I cash money out and get it into the bank right away. I just feel like if I left a lot of my money on there, it'd be really easy to blow through it. It doesn't even really seem real if it's sitting in my poker account. [Laughing] But once it's in the bank, I'm pretty smart with my money.
SPG: Do you keep track of your wins and losses in an external program like a spreadsheet or the Card Player Poker Analyst, or anything like that?
CM: You know, one thing that I've actually taken a lot of grief from my parents about is not doing something like that. I'm thinking that maybe next year I'll start doing that. I mean, I have a rough estimate, as far as wins and losses, just by checking the cash-outs and deposits on each site. But it would be nice to be able to keep track of that on a daily basis. But it's not easy when you're swapping a percentage, backing a player, or cashing some money out for spending, it's a lot of stuff to keep track of.
SPG: Do you still put a decent amount of time in real estate?
CM: No, I quit doing that. I graduated from the University of Illinois, in Champaign, in 2005, and I probably worked in real estate for a year after that. I stopped doing real estate altogether probably in February or March of this year. I've been doing poker as my primary job for the last six to eight months. It was always one of those things where I was kind of doing real estate half-assed, you know? Because I was doing really well in poker. But, I was always someone who thought, "Graduate with this good degree and get a job," but my heart was more into playing poker, and I felt like that was where I could make a lot of money.
But there's no doubt about it that I'm glad that I got some college and everything. You always see others playing poker and dropping out of school, so that's definitely one thing I'm happy about is sticking with college. I wasn't really even someone who played that much in college until about my last semester.
SPG: You're currently 12th in the
Card Player Online Player of the Year race and have $367,000 in winnings from OPOY-qualified tournaments for this year. How do you handle that kind of money? How much do you keep in poker and how much do you put into other investments?
CM: I put a large majority of it into a savings account. I bought a car, I went out with my dad and bought a condo in Las Vegas. I'm living in a nice place in downtown Chicago in the Loop area. So, I've invested quite a bit of it, and the rest is put into a savings account. I've always done really well, but the past two months has been my best stretch ever, by far. Right now I'm trying to decide what other investments to make and it's getting to be time to put money toward something.
SPG: What's the worst downswing that you've ever had in poker?
CM: You know, that's something that I've never really had, luckily. I started off really well this year, I was probably up close to $100,000 by mid-March. And then, toward the end of March to the beginning of April, I had about a $15,000 downswing. At that point, I was winning at heads up but I was having a bad streak in the multitable tournaments, so I pretty much just stopped playing multis for a while and focused on the heads-up matches and did really well.
I was out in Las Vegas for probably a month this summer and didn't play many multis. I played in five
World Series events. But once I got back in early August, I started playing in tournaments, again. I was kind of getting a little bit burnt out in April, so it was nice taking two or three months playing a more limited amount.
SPG: So, is that what you would recommend, then? Continue to play poker but maybe switch what kind of poker you're playing?
CM: Yeah. With me, I just found a way to win. I wasn't winning at the multitable tournaments, which was easy to see there, for a while. I started doing the heads-up matches, which I'd always kind of done, and I started really focusing on that for a while and did really well with them. But, with people who play enough tournaments over the course of the year, everybody's going to experience a time - a week or a month or
three months - of just being fully burnt out when taking a break is absolutely the best thing.
SPG: But would you recommend taking a full break or do you think that it's better to just take a break from what's killing you in poker but to keep playing poker?
CM: It depends. For some people, it's probably better to take a week or a month off. For other people, it might be better to drop down in stakes. For me, it was just switching into playing just heads up. I got my confidence back. I also played a number of live tournaments in Vegas, so it just felt like it was a good time to slow down in multis. Then, once I got back in August, I started playing in the online multitable tournaments again, started out hot, and I've just been riding it.
SPG: What player do you most respect and why?
CM: I think right now, on the Internet, the best pure-talent player is
lilholdem954 [Chad Batista]. We've definitely had our words in the chatbox on occasion, but … [laughing] No, I've got to give respect where it's due. I've played a lot of hands with him and he's one that I'm watching a lot when I'm not in hands. There are really not too many people out there that I'll watch play, but he's one of them.
I'd definitely say that
zangbezan24 [Sorel Mizzi] is right up there with him. I mean, there are 10 or 20 of these players who are just destroying the
World Series and
World Poker Tour events.
SPG: Would you rather play in a tournament with a $100 buy-in, a small field, and a big overlay - like the Bodog $100,000 guarantee, which has been having overlays in the tens of thousands, lately, and fields of about 750 entrants - or a $200 buy-in tourney with lots of entrants and a big prize pool, like the
Sunday Million, which usually has about $1.2 million in the prize pool and more than 6,000 entrants?
CM: The $200 buy-in, for sure. I've never played on Bodog, but even if it was a PokerStars tournament with a little overlay, I see the bigger top prizes in a tournament and it gets me a lot more motivated to play. The schedule that I've gotten on, lately, is basically playing Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday and taking the rest of the week off. The reason that I play those three days is that those are basically the biggest tournaments between Full Tilt and PokerStars. I play the $100 rebuys and the $1,000 buy-in tournaments on Monday and Tuesday. By the end of Tuesday, I'm usually ready for a break. That's been really beneficial for me.
SPG: Thanks for joining us for this interview, Chris. And congrats again on the
WCOOP finish and the
Nightly Hundred Grand win.
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