Brian "sbrugby" Townsend is one of the most well-known and feared cash game players around. He got his start playing 25¢-50¢ limit hold'em on PartyPoker in 2003, and he now plays the biggest cash games available online against the toughest opponents - and wins. He has starred on the hit
GSN show
High Stakes Poker and was also a
Card Player magazine cover-boy (Vol. 20/No. 17, Aug. 29, 2007).
Townsend also famously decided to almost completely forego the 2007
World Series of Poker to instead go head-to-head versus poker legend
Sammy Farha in a series of mega-high-stakes cash game sessions (you can read about that matchup by clicking
here). He eventually left that table up a substantial amount of money (in the millions) after besting Farha and a slew of other pros that had decided to jump in and try their luck.
Avoiding major tournaments is nothing new for Townsend, though, as he finds cash games infinitely more profitable and rarely plays in tournaments.
Card Player snagged Townsend for an interview to talk about cash game strategy:
Shawn Patrick Green: You're likely most recognizable to the general public from
GSN's High Stakes Poker. What was the most interesting hand you played on that?
Brian "sbrugby" Townsend: I would say the most interesting hand, and the largest pot that I played, was against
Daniel Negreanu where I was bluffing with a straight draw and he had a set of sevens. That was probably the most interesting pot I played in and also the largest pot that I played in.
SPG: What was your thought process in the hand?
BT: How the hand played out was that I raised from under the gun [with 8-6 suited] and he called from middle position. From watching other
High Stakes Poker shows, Daniel really calls with a lot of hands there, everything from A-K down to suited connectors and just random hands. So, I figured he could have a lot of hands there. When I bet the flop (the flop was 9-7-2 rainbow), and he raised, there was a good chance that he may have thought that I was making a standard continuation bet. So, I figured that he could raise the flop with a wide range of hands, even a lot of hands as weak as second pair, just feeler-type raises. I opted to call with my straight draw, and the turn brought a high-card king. I check-raised him on the turn, and I did that because I felt like he'd bet pocket tens or a lot of second pairs and then fold to action. When I raised and got called, I realized that he had a bigger hand than those, either two pair or a set, so I gave up when I missed my straight draw on the river.
SPG: Along with no-limit hold'em, you're also big on pot-limit Omaha cash games. Is it easier to make money at pot-limit Omaha?
BT: I think it kind of depends. There are more $25-$50 and under no-limit hold'em games than there are for pot-limit Omaha, because at the super-high stakes it's mostly pot-limit Omaha, now. As for "easy to make money," I think it's easy in both games. I think they're both very profitable games, right now.
SPG: You don't think that it might be easier because people are less familiar with pot-limit Omaha? Or is that not really the case at the higher stakes?
BT: I think that at the higher stakes, Omaha players are exceptionally good, as good as any no-limit hold'em players are at no-limit hold'em.
SPG: What are some major mistakes people make in Omaha?
BT: They play too many marginal hands from out of position. I think, a lot of the time, the mistakes that people make in no-limit hold'em, they also make in Omaha. If you call a raise out of position with A-K-2-2 with no suits, it's going to be hard to play, just as calling a raise from out of position with A-7 offsuit is going to be hard in no-limit hold'em. I think those things are mistakes that people make in both no-limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha.
SPG: What about post-flop?
BT: I think post-flop in pot-limit Omaha, people are too willing to continue with marginal hands and marginal draws. An 8-high flush draw really doesn't have a whole lot of value in pot-limit Omaha. You really want to be drawing to the nuts, not only because you'll be calling down and trying to hit the flush, but a lot of the times you're drawing on the flop. And by that, I mean there's a bet and a raise and all of the money is going in on the flop. You have a super draw and they have a super made hand, or you've got a draw and they've got a
better draw. So, you really do want to be drawing to the nuts in pot-limit Omaha a lot more often. An ace-high flush draw has a lot more value than a king-high flush draw or queen-high flush draw, whereas in no-limit hold'em the difference between the ace-high flush and king-high flush is pretty insignificant.
SPG: What was the most eye-opening thing you learned in the early stages of taking on Omaha?
BT: That aces are not invulnerable. When I first started playing, I played aces like they were the nuts, and not only that, I got frustrated when I would lose with aces and somebody would get it all in with some rundown-wrap hand preflop. In no-limit hold'em, you're going to be a 4-1 favorite or have an 80 percent equity edge in the pot when you have aces and get it in preflop, but in pot-limit Omaha, you can get it in preflop and be an underdog. But that's a very rare case, you'd have to have really bad aces. But if you got it in threeway, you could actually have the worse amount of equity and someone with a rundown-wrap hand could actually have more equity than you. So, that was the first really frustrating thing, dealing with those swings, because there are so many times when you're playing against these crazy, aggressive players, and you're getting it all in preflop with aces, and maybe you're a 55 percent favorite to win the hand, but there are a lot of times when you're going to miss, and it's going to be frustrating.
SPG: Has your hourly profit gone down a tremendous amount in recent years as a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act or things like that?
BT: You know, people always talk about that, and I really haven't noticed it, yet. I've made more money since the Act was passed than before. So, I didn't really notice that; there are still tons of terrible players playing poker, and I always think there will be. It just kind of draws them in. People have that petrifying fear that, "Oh, the games are drying up, they're so much tougher." That's just not the case, in my opinion.
SPG: You mainly play on heads-up or shorthanded tables, correct?
BT: Yeah. Currently, I'm just playing heads up pot-limit Omaha. I'm just trying to improve my heads-up pot-limit Omaha game, which is very, very weak right now. Well, I wouldn't say "very weak," but it's weak enough where it needs to be improved.
SPG: Do you play those mainly because there's such a smaller population of high-stakes players, or do just prefer shorthanded games?
BT: Well, everything online runs sixhanded or less, and I much prefer that to 10-handed games. The only time I play 10-handed is when I'm playing live or if I'm playing in a tournament. The thing that I like about shorthanded play is that the more shorthanded it gets, the less you have to play your cards and the more you can play your opponents. In full-ring games, your hands are really tied a lot of the time to playing your cards. You're just not going to be able to outplay somebody when they have such an equity advantage. When you're heads up, the equity advantage is much, much less. You can play a lot more hands and be much more aggressive, and it's much more about reading your opponents than playing good, solid, standard poker, which I much more enjoy. So, I really like playing shorthanded, if possible.
SPG: What's the best advice that you can give for playing in heads-up cash games?
BT: Know your opponent. Get to know how your opponent is thinking and why he's doing what he's doing. What is his reasoning for doing what he's doing.
SPG: What's the best way to get that kind of information?
BT: Notice their bet patterns. Notice what they're doing and why, and how they're playing certain hands. Why is this guy raising his hand? Why is he betting this river when the flush gets there? Is he bluffing? Also, try to figure out what hands he's value-betting. If a flush hits, and let's say you've got a set, and you know he's only value-betting the king-high and ace-high flush in Omaha and checking all others, you can determine that he's not going to have those often enough and he'll be bluffing often enough for you to call.
SPG: Do you use any tricks to help you remember things like the betting patterns and tendencies of players? Do you use the note-taking systems on the sites, or is it all just in your head?
BT: A lot of it is in my head, but I do write things down, occasionally. Usually, the reason I write it down is because I remember it better. I never look back at my notes while I'm playing, but I might review notes when I haven't played against someone in a month or so and I want to remember what I thought of them. But a lot of times that changes. I'll play with players who will be very tight and passive and play normal poker, and then all of a sudden they'll just explode. One session they'll come home drunk and they'll be playing totally differently than my notes said they played, so you have to be able to adjust quickly to those changes.
SPG: You only rarely play in tournaments, especially online tournaments. Why is that?
BT: It's pretty much about profitability. I used to play a few of the Sunday tournaments. I called it "Sunday Fun-day" or "Tourney Donk Sunday," and I'd just go out and have a good time and play a bunch of poker tournaments. I'd be really mellow; maybe I'd go to a friend's house and watch football while I played in them. I just realized early on that tournaments just aren't that profitable, even though I had a lot of success early on in my tournament career. I remember that for a month I played tournaments full time and I was doing really well. I actually won a seat out to the
World Series of Poker Circuit New Orleans, which I made the final table of as my first tournament, which was exciting. But after that initial success, I started coming back down to reality and seeing what attainable ROIs [returns on investment] were, and I just realized that it wasn't nearly as profitable as cash games. So, I stuck to cash games.
SPG: What is the motivating factor, then, when you do play in a tournament? What would prompt you to play it in the first place?
BT: Online, I never play tournaments. They're not big enough. Sometimes I've played the $10K
High Stakes Showdown on PokerStars. Live, when I play, usually it's because I'm out somewhere for business. I played in the
World Series of Poker Europe events and I was out there for business and the tournament was going on at the same time, so why not? But it was definitely not the most important thing on my agenda.
SPG: I was going to say, with the '07
World Series of Poker, for instance, you were out here in Vegas, and you could have played in all of these tournaments, but you didn't; you decided to play that famous cash-game session with Sammy Farha, instead.
BT: Yeah, that was this summer, and that was a pretty obvious decision. I could win or lose more in that game than in any of the tournaments except for the main event, and even that would have been close. So, there was just no reason to play anything else. When I was in London for the
World Series of Poker Europe, there really weren't any cash games except online, so I figured that I might as well give it a go.
SPG: Do you find it hard to get yourself out of cash-game mode when you play in a tournament? Do you see yourself making big mistakes as a result of your cash-game focus?
BT: Probably a little. I mean, I don't see them because I'm probably not totally aware of them, but I would guess that I have some leaks in my tournament game that, if I were to get serious about it, I would patch up in no time. But I don't really spend the time thinking about it. So, when I go out, I'm fine having average results, and I still think that I'm a winning player in pretty much any tournament that I play. I'm fine not having the best results. The top tournament players obviously have better results than I do, and that's fine by me.
SPG: Cash-game players are, in general, less well known than tournament players. How about you name-drop a few excellent cash-game players that you know who deserve some credit and tell us why they deserve it?
BT: Well, there are a lot of phenomenal cash-game players that really go under the radar. Just off of the top of my head, one is
Brian "Stinger885" Hastings. He's just a phenomenal player at both no-limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha. He plays a lot of different games well. [Watch a strategy video by Brian Hastings on Card Player TV by clicking
here.] Another really good player is
Cole "CTS" South. They're both just very good, thinking poker players. They're not the type of guys who say, "OK, I have the second nuts on the river and he's betting; I call just because I have a strong hand." They're the type of guys who think, "Well, does this guy have me beat enough of the time?" And they play not the strength of their hand but their hand-strength versus their opponents' ranges, which I think is a really good test of a good player, and which I don't even think
I do enough. I think they both do that really well. Brian Hastings plays a much tighter, more aggressive style than Cole; Cole's a little bit looser, but still very aggressive and tricky. So, I consider Brian Hastings as like a fullback running at you, trying to run you over with pure aggression and Cole South as being more of a fancy tailback wide-receiver dancing around you and kind of mixing it up. So, for both of those players, my hat's off to them, they're both phenomenal players who don't get enough recognition.
SPG: Thanks for doing this interview with us, Brian.
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