Online Poker: Interview with Chetna 'Rex55' Joshi -- Part I

Chetna “Rex55” Joshi is big on respect. She knows that, because of the nature of the largely male-dominated poker world, she has to earn any respect that she seeks. The good news for her is that she is incredibly talented and insightful, two things that tend to give one a leg-up in respect-seeking.

Joshi is not your typical poker player. Aside from being part of the female minority, she is also part of the “I play more than just hold’em and Omaha” minority. Not only does she play all poker variants, but she’s damn good at them, to boot. She has placed deep in H.O.R.S.E., H.O.S.E., Omaha eight-or-better, and pot-limit Omaha tournaments, as well as a slew of no-limit hold’em events.

The 29-year-old New Jersey native’s talented play and insightful (and very popular) poker blog have earned her plenty of fans and friends in the online poker community. Card Player decided to find out what she was all about. In Part I of Card Player’s two-part interview, Joshi talked to us about her beginnings in poker and her strategies for the non-hold’em games. In Part II (coming tomorrow), she discusses how being a girl in poker has affected her and how she deals with downswings and bad beats.


Shawn Patrick Green: Tell me a bit about how you got into poker in the first place.

Chetna “Rex55” Joshi: This guy I was dating at the time loved to go to A.C. [Atlantic City] to play blackjack. So, he took me to the Borgata and sat me down in a $2-$4 [limit hold’em] game, and I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know what the button was, I didn’t know what the blinds were, and I didn’t even know if a straight beat a flush or a flush beat a straight, it was pretty bad. And I don’t know, something drew me in that day; I totally got addicted to poker, and as soon as I got back I started watching everything that I could on TV, on ESPN, and I started reading as much poker material as I could find. It became an obsession. This was about four years ago.

SPG: When you first started, did you treat it like a gambling game, or did you treat it like a skill game right off the bat?

CJ: I didn’t treat it as a gambling game, for sure. I wasn’t skilled, but my motivation was to become skilled, so I definitely saw that there was a lot of skill there. I had always been down to casinos and had played low-limit games, and it was always just for fun, but when I first played poker, I realized that there was something else there, that there was mental strategy, that intellect and instincts go into making decisions. That’s really what drew me in, was that I could see that, and I wanted to be good.

SPG: Since then, how have you improved your game to where it is today?

CJ: I played live for about two and a half years, and I read books and I watched people. I used to sit at the $1-$2 no-limit hold’em games and literally just sit there and watch the way different people played and listen to why they were making the moves that they were making. I was able to meet some cool people who would give me some advice who had been doing it for a lot of years. But it was just trial and error, learn as I go, make mistakes and obsess about them. “Why didn’t that bluff work?” or “Why didn’t that raise work?” and then fine-tune it.

To be honest, when I started playing online, it was completely different for me. It was weird to go from playing live for two and a half years — being able to see the person, to be able to watch them — to being in front of a screen with these silly looking avatars staring back at me and having no information. It definitely was an adjustment. So, I started working on different tournaments and trying different styles online. I just put in a lot of hours until I found a game that was really comfortable for me. And I’m still improving. I think that’s the key in poker; you can’t ever feel comfortable, because it’s always changing. There are so many good players online these days that if you’re sitting in the same spot that you were a year ago with your strategies, then it’s just not going to work out.

SPG: You’ve had a lot of success in online poker, but the most notable thing about your success, in my opinion, is that it has come in a wide array of poker variants. You’ve done well in pot-limit Omaha, Omaha eight-or-better, H.O.R.S.E., H.O.S.E., as well as pretty much every form of hold’em. How did you become so well rounded?

CJ: That has a lot to do with my obsession. When I first started, I thought it was just no-limit hold’em, and then I heard about razz and Omaha and stud, and I thought, “Wow, I really want to be able to walk into any casino and be able to sit down and confidently play any game that they’re spreading, or to be able to go to the WSOP and enter any tournament and feel like I have an edge.” So, I started playing the two-way $15-$30, $45 spread game at the Taj [Mahal], which was seven-card stud eight-or-better and Omaha, and I was really, really bad, at first. (Laughing) It was just crazy to be dealt four cards now, instead of two, or seven cards in stud, and it was insane. I was really lucky that one of my friends in Atlantic City, Eric, was proficient in those games, and he started me off with good guidelines. And then it just became like my no-limit obsession; I started reading everything that I could and playing as many hours as I could. And I really think that learning every game, as a whole, has sharpened my core foundation. I really think that learning stud, Omaha, and razz has indirectly helped my no-limit game, as well.

SPG: Omaha is quickly growing in popularity recently, especially in Europe. Omaha, however, is still full of a large percentage of neophytes who are generally much worse at the game than their counterparts in hold’em. What is the best way to exploit newcomers in Omaha?

CJ: I really try to isolate the inexperienced players when I’m in a hand, especially in tournaments. If I can raise out a marginal hand from an inexperienced player, then I can exploit the weak players’ inability to fold a hand. That’s the biggest thing in Omaha, is that most people are chasers. They have four cards instead of two, so it’s just a fish’s dream (laughs); every flop looks good to them. In their minds, they always have outs. So, the biggest weakness in Omaha is starting-hand selection. So, as long as I stick to solid starting hands and play them aggressively, I can keep exploiting these players who are playing weak hands, chasing bad draws, and overvaluing top pairs, and such.

SPG: The true edge-differences between starting hands in Omaha, though, are much lower than they are in hold’em. You’re much less likely to have a supremely dominating hand in Omaha preflop than you would in hold’em. So, when you’re saying that you’re narrowing down your starting-hand selection to gain an edge on weaker players, that edge is still pretty small, though, isn’t it?

CJ: It is, it definitely is. In Omaha eight-or-better — I usually play Omaha eight-or-better, I don’t usually play too much Omaha high — I really try to stick to nut low hands and nut high hands. I mean, you’re absolutely right, it is much more of a gray area in Omaha, but it’s really important to be able to stick to nut high hands and nut low hands. You should be able to immediately look at a flop and figure out where you’re at and what the odds are. That is, I think, one of the biggest things to overcome in Omaha; a lot of people see K-J-4-2 in Omaha eight-or-better and think, “OK, well, I can make Broadway and I can have a 4-2 low. And that’s completely not how you should look at it. It’s a hand that will get you in trouble.

SPG: Explain why that kind of hand can get people in trouble.

CJ: Well, now you’re trying to hit a flop where you either have to get A-Q-10 or A-5-3. You can’t really make a nut flush, you can’t really make a set. Two pair in Omaha is basically trash, in my opinion, it never lasts by the river. Even sets, I don’t even like to jam sets on the flop, especially when I have a set of fives and the board is 5-6-7. I don’t go nuts with it, at all, because usually by the river I’m beat somehow, either a flush is made or a straight is made. The hardest thing for me was that in hold’em a set is good, and I really had to learn not to overvalue those hands when I was playing Omaha. I really had to stick to nut flush or nut low draws, things like that.

SPG: Is razz your least favorite round of H.O.R.S.E., like pretty much everyone else out there?

CJ: (Laughing) No … I actually really like razz, a lot. My least favorite is limit hold’em, definitely, and that’s probably because I have the least amount of experience with it.

SPG: OK, well what do you like about razz, then, because you’re kind of an outsider, there. (Laughs)

CJ: I know! Honestly, I think most people hate razz because they just … I don’t know if they think that there is even an actual strategy for razz. Most of my friends look at it as the “donk” part of H.O.R.S.E. They just hate it, they don’t want to even deal with it. “What’s the point of trying to make the worse hand? That doesn’t even make sense.”

But, honestly, I love seven-card stud eight-or-better, that’s my favorite game, so I think that gives me a big edge in razz, because I’m used to having a lot of experience with drawing to a nice low hand and reading boards. I think that’s probably one of the most important tools for playing stud eight-or-better and razz, is always knowing where your opponent is at.

Do you want me to talk a little bit about razz strategy? (Laughs)

SPG: Sure, of course.

CJ: OK, well, when I’m playing razz or stud eight-or-better, especially in middle or late stages of tourneys, I’m basically betting my board versus my opponent’s board. This won’t work early on in the tournament, when the blinds are small and trivial. And, to be honest, oftentimes, I’ll just sit out early on in H.O.R.S.E. tournaments, because it’s a showdown game. Nobody’s folding and the blinds are small. And at these stages, it’s really, really, really important to stick to tight starting-hand selections and clean draws.

So, in razz, that would be 7-lows and better, with an 8-low being the upper limit. It shouldn’t really get worse than that at the low blind levels, because you are getting to the river, and you are turning your hand over. But, as the blinds get bigger and each bet becomes a bigger decision, I really, really kick in the aggression. I bet my board strongly and I force my opponents to call big bets after they hit a brick. And as the blinds get higher, I like to stick to cleaner draws, as well.

That’s pretty much the big thing; in razz and stud eight-or-better, by fifth street you should know whether you’re going to go with the hand or not. At least for me, that’s where I decide. If I hit a brick on fourth and fifth, I’m done with the hand. I’m not sitting there, in razz, with a 4 door card hitting a 10 and a queen and still calling.

SPG: Seven-card stud is often considered the hardest of the popular poker variants to master, simply because there is so much information available, and it takes a very smart player to remember all of that information and know how to use it. How do you handle the wealth of information in stud?

CJ: Well, I’ve always found it ironic that a lot of people think that, and I’m not arguing that it’s not a very difficult game, because it is, but the beauty of stud is that you do have so much information sitting on the table staring at you. It’s not something to be overwhelmed by, it’s something to take advantage of. When I’m playing stud eight-or-better, I’m always monitoring the low cards, starting from 32 — there are 32 low cards in the deck, so I count down. And once you realize this, you’re able to see that you can see all of the cards your opponent has with the exception of his holecards and the river. The game almost begins to click a lot more naturally; it did for me. I think that stud eight-or-better is my most natural game. I play a lot of stud eight-or-better cash, and I wish there were more stud eight-or-better tournaments, but, unfortunately, there aren’t.

Once you realize that you can use all of the information on the table to your advantage, it becomes so much easier. Most people that are playing stud eight-or-better aren’t doing that, they have tunnel-vision. They’re looking their board, their cards, or what cards they need to complete their two pair or their straight or flush. They’re not seeing, “Oh, OK, three sixes have already folded.” So, once I’ve decided, “OK, I’m playing this hand,” I quickly look at all of the cards that are out there, and I am mentally able to compartmentalize all of that. “This guy can’t be representing a straight because three fives have folded.” In stud eight-or-better, the 5 and the ace are the two most important cards, because without a 5 you can’t make any straights inside the low, and obviously the ace works for low, high, and the wheel.

I think that if people didn’t look at stud as such a complicated, overwhelming game, they would realize that there’s so much information right there on the table that they can use, which gives them such a big edge over most of the people who are playing the game.

SPG: Yeah, I definitely think that anyone who takes the time to learn and get good at stud has a huge edge over any newcomers to the game, a lot more so than, say, a proficient hold’em player would have over a newcomer to that game.

CJ: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.


[Read Part II of this interview tomorrow on CardPlayer.com]

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