Online Poker: Interview with Peter '#1PEN' Neff

With all of the money Peter “#1PEN” Neff was making playing online poker during college, his history major never really stood much of a chance for holding his interest.

“I just decided to drop out of school for poker because I liked it too much,” he said. “I figured that even if I graduated, I would just go right back to playing poker, and I wouldn’t use my degree in any sort of job or career.”

The 22-year-old Newport Beach resident has been consistently killing the rebuy and big buy-in online tournaments for a few years now, and he has more than $300,000 in lifetime Online Player of the Year (OPOY) winnings. Neff recently took his poker prowess to the Bellagio Five-Star World Poker Classic, where he managed to make the final table of a $2,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event. He eventually finished in fifth place at that tough final table.

Card Player snagged him shortly after his finish to find out how he made that final table, what strategies he uses in rebuy tournaments, and what different techniques players need to use in low-stakes tournaments versus high-stakes tournaments.


Shawn Patrick Green: When did you start playing poker?

Peter “#1PEN” Neff: When I was 18, about four or five years ago. I started playing with friends in high school, and it kind of turned into, “Oh, you can play poker online.” I tried that and I just got off to a good start and kept going with it.

SPG: What obstacles did you encounter as you climbed the ranks?

PN: There were a few. It was just a matter of beating each game at a time. Coming up, I was playing a lot of limit hold’em. I started at $5-$10 limit and worked my way up to playing $30-$60 all of the time, and sometimes $100-$200 limit. That’s how I started at poker, and there were a lot of limit games going on back then, more than there are now.

That’s how I built a bankroll, and then about two or two and a half years ago, I started playing more tournaments than anything else. I think a lot of the money and the fish have moved to tournaments instead of the cash games. And I think tournaments are more fun; it’s a bigger challenge to play tournaments, and it feels better when you win a tournament as compared to winning a cash-game session. And sometimes you don’t even win that much in a cash-game session.

But it’s hard to say that there were obstacles; it’s all just a matter of beating the game and figuring out the strategy that works best against your opponents. As far as obstacles go, you just have to build a bankroll and use good bankroll management. And when you’re playing so many tables at a time, like, if you’re playing 10 tables at the same time, there aren’t many obstacles, you’re just using that strategy against the players and trying to beat each table, pretty much.

SPG: And how does your strategy for beating the players change as you move up the ranks?

PN: There’s a big difference. I play a lot of tournaments, so the difference between playing a $100 freezeout and a $1,000 freezeout, like on Stars or Full Tilt, is huge. You’re playing two different levels of competition. In the $1K freezeout, you’re going to be playing, I think, a much tighter range. I don’t think you can open as many pots or steal as much, and you have to always be aware of your opponents’ reraising ranges. When you’re in a $100 freezeout and the field is so much weaker, you can steal and resteal a lot more easily, and you can just get away with things much more easily than you can in a $1K freezeout. I think that’s the biggest difference between the two.

SPG: You recently made the final table of a $2,500 buy-in prelim event at the Bellagio Five-Star World Poker Classic. Tell me a bit about your competition in that tournament, and about what you did to make the final table.

PN: The competition at the final table was pretty good. Thayer [Rasmussen] was at the final table, along with Shannon Shorr, John Murphy, and then “Basebaldy” [Eric Baldwin] won it. I know all of those guys, and I’ve played millions of hands with them, so I knew that it was going to be a really tough final table, and they all played pretty much flawlessly. So, it was a really tough final table, even the last few tables were pretty tough. I wasn’t going to get away with much, and it was hard to run over my tables.

As far as getting chips in that tournament, I won a couple of big coin flips. I ran aces into jacks one time for a big pot and then a couple of coin flips here and there. So, it helps to run good in those tournaments to get to the final table.

SPG: (Laughs) But aside from running good, was there any strategy that was working out for you? Or were you doing anything particularly well that you can pinpoint?

PN: Once I got to the final table, I was going to play premium hands; I wasn’t going to get too far out of line. There were one or two guys who I thought had slight weaknesses in their game that I would try to pick up on. I remember that there was one guy who was limping a lot, and if I had a moderate hand, I would try to raise and isolate him and just play pots with him. He was limping and then playing really aggressively after the flop, so if I hit any sort of flop I figured I might be able to trap him and get him to bet into me. He was playing crazy.

So, that was the only big strategy, playing outside of my normal hand ranges. I think, going to the final table, I only had like 20 big blinds, and at one point I only had like 10 big blinds; there’s not too much you can do in a situation like that. You’re not going to be able to resteal with air that much, you should always have big hands when you get that in. Yeah, there’s not a whole lot you can get away with with 20 big blinds.

SPG: What mistakes did you make in that tournament?

PN: Uh … I don’t know, I don’t think I made too many mistakes; I can’t pick out one in particular. In the last hand I ran A-K into aces, and I had like 12 times the big blind, so there’s not a whole lot you can do. And a short stack is pretty easy to play, and from four tables down I had like maybe 25 or 30 big blinds. There were like six or seven of us from the final three or four tables who didn’t make a mistake, and the only way we were going to get out was pretty much by getting coolered, because we didn’t have that many chips in play. It’s easy to play stacks when you don’t have that many big blinds.

SPG: What are some things about your play that you’re still trying to improve upon, specifically?

PN: The more I play live, the more I pick up on players’ weaknesses. So, that’s the biggest thing that I’m working on. I’m picking up on player tendencies, like what limpers will try to do post-flop. So, I’m just starting to pick up on reads, because I think I’m doing better with live tells and stuff like that. Those are the biggest things that I’ve been improving upon in the last couple of weeks, and I’m getting better at it.

SPG: Are there mental tricks you use to focus?

PN: Yeah, sometimes. I remember me and yellowsub [Jeff Williams] were actually joking around about that the other night. We were sitting next to each other, and we were making the joke that when we raise and try to steal a pot, you immediately just try to convince yourself that you have aces. You raise, and as soon as you put chips in you think, “All right, I have aces,” and then you just put your poker face on. Little things like that are fun to do and they can help you not to give off tells, too.

SPG: When you look at your OPOY scores, your rebuy cashes outnumber your freezeout cashes by almost 2.5-1. I’ve been noticing that trend with a lot of online pros, nowadays. Are rebuys becoming the standard for online tournaments?

PN: I think so. There are a lot of rebuys that are going on; there are two $100 rebuys going on on PokerStars every single day, there are $55 rebuys, and there are $100 one rebuy, one add-on tournaments on Full Tilt. So, there are more and more rebuys coming up, and they have big prize pools.

When you compare it to the other tournaments, a $100 rebuy would be like a $500 freezeout. So, they’re the biggest tournaments online right now, I think; those and the $1Ks on Full Tilt and PokerStars on Mondays and Tuesdays. Other than Sundays, those are the biggest tournaments during the week. Those are becoming the biggest tournaments to play online right now.

SPG: Is it ever a mistake to add on in a rebuy tournament?

PN: I don’t think I’ve ever not added on in a tournament. If you think you have an edge in the field, I think it’s a smart idea to add on. If you’re not adding on, I think you’re not a plus EV [Expected Value] player in that kind of field.

SPG: So there’s no point at which you have such a huge stack that the add-on chips would be such a drop in the bucket that it’s not worth it?

PN: No, I’ve never not added on. I’ve had stacks that were over 20,000 or 30,000 and I’ve still added on, just because you’re still getting your money’s worth. You put up $100, or whatever the buy-in is for the rebuy that you’re playing, and you get more chips. You’re still looking at the same exact ratio of money to chips in value. So, I don’t think that it’s ever right not to add on.

SPG: What kind of bankroll do you think you need for a rebuy?

PN: If I was going to play a $100, I think the lowest bankroll I’d have is about $30,000 or $40,000. You have to expect to spend about $600 per tournament, or something like that. You’re going to need to be able to go into swings; you’re not going to win all of the time.

SPG: What do you think is the most important step people can make to improve their win rates, as opposed to their cash rates, in multitable tournaments?

PN: I don’t know. I mean, I would say that if you were going to do one thing it would be to always play for first, second, or third, and not to just move up. But at the same time, there are going to be some times when you’re like six- or seven-handed, and say you’re fifth in chips, you’re going to be picked on, but there might be a short stack, and it would be advantageous to move up in the money. So, I would say to play for first, but you can’t do that all of the time, because if you’re playing to make the most money possible, then sometimes you can’t play for first.

So, if I were to give advice, it would be to be as aggressive as possible on the money bubble if you have a big stack and on the final table if you have a big stack, and to be the person beating up on the middle- and low-stacks. If you have a lot of chips, you have to pick on the smaller stacks; that’s the easiest way to win a tournament.

SPG: What kinds of opportunities are you looking for to pick on the short stacks? Because I know that a mistake that a lot of people make when they hear that kind of advice is to play ultra aggressive whenever there’s a short stack in the pot, regardless of the situation. So, it might help to know what kind of situation to look for to be aggressive in.

PN: OK, well say there are like 10 or 11 people left in the tournament, so you’re on the final-table bubble, and there’s one stack with like six or seven big blinds and there are a bunch of stacks between 12 and 20 big blinds. You can raise their big blinds all of the time, you can reraise and put them all in with moderate hands because they can’t call off all of the time. There are just little things like that; they’re not going to call off all of their chips if there’s a short stack who is almost out of the tournament and they’re going to get to the final table, where the whole dynamic of the tournament changes. So, I think a lot of people play to make the final table, and you can pick that off and use that as an advantage to you.

SPG: Thanks for doing this interview, Peter.

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