Online Poker: Interview with Matthew 'ionlyplayAA' Hilger

The axiom “those who can’t do, teach” is not always the case, especially in the world of poker, wherein many world-renowned players — Doyle Brunson, for instance — have written books meant to train readers to become better poker players. Another exception is poker author Matthew “ionlyplayAA” Hilger, who took down the $750,000-guaranteed event on Full Tilt last Sunday, pocketing a cool $133,000.

For Hilger, whose numerous poker books (find two of his books here) and strategy columns for Card Player magazine have taught countless poker enthusiasts, winning is nothing new. He has also landed a first-place finish in a Nightly Hundred Grand tournament on PokerStars, a victory that he wrote columns about for Card Player. (Find those columns here and here.) This recent win in the $750,000 guarantee was also simply a matter of completing what he barely missed out on accomplishing before, when he made the final table of the event earlier this year, ultimately finishing in sixth place.

Hilger spoke with Card Player about his win, as well as what the main factors were that helped him accomplish his feat and how to exploit players in these events. He also discussed bluffing on the river in both no-limit hold’em and limit hold’em tournaments.


Shawn Patrick Green: First off, when can we expect to see a Card Player magazine column about this win?

Matthew “ionlyplayAA” Hilger: Good question. With the World Series coming up, it may take a few months, but I’m definitely going to do something on it.

SPG: What are some likely topics that come to mind?

MH: I’ll probably just go through and pick out some of the interesting hands. I actually looked through the final table [hand histories], and there are probably three, four, or five interesting hands worth maybe discussing some of the strategy of in a column.

SPG: Can you talk about one or two of those right now, if you remember them?

MH: There was one hand, and I’m trying to remember the details, when it was sixhanded and the under-the-gun player raised. I think the blinds were 80,000-160,000, but I’m not sure about that. He raise, the next player called, and I was in the small blind with A-Q. I think the key thing on that particular hand was that I knew the guy who called wasn’t capable of trying to trap with aces or kings, so I was really confident that he had a medium-strength hand and that he was definitely going to fold if I reraised. So, I thought it was a great place to put pressure on the original raiser; he had been raising rather loosely in any case, so there was a good chance that I was going to get him to fold. So, I reraised to about 1 million in chips, and they both folded. That was a big hand.

I also lost a big hand at the final table. I raised with A-K to 300,000, so the blinds were probably 60,000-120,000, and I got reraised to 1.1 million. So, I called with A-K and I lost to K-K; a pretty straightforward hand, but that took a big chunk out of my stack. I think what is an important point about that particular hand is that when I started off at the final table, I was a slight chip leader, but there were four other guys like right behind me. And then, really between when there were nine players and six players, I doubled my stack pretty much never showing down a hand. So, when I finally ended up losing that A-K hand, I think it was important that I was able to build up my stack so that when I did suffer a beat, I had the chips to lose.

SPG: This was your biggest score to date. What was working for you in the tournament?

MH: Well, I got unlucky and I got lucky. Talking specific hands, I lost a huge pot early on in the tournament where I had aces. There was three-way preflop action, and queens hit a set. I probably would have been in the top 10 in chips, and this was within the first couple of hours. But I lost it, so I was back down to slightly below average. And, to be honest with you, the rest is kind of a blur until I made the money, because I was playing about 10 different tournaments. I need to go back and look at the hand history; I didn’t do anything … well, I can’t remember anything big. I was never really high in chips or really low. I just kind of kept playing my normal game, picking my spots when I could.

SPG: Well, what’s your normal game? Is it more tight-aggressive? Loose-aggressive? Is there even much aggression in it?

MH: It depends, I try to play the situation, but it’s more of a loose-aggressive strategy until I make the money. And then, once I make the money, I really focus on two things … well, I really shouldn’t say it’s the money, I should say once we get to the bubble. I start really focusing on two things: chips-stack sizes and then I try to break down the players between people who I think are really good and people who are probably amateurs there for the first time just interested in making a little bit more money.

SPG: Are you just as focused at the beginning of an online tournament as you are at the end, or do you find that you tend to become more focused once the money becomes more real?

MH: That’s a hard question. I’m focused the whole time, it’s just that in the beginning of the tournament I’m usually multitabling. So, I’m focused, but I’m obviously not as focused as I could be on every single player and what they’re doing. And then, after I get knocked out of some of the tournaments, by the time we’re in the money I’m down to one or two tables and I’m focusing a lot on the specific playing tendencies of my opponents.

I don’t want to say that I’m not focused at the beginning of a tournament, but you know what I mean, it’s a different kind of focused, I guess.

SPG: Well, and that’s kind of what I was getting at. Usually people are playing a lot more tournaments at the beginning, and they also tend to not really worry as much about any single tournament, so it seems like they’re really focusing less, although a lot of people don’t like to admit it. I was just wondering if you thought that was the case for you.

MH: Yeah, when you’re playing and you’ve got six tables going, you’re playing the cards and the situation, you’re not playing your opponents. Unless you see an opponent whose name you recognize and who you know is a good player or bad player, then you can do certain things. That’s why I say that the first thing I try to do is to try to break down players. Are they a good, experienced, well-known player? In that case, I’ll do things a lot differently than I would do against an amateur player.

If it’s against a really good player, I usually think I need to mix up my play a little bit more. Sometimes I’ll do some unorthodox things and maybe take more chances versus a really good player, because they read straightforward play pretty well. And then, against a weak player who plays ABC poker, I can take my standard lines.

SPG: What are some ways to exploit players in these big-field tournaments? What mistakes are you seeing being made pretty consistently?

MH: Well, I think the biggest one, once you get to where the money matters … . In this particular tournament, at the final two tables, I don’t think there was anybody in the field who had had any significant cashes, and so I knew that every spot that they moved up in the money was going to be really big for them. I pretty much knew that none of them were going to be taking a whole lot of chances, and I pretty much put the pedal to the metal and was really aggressive for the last couple of tables.

That same kind of strategy applies for when you’re at the bubble. But, again, that goes back to identifying the really good players versus the weak players. I was fortunate, in this particular tournament, that there really weren’t any really strong players at the last couple of tables.

SPG: You predominantly play limit hold’em online, rather than tournaments. A topic that has been coming up a lot in your columns for Card Player magazine is river bluffs in limit hold’em. Can you discuss both making river bluffs and picking off river bluffs in limit hold’em?

MH: Well, I actually had one go wrong at the final table of this particular tournament. But first of all, as for the first part of your questions, a lot of people think that I’m just a limit player, but that’s really not true anymore. I was definitely predominantly a limit player several years ago, but in the past couple of years I almost never play limit. I still do write some columns about it, but I’ve been focusing on no-limit tournaments, nowadays.

As far as river bluffs go, it’s all about scare cards. You have to make sure the story makes sense. So, if you get to the river and the story makes sense and the board is scary … . One big difference between limit and no-limit is that [in no-limit] you have the power to put a lot of pressure on your opponents, whereas in limit you can’t do that. So, in no-limit there are a lot more opportunities for river bluffs than there are in limit poker — significantly more, since you can bet so much more.

SPG: So, does the board have to be almost prohibitively scary in limit to be able to make any kind of reasonable river bluff?

MH: Yeah, it’s really hard to make a river bluff in limit hold’em, nowadays.

SPG: How have you continued to learn throughout your years playing poker?

MH: Well, I think the main way is through my poker forum at my website [InternetTexasHoldem.com]. We have a lot of really good players, and just being involved in discussions with those guys is a great way to learn.

I’ve published three books, and I’m starting to publish other authors. Specifically, in the last year, I’ve been working with Rizen [Eric Lynch], PearlJammer [Jon Turner], and apestyles [Jon Van Fleet] on a new book that’s going to be coming out in June. I’ve been working with them since last Fall, and without question, working with those guys has definitely helped my game a lot. It’s a book that contains all hand analysis, and there is going to be more than 170 hands in the book that are analyzed by those three guys. So, I’ve been really able to get into their minds to see their styles and how they play. So I naturally think that I’ve been able to pick up on some things here and there to be able to add to my game.

SPG: Have you had any epiphanies based on your discussions with them?

MH: I don’t know if “epiphanies” is the right word, but I’ve definitely stepped up my game in terms of reraises. That’s something that I definitely don’t think I utilized enough before, and I definitely reraise a lot more often, now.

SPG: In what kinds of situations?

MH: For example, if my opponent has about 20 big blinds and I have 25-30 big blinds, I like to pick on those guys by reraising them, because it’s a good situation where I can pick up the pot, but if they come over me I can fold and it won’t hurt my stack that much.

SPG: So, we’re talking about reraising with air, pretty much any two cards.

MH: Yeah. I don’t do that so much early in the tournament, but when it gets to the bubble and stack sizes start getting in that 10-30 range, then I start looking for good situations to reraise with air.

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