Online Poker: Interview with Mark 'xqsays' Radoja

Mark “xqsays” Radoja went from building fences to building his poker bankroll, and not many would argue against that being a definite upgrade. Radoja himself couldn’t argue, since he earned more than $260,000 in just four days from recent events in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series VIII (FTOPS). Despite his success, the winnings may regress him to building fences once again, although, this time, it will be around houses he plans to buy.

The 22-year-old Canadian was all set to be a business major at Brock University in Ontario.

“Basically, I dropped out my first day,” Radoja said. “I had to make a really key decision between poker and schooling, and I had shown some pretty good results in poker. I was just so confident, and despite all negative feedback from my entire family, I persevered in poker and went through with it. I haven’t really looked back ever since.”

That was four years ago. Since then, he has become a sit-and-go master, a heads-up specialist, and now, arguably, quite a multitable tournament player. He finished in third place in an FTOPS no-limit hold’em event, good for nearly $103,000, and then, just four days later, he one-upped himself by finishing as runner-up in a no-limit hold’em rebuy event for more than $157,000. (The FTOPS main event takes place today.)

Card Player got ahold of Radoja to talk about those deep finishes and how he achieved them, his sit-and-go upbringing, playing small-ball poker, and his plans for the World Series.


SPG: How did you get started in poker in the first place?

MR: I used to bet sports here and there. That kind of put me through high school. I didn’t really work at all. And then, when I was betting sports, my friend Brandon, who I would often share picks with got me into Texas hold’em. I had always played five-card draw and whatnot, and this was before even the World Poker Tour came out. He showed me one hand of Texas hold’em, and I was instantly like, “This is awesome. This is a game that I completely love.”

I even got my entire high school completely hooked on the game, and this is before the boom. It was pretty incredible; we’d be sitting in the cafeteria with our stacks of quarters, and eventually that got banned and we got suspended and stuff. It was kind of funny, because I was kind of the ringleader of it all.

It started off small. I wasn’t one to jump right in; I’ve always been very cautious. I moved up slowly through the ranks. I noticed, “Hey, I’m making $10 an hour, here. Oh, wait, now I’m making $20 an hour. Now I’m making $50. Now I’m making $100.” I’ve never gone bust and I’ve never had any crazy bankroll swings; I’ve always been really good with bankroll management.

SPG: How did you do that, though, and how long did it take? What steps did you take to make your way up the ranks?

MR: Well, I started on PartyPoker playing $5 sit-and-gos. And, basically, that’s what I stuck to. Sit-and-go tournaments have been my bread and butter for all of these years, which is not exactly the norm for a lot of people. A lot of people don’t find a lot of value in sit-and-gos compared to cash games. I just basically went from $5s to $10s to $30s and switched over to different sites, including PokerStars, and I play on a lot of the European sites, now. I basically stick to that. Heads-up sit-and-gos make up probably 70 percent of my income.

SPG: What would you say are the benefits of sit-and-gos for developing your game?

MR: I would say that, with sit-and-gos, you are on so many different tracks that you have to diversify your game. In cash games, you’re deep and whatnot, and it’s really different, but in sit-and-gos you get used to the tournament structure that you’ll see in multitable tournaments, which are obviously the most popular form of tournaments in the world. So, when you’re playing a sit-and-go, you totally get a feel for that, because the blind structure is going up just like it does in multitable tournaments. You will find yourself in the exact same situations, and that has enabled me to make multitable tournaments probably my strongest game, in addition to heads-up.

SPG: You said that you started with sit-and-gos back in the heyday of PartyPoker, when it was a lot easier to win at sit-and-gos. What do you think about the way the sit-and-go playing field has changed? Is it still just as beatable if you play correctly?

MR: It’s tougher, there’s no doubt about that. Just the player base, the amount of young tough players out there, is increasing. The amount of professionals is also increasing. I think it had a lot to do with the Internet poker ban in the States; ever since then, poker has been a lot tougher. It seems like the majority of Americans who are willing to go through the hastle of playing online are decent players. It’s not too bad, it’s still easily overcomable, and you can easily beat the rake, no problem, and make good money off of it, but it is tougher. There really are a lot better players out there.

SPG: It’s safe to say that you’ve had a pretty successful run so far in the FTOPS VIII. Let’s talk about your first big win there, in a $300 buy-in no-limit hold’em event. There were more than 5,000 entrants in that. What did you do to outlast the field?

MR: Well, I can tell you what I didn’t do: I didn’t suck out once in a significant pot the entire tournament, which is crazy. Most people don’t believe me. I had my big hands hold up and the coin-flips went my way. Generally speaking, I’m more of a player who will be patient. You see all of these agro players today who just kind of try to run over a table and get crazy. But when you’re playing a tournament with that big of a field, you’re going to have a lot of amateur players in it, so you don’t need to get tricky. I kind of stick to a solid foundation of play and let them make mistakes and then capitalize on them. It’s a really tight-aggressive approach that I take in a tournament like that when I find myself at a weaker table where they’ll probably make mistakes.

SPG: What do you consider a solid, foundational style of play? Can you give us some examples of what that means?

MR: Sure. You see a lot of guys will pop someone, they’ll reraise or re-steal with air, or they’ll raise on the button with anything. I remember I read something from Allen Cunningham one time that helped me out a lot, and it made me realize that maybe I was too aggressive. He said that, generally speaking, he won’t raise on the button with less than K-9 suited. I was playing way too aggressively, I thought, and I thought, well, Allen Cunningham’s not doing that, so maybe I’m doing something wrong. And then I really stopped my preflop raises and I really took care of my hand selection and limited the number of hands that I was playing, and I just found that with patience came rewards.

SPG: You were talking about raising less preflop. Can you give some advice on slowing down post-flop, as well; maybe about learning how to dump big hands when the situation is not right to play them?

MR: Yeah, that’s the biggest. I would say that a big fold is equally as important as a big call. I was three situations in the last FTOPS where I should have probably busted, where I would say that the majority of people would have busted, because they wouldn’t have been able to get away from the hand. You have to be able to sense when your opponent is strong or weak post-flop, more importantly than anything. Anyone can push preflop, but postflop is where skill really prevails. What helps is playing hands in position; if you’re a good player, you will get that read on someone. Whereas, if you’re out of position, you’ll find yourself lost in the hand.

SPG: What do you think of the notion of small-ball poker? To a certain extent, it is giving opponents the odds to call with draws and catch up more often, but, on the other hand, you’re less likely to risk losing a big pot against a monster.

MR: I feel like I’m giving all of my tricks away (laughs). I’m a huge advocate of small-ball poker. People will always comment, “Oh, look at his little, small preflop raise,” almost in a mocking fashion. Even with the antes, I will always raise a little more than the minimum raise. I’ll keep it very, very small. The reason being, generally speaking, that if you get called, it’s going to be by one of the blinds, and then, once that flop comes, I have position. I will have a huge advantage with that position, especially when I’m deep and I can really test someone.

SPG: The other event you went deep in was a rebuy event, wherein you finished in second. What is your strategy during the rebuy periods? Because it seems like you’re kind of a conservative player.

MR: The rebuy period changes everything for the first hour. If you’re looking to get the best results during the rebuy period, I think you do have to take a few more risks. You obviously have to loosen up your starting hands, because the entire table is loosening up. All of a sudden, jacks become a huge hand that you have to go with no matter what, because you can always rebuy. One thing, though, is that if you want to maximize your value in rebuys, mostly everyone knows that you have to continue rebuying. You should never drop out within the first hour.

Thankfully, I ran good in this one. I rebought once, right away, and then I doubled up a couple of times and never really looked back.

SPG: Is there ever a situation where you wouldn’t consider adding on?

MR: You know, it’s been talked about a lot that when you have a monster stack that adding on is pointless. And I’m kind of unsure about it, to tell you the honest truth. Say you have 40K and adding on will give you another 3K, I guess it does seem unnecessary, but I’ve always been told to add on, and I’ll probably continue to do that until I get some solid debate as to why I shouldn’t. You get more chips for your money than you would even for the initial rebuy, so it seems like there’s value in it.

SPG: So, obviously $260,000 is a lot to win in four days playing online poker tournaments. Are you going to parlay those winnings into World Series of Poker buy-ins, or are you not planning on playing this year?

MR: I was already booked for the entire duration; I’ll be there from May 29 to the end. I already had a bankroll set aside for it. I’m also into real estate, so my winnings are going to go toward a few more houses. I own three houses right now. I kind of have a part-time poker, part-time real estate thing going on right now. I’m looking forward to to continuing with that when I get back from Vegas.

SPG: How many events do you plan to play at the Series?

MR: I will be in every hold’em event that I can make, including pot-limit hold’em, limit hold’em, and whatever. I’m a bread-and-butter hold’em player, at the moment. I’m still trying to get into the other games, obviously, but for the World Series I’m going to stick to hold’em and probably play in as many events as I can.

SPG: What do you think of the notion that pot-limit hold’em requires more skill than no-limit hold’em?

MR: I don’t really think that makes a whole lot of sense (laughs).

SPG: Well, the argument is that taking away the all-in move takes away some of the luck, because bad players can always go all in, but if you take that away, there are better, more skillful decision to be made.

MR: Yes, that’s true, but in no-limit, there’s a lot more skill in the fact that when someone does go all in, you have a much tougher decision to make. When someone does that in pot-limit, they’re betting the pot, so it’s just kind of like, “OK, I call.” But if someone puts all of their chips in front of you, it’s going to really test you. They both have their own advantages and disadvantages, but I think in the end, it’s kind of hard to compare them and say pot-limit or no-limit requires more skill, because they are different.

SPG: What do you think of the World Series of Poker final-table date change for the main event?

MR: I know that a lot of people don’t like it; they think that it gives the amateurs a chance to get better. I, for one, think it’s amazing. I think it’s a fantastic idea. The reason being that, yes, it gives the amateurs time to spruce up their game and whatnot, but it’s going to be great for poker. It’s really going to create some noise and get people talking about it. Anything that’s good for poker is good for us, so I’m all for it.

SPG: How did you go about getting better at poker? What methods did you use to get better along the way?

MR: A lot of people talk about how this book changed my life or that book changed my life, but I had nobody to guide me. I was literally sitting there thinking that a flush draw was a favorite over anything (laughs). “Oh, all that I need is one heart.” And then, after trial and error, you figure out … no, a flush draw is not a favorite over a set. So, for me, it was a lot of trial and error and just complete passion and love for the game, wanting to get better and wanting to improve. And then, with that, nothing can really stop you in anything; if you have the desire, you will do it.

SPG: Thanks for doing this interview, Mark.

MR: No problem.

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