Online Poker: Interview with Cody 'thugmoneymkr' Slaubaugh

It wasn’t too long ago that Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh was delivering Chinese food to starving college students. Nowadays, he’s more about chips and tables than chopsticks and takeout, and he’s got nearly $1 million in recorded winnings to show for it, including five cashes — one of which was a runner-up finish — in the 2008 World Series of Poker.

After a $10,000 win early in his online poker career, the 23-year-old poker player thought, “Wow, I’m rich!” and dropped out of college while he was still taking gen-ed classes. His parents were nervous about his decision to become a professional gambler, but after he had some better, consistent results, they were more at ease.

Slaubaugh, of Rugby, North Dakota, chatted with Card Player just an hour before he was to play his day 1 of the main event. He talked about how he was able to be consistent in the short-stack prelim events, what his strategy is going into the main event, and what the best tools and advice he could give to amateur players would be.


Shawn Patrick Green: You’ve cashed in an amazing five WSOP events so far, with only the main event left to go. That really is quite incredible. How have you remained so consistent?

Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh: I have played a lot of events; I played 18 events, and I’ve been running pretty well; I cashed in five of them. Basically, I was able to get chipped up in a few of those and not have to get most of my stack in there and gamble. I was able to play smaller pots throughout most of the tournaments, and therefore I only had to get my stack in the middle like two or three times, and I avoided risking elimination.

SPG: Well, and that’s really saying something, considering many of the events you cashed in were $1,500 events with starting stacks of only 3,000 in chips. It’s hard to avoid getting your stack in the middle in short-stacked events like that.

CS: Four of the five cashes that I had were in $1,500 events, so, yeah, you only get 3,000 in starting chips. By level 3, basically, if you still have a starting stack you’re short-stacked, because that’s 15 big blinds.

SPG: What is your strategy in those kinds of tournaments, then? How do you make it so that you don’t have to put your tournament life on the line very often?

CS: Well, earlier on, in the smaller events, once the blinds get to that point, if I haven’t chipped up at that point, it’s really crucial to get going and start mixing it up, because you’re getting kind of short. But you basically, in those events, double your stack within the first few levels or you don’t have chips to play with. So, earlier on, I’ll try to find a spot to double up.

SPG: You came so heartbreakingly close to a WSOP bracelet in a $1,500 no-limit hold’em event. Do the bracelets mean that much to you?

CS: Yeah, that … that did mean a lot. It was really tough. The final table was pretty tough; there were some other really good players at it. The guy who won it, Jesper Hougaard, was very aggressive, and he had a lot of chips going in. Owen Crowe was there, and so was Aaron Kanter. And once we got fivehanded, basically all of the players were very good players. I was able to get heads up with Jesper, and he had a 7-1 chip lead on me. I had an incredible rush of like eight hands where I double up twice, and all of a sudden I had him 2-1, and he ended up coming back to beat me. So, it was that much harder, because right away it was like I didn’t have a chance, and then all of a sudden I was so close to having the bracelet, and he took it away.

SPG: You’re playing in the main event today [Thursday]. What’s your plan of attack, going in?

CS: The main event is a really long tournament with a big field, and we do get plenty of chips right away, so there won’t be much pressure on day 1, basically, so I’m looking forward to having a lot of chips and being able to mix up some pots and not having to worry about losing a few pots and being crippled.

SPG: What is the easiest way to exploit the most common kind of player in a tournament like that?

CS: After a while, try to get a feel for the table to see how people are playing. Try to get a better feel for their range of hands and act accordingly. If people are playing too tight, then I’ll probably reraise them a lot to put pressure on them.

SPG: But, in general, though, is there more of a certain type of player represented in an event like the main event that you can kind of take almost a standard line of action against, or is that not really the case?

CS: Well, a lot of them, you’ll realize that they’re satellite players who are not used to playing this kind of event. Most of them play too tight, and once the blinds get up later on, it can be more profitable to go after those kinds of players.

SPG: So, how do you go after them, though? How, specifically, do you attack them?

CS: Well, raising their blinds a lot works. Also, lots of people limp a lot because they don’t want to put a lot of money in the pot, so they’ll limp, and if I’m behind them, I’ll raise to isolate them and get the pot down to the two of us. And then I can hopefully take it down on the flop or go from there if I actually make a hand. I put the pressure on them and make them fold their hand if I don’t think that they have a very strong holding.

SPG: Most of your major cashes online have been in freezeout tournaments, even though is it becoming increasingly popular for online players to use the $100 and $200 rebuys as their bread and butter tournaments, nowadays. Why is that less the case for you?

CS: Yeah, I think that I haven’t done as well in the rebuy tournaments, really, lately. The fields seem to be a lot tougher. I’ll play them on Sunday, but during the week it’s definitely all of the regulars. I finally, last night, actually, was playing online and won the Stars $100 rebuy for the first time ever, so I finally got that off my back.

SPG: What was the most important thing that you did to get your game to where it is today?

CS: Well, basically playing tons of hands online really got my fundamentals down and got my math down. After I got that tuned up, I was basically talking strategy with other good poker players. I live with my five roommates, and they’re also good poker players and good individuals, and we sit around and talk strategy all of the time.

SPG: What is the one thing that you wish you knew about earlier in your poker career?

CS: Probably better bankroll management. Right away I think I had too much gamble. I would jeopardize my bankroll too much, and it’s really swingy that way.

SPG: So, what suggestions can you make to people to help them improve their bankroll management right off the bat?

CS: Just to not play with a large amount of your bankroll on the line at a time. It should be a small percentage. To be comfortable, it would be nice to have 100 buy-ins for whatever game you’re playing, but that isn’t possible for a lot of people. If you can have at least 50 buy-ins, that’s all right.

For cash games, it depends upon how many tables you’re playing. You should probably have more than 100 buy-ins for that. With cash games, if you play multiple tables, the variance will be greater.

SPG: All right, thank you for taking the time to do this interview, and good luck today in the main event!

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