PTP Q&A with Alex ‘AJKHoosier1′ Kamberis
A regular winner in some of the larger buy in tournaments online, Alex has primarily made his name on PokerStars. If you’re perusing any major online tournament ranking site, you’re likely to find his handle - ajkhoosier1 - near the top of the ladder. Currently sitting in the top 10 over at Pocket Fives, Alex was nice enough to take a couple of minutes out of his tournament schedule and answer a few questions via email.
PTP: Could you give our readers a quick background on how you got involved with online poker and what your move up the buy in ladder was like?
Started off getting killed in live games in high school (had no clue what I was doing) , because I’m hyper competitive I wanted to get better… eventually went to $50 deposits onto stars in college… did really bad for a while, eventually did well grinding up the 1-table turbos (and def playing over my BR at times)… had a 10k score in the stars aboutt 2 yrs ago and haven’t really looked back since. (some downswings but nothing too drastic). started playing full time a year and a half ago, now playing strictly MTTs (live and online)
PTP: What are the can’t-miss tournaments weekly for you at the moment?
monday: ftp 1k
tues: super tues
wed: ftp 100r/stars 320
thurs: day off
fri: day off
sat: stars and ftp 300’s/ftp 100r
sun: all majors including 5k freezeout (PS/FT/UB)
daily: stars 100r’s, ft 163s, stars hundred grand
PTP: Multi-accounting has obviously been a big topic in the tournament community lately. Do you think the major rooms are doing enough to prevent the practice and to punish players who are caught breaking the rules?
It’s sad to say I don’t really concern myself with it. I stay honest and play by the rules and play hard and just do what I can to take chips. I think in general the sites do an excellent job of busting multi-accounters, especially those who hit a big score and/or repeat offenders. the problem is when someone is smart, motivated, and rich, it became very difficult to prevent them from doing what they want in a community so large and (overall) unregulated. I think multi-accounting will be existent (if not prevalent) until the govt regulates online poker to the point where cheaters can be prosecuted by law.
PTP: Is there a particular player or group of players whose style has had a lot of influence on your game?
Learned a decent amt in my initial stages from watching/listening to mrsmokey1, but mostly it’s been a lot of trial and error, and random strategy conversations with countless different people that have added up over time. I can’t pinpoint any one person or book (didn’t ready any) or website that really improved my game by leaps and bounds. I was lucky though in that I grew up in a town that ended up having a nice group of poker players/minds that I was/am friends with, and at times along the way we’d definitely feed off each other.
PTP: Are you doing any coaching or training videos? What are your thoughts on the massive proliferation of online coaching services over the last year or so?
just started as a guest pro for pxf (www.pokerxfactor.com), made one video (100r win already up), with a video of my 320 freezeout win on the way (eventually). I think in general training sites are very helpful, tremendously more helpful than any of the literature that is out there. nothing compares to being able to watch a video of the top players in the world as they break down their strategy play by play. some people complain that these sites are making the competition so much harder than its ever been, but I think its just the game and the community as a whole evolving in general.
PTP: How tough is it for you to maintain a balance between your poker and non-poker lives?
its pretty simple I make a schedule (typically I play sat-wed, with mixed in days off) and I treat it like a job (try not to take random days off w/o good reason, etc). if youre going to be one of the best in the world you HAVE to have an extremely good poker work ethic. I am currently living at school @ indiana university but not taking classes… so on the weekends I have my fun. I’ve also done a great amount of travelling through poker that’s felt a lot more like vacation time than work. but I’m going back to class in the fall to get my degree, so I’m sure its going to be a lot harder to balance things out then.
PTP: Do you see the popularity of online poker as currently peaking, or do you think there’s still significant room for growth?
I feel like it should be peaking, but I don’t think it is. I definitely don’t see prize pools/guarantees getting smaller any time soon, as it seems like sites can pretty much put any tournament with a fair guarantee in any time slot, and it’ll fill up pretty well. I also think sites like UB have so much potential to step up and be a solid third site (addition to PS and FTP) if they just had better customer service and idea men. the addition of another major site that welcomes all players would be a huuuuuge boost to the community… so there definitely is room for growth.
Image courtesy of PocketFives.
