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Five Questions With Tri Nguyen (Daily Variance)

Some of our favorite books of the last two years have come from one place – a place we hadn’t ever heard of before two years ago. That place is independent poker publisher Daily Variance, the site behind such hits as The Poker Blueprint and Let There Be Range.

The man behind Daily Variance is Tri Nguyen, and the results of a quick conversation that covered how he got his start, what the poker publishing business is like and the future that lies ahead for DV are below.

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PTP: How did the idea for starting a poker book business come about? What drove you to self-publish as opposed to teaming up with an existing publishing unit such as 2+2?

TN: After the success of “Let There Be Range,” I wanted to see if I can replicate the same success with another book. Although the next book didn’t exceed LTBR’s popularity (I don’t think any poker book regarding online poker ever will), it did well. So with two books under my name, I want to run with it and see what happens. Now Daily Variance is about to release its fifth book.

The idea of teaming up with another publisher never crosses my mind. I want to do things on my own. I want to write what I want to write. I don’t want to meet page quotas. It would make the writing process tedious for me and I would end up hating writing. I would never put myself in a position to be miserable. Also, you don’t get rich working for someone else.

PTP: Most people in your position probably would have gone the video route – what made you choose the e-book medium as opposed to video?

TN: There are too many videos already. If I do a video, I will probably end up saying the same things people have been saying for years. Also, videos are good to show viewers real time play. If you want to talk about concepts and analyzing hands, putting it all on paper is more efficient and more helpful. I don’t think it’s close.

PTP: Talk a little bit about the production process for each book.

TN: Before I write a book, I have an idea of what the book is about. So whenever I’m playing poker, discussing strategies with friends, or reading poker forums, I would keep an eye for ideas that would help me with the book. Then I would play a lot of poker to make sure the advice is applicable to today’s games. Poker evolves very fast. I would feel embarrassed if I come out with materials that are outdated.

Once I have the rough draft, I send it to a few friends whose opinion I respect and ask them for feedback. Then I make changes and send it to the editor.

PTP: Cash games have been your focus to this point – anything tournament-focused on the horizon?

TN: There is almost a zero percent chance I would write a tournament book. I don’t play enough. And I don’t want to play enough to have the creditability to write a tournament book. What likely happen is we’ll sign someone to write a tournament book for us.

PTP: You’ve worked with a variety of collaborators. Were these all people you knew beforehand, or did you seek out specific players to work with?

TN: Besides Cole who I occasionally exchange a message or two, I seek out specific players to work with. Once you develop a small reputation for yourself, the process is a little easier.

PTP: You’ve got a book that sells for under $50 and a book with a list price of just under $1k. Talk a little bit about that.

TN: We want to cater to everyone. I’m not sure if that’s a good business strategy but we’ll see. Only time will tell.

PTP: The Poker Blueprint seems to be doing very well – did you have a sense that you had a hit on your hands while you were working on the book?

TN: I was actually surprised at the Poker Blueprint’s reception. My guess is there are a lot of micro- and small-stakes players out there who just want to play for fun and the Poker Blueprint is perfect for them. I have to admit that writing the Poker Blueprint was very tedious. I wanted to bang my head against the keyboard a few times because there were lots of fundamentals in the book and writing them wasn’t fun at all!

PTP: Have you found it difficult to balance the business and actually playing poker?

TN: It is very difficult to do both things. Nowadays, I don’t play as much poker as I would like, though I occasionally go on binges where I play 15k-20k/week, which is A LOT for me. It helps scratch the itch a little. I also need to play during the writing process because if not, all the poker advice would be obsolete.

PTP: What about poker today do you think will just seem insanely anachronistic in five years (the way that only three-betting with premium hands, a fairly common practice five years ago, seems to players today?)

TN: I think as poker becomes more “solved,” the aggression level will go down because you’re less likely to get away with betting all the time.


PTP: If your next book wasn’t about poker, what would it be about?
TN: How to value businesses.

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