As Posted on http://www.kwickfish.com, official website of Poker Pro, Paul Wasicka

emily asch interviews the kwickfish

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Paul Wasicka

"To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them."
-Charles de Montesquieu

June 26, 2007
By J. Philip Vogel
Interview by Emily Asch

As many a movie or television sitcom has plotted, it’s hard for the "average Joe" to remain humble when suddenly thrust into the spotlight. Take that up a notch and have that "every man" win $6,000,000 playing poker on national television, and you’ve got a story that’s prime for canned laughter and one of Hollywood’s classic cheesy endings. But that’s not the script of Paul Wasicka’s life. This 2006 World Series of Poker runner-up and new poker superstar is dedicated to taking it all in stride and remaining, well, unassuming.

"I’m a pretty down-to-earth person. I try to be who I want to be and who I don’t want to be is some flashy guy," said Wasicka.

"Some people, once they have some money, their true selves come out because money is not an issue and they can be who they want to be. I don’t drive flashy cars, I don’t fly first class or anything."

Wasicka’s rise to the top—or rather, almost the top—has been meteoric. In just two scant years he’s gone from working-class anonymity to the tenth all-time top money winner in poker, with winnings totaling nearly eight million dollars. He’s quickly joined the ranks of "A-list" poker players, receiving invites to the world’s most exclusive poker tournaments, co-hosting television shows, and sponsoring online poker rooms.

Flashback to some two year ago, however, and Wasicka’s life was anything but dramatic. In fact, he was the very definition of the common man. He worked in his brother-in-law’s restaurant. He went bowling on the weekends with his friends. And he lived a comfortable, if unglamorous, life at home with mom and dad. "There was no direction," he said. "I was trying to find out what interested me, trying to see if there was anything where I’d wake up one morning and find out what I wanted to do. There was no long term career goal."

But that was all soon to change.

Like so many other neo-professional poker players, Wasicka’s entry into poker came by way of the blackjack tables. But blackjack lacked both the financial security and the mental stimulation to keep him interested and after a brief stint at the 21 tables, he made the fateful switch to poker. Soon after, a friend told him about an underground poker tournament in Denver, Colorado, which he entered and miraculously—with almost no practical experience—walked away with a ninth place finish. As luck would have it, that same night he discovered online poker. Fresh off of his tournament high, he played until dawn, winning even more money at the $10 sit-and-gos. From there his poker obsession quickly snowballed to the 10/20 tables where he built a bankroll large enough to play satellites until he won a seat at the 2006 WSOP.

For anyone else, that’s where the story would have ended. But against all odds, Wasicka found himself at the final table of the $10,000 championship event and eventually heads-up against soon-to-be-victor Jamie Gold. Fast forward to the final hand in which Gold went all-in after pairing his queen on the flop and coaxing Wasicka to call with pocket tens, and there is really only one question left to ask: does Wasicka regret how he played those tens?

"I do regret the last hand. I think I could have gotten away from it at a certain point, when he said, ‘I got ya’. I had been playing with him for three days at that point. I was getting a good price, he was getting tired and wanted to get away from that [hand]. There are a lot of factors. That’s what my game is based on, putting people on a range of hands and calculating their odds, and calculating based on that–his range was wide at that point and it was difficult to fold for that price."

His obsession with poker now complete, Wasicka packed-up and left the comforts of Colorado for the glitz of Sin City shortly after the WSOP. He spent subsequent months proving that he wasn’t just some lucky novice; that he deserved to be there. And it seems he’s done just that. So far this year, Wasicka has placed 4th at the LA Poker Classic and 12th at the Aussie Millions. Recently at the invitation-only NBC Head’s Up Championship, while fellow players like Humberto Brenes were hamming it up for the cameras, Wasicka went on to win the event without making a peep.

"It’s kind of lame," he says about other pro’s attention hungry antics. "There’s TV ratings, so I guess it serves a purpose… I more let my play do the talking." And his play spoke volumes as he systematically beat out the likes of Eli Elezra, former world champion Joe Hachem, Poker Hall of Famer T.J. Cloutier, Nam Le ("He had the best strategy going in."), Shannon Elizabeth ("I had a tough time with her. She was really tough to bluff!"), and Chad Brown.

Wasicka also recently filled-in on NBC’s Poker After Dark alongside other pros like Antonio Esfandiari, Jamie Gold and made-for-TV chatterbox Mike Matusow. "Mike doesn’t actually talk as much as you might think," said Wasicka. "He tries to manipulate people he knows can be manipulated. Initially, he thought he could affect my play but he found he couldn’t. He and I have become friends at the table and he leaves me alone now, as does Jamie. I encourage [table talk] because sometimes it can give away their hand but as far as it affecting me negatively, I don’t let it happen at all."

But that wasn’t always the case. During the earliest stages of his poker career, Wasicka admits to having major tilt issues that would affect his play. Busting out would take such an emotional toll, he said, that he would often need a few days just to cool down from the loss. As his game matured he learned to become more emotionally detached and the result is the composed stoicism he maintains at the tables these days. Quite a feat coming from a guy who describes himself as having an "extremely short attention span" along with an "obsessive personality."

Although he is ever the reluctant poker superstar, the game just may hold his attention for at least a little longer. “I do play less and less and I probably am the least active player on the circuit—a lot of these guys play in every single poker tournament, I play one out of every three main events. I’m not tired of poker yet, but there are other things I want to do as well. I’m still heavily involved and I still want to do other things like write about poker, travel around, play online cash games, instead of feeling like I have to go to every single tournament. For some guys, getting that “Player of the Year” award is really important but, [to me] it’s not that important."