03 Sep 10

Diamond Interview Series: GooRukYONG

This week we sat down with a Rush Poker blogger, Asian culture lover and Czech citizen: GooRukYONG. You can read about his poker career so far, why the Asian obsession and more in our newest edition of the Diamond Interview Series.

Our newest guest in the Diamond Interview Series comes from the Czech Republic, even though he's in Thailand at the moment. He's got a pretty good blog, he's into Rush Poker and he's into all sorts of Asian stuff. What you will learn from this interview: "Long Wang" means "Dragon King" in Chinese. Say hello to GooRukYONG!

If you want to nominate a Diamond member for the next interview or you just want to read the previous entries, click below:

Diamond Interview Series: nomination, archive, feedback

This interview was conducted by vhallee

PokerStrategy.com: Hello there Tomas and welcome to the Diamond Interview Series! How's it going, are you just as excited about this as I am?

GooRukYONG: Hello Vali and everyone! Everything's going fairly well.. I feel a bit nervous though.

PokerStrategy.com: Don't worry, I'll take good care of you. Look, to make the shyness go away, let's talk a bit about about ourselves so we can get to know each other better. You go first.

GooRukYONG: Alright. My name is Tomas, I'm 21 years old and I study (not) economics. I enjoy sports, especially football, squash and recently golf. And...I'm crazy about everything Asian!

PokerStrategy.com: Everything Asian? You probably haven't been to Japan yet. What's with the nickname? Does it mean something like "He Who Brings Honour" or something in an Asian language?

GooRukYONG: You are right, I haven't. BUT I LOVE SUSHI.. There you go (smiles). My nickname is actually in Thai and I'd prefer it to remain mystery for most of you guys! (smiles) But I can tell you what is tattooed on my arm instead!

Where there's a will, there's a way

If only he knew what those tattooed symbols really mean...

PokerStrategy.com: Yeah, you can go ahead and tell me what you have tattooed there and if there's a story behind it.

GooRukYONG: OK, in 2007 I was studying Chinese in China and I totally fell for the culture and their thinking. So I decided to get piece of it with me everywhere I went and got a tattoo with an old proverb. It says 有志者事竟成，which means something like "where there is a will, there is a way".

PokerStrategy.com: I like that. Also did you know what "Long Wang" means in Chinese? It means "Dragon King" and I wish I made this up. But anyway, how come you mixed sushi with poker? How did you get into poker and how did you come across this awesome community?

GooRukYONG: Yes, that is correct! Well, sushi mixes with everything, it's awesome (smiles). About poker, I saw (as well as my friends) some poker on TV, Poker After Dark or something like that and we decided to play it. We loved it.

After some time, one my friends came across free capital websites, and that's how I got to PokerStrategy.com. We were fishes, playing outside of BRM, so everyone went busto eventually. Then, last summer JuiceQuadre decided to give cash games a go. He was doing well, so in August I tried NL 10 as well following the PokerStrategy.com material. Seems to have been a good decision.

PokerStrategy.com: Damn right it was a good decision. Speaking of the community, everyone seems to love your poker blog. What's the deal with it anyway? What kind of stuff goes on in there?

GooRukYONG: Do they? Really? That makes me really happy. I don't think I post anything special in there. Just some updates about my poker journey and random thoughts from time to time. The main reason why it took of lately was that I crushed NL 50 Rush sicko-hard last month (Thanks to TwiceT and epic Bangkok party weekend).

The "TwiceT" effect

Pictured: GooRukYONG riding a Dragon King

PokerStrategy.com: TwiceT has that effect on people. So are you only playing NL 50 Rush these days? Tell us a bit more about your poker schedule on an average day.

GooRukYONG: No, actually. I moved to NL 100 Rush on 2nd August (also under TwiceT's supervision) and doing fairly well there also. Schedule huh, right now I'm still in Thailand, so my general gameplan is to play drunk American fishes.

So I wake up around 8AM (9pm ET), play till 11, get some breakfast, play again as long as I feel fresh and that's it. But event hough I spend more than 8 hours in front of the computer each day I usually don't play more than 4k hands.

PokerStrategy.com: Yes, TwiceT has that effect on people. How would you describe your play style at the moment?

GooRukYONG: Im DA lagtard punishing rush nits obviously!

PokerStrategy.com: District Attorney? Dark Archon? I guess we will never know. Why did you choose Rush Poker anyway? Do you plan on making this format your main one or you're just gonna play it for a while and make another switch?

GooRukYONG: Well, I gave it a go when Full Tilt released it and I really liked it. Then after not being able to beat nl50 I switched to normal tables just to get terribly annoyed how little volume I can put in and had to go back. I really like Rush a lot. You don't need sick setups of sick screens to be able to put in some decent volume. All you need is a laptop where you tile your 4tables and play 1k hands/hour and have nice overview of the situation on the tables at the same time. As long as I'm gonna be beating rush I wont think about switching to normal games.

PokerStrategy.com: What about your long term goals with poker? Do you plan on becoming a full time pro or keep it as a sort of side project?

GooRukYONG: My long term goal is to be able to make 5digit months on regular basis, then you can call me a full time pro (smiles) I don't really have much plans about my future, but I suppose it will change soon, because of all the successful players and their plans here on PS.

PokerStrategy.com: Well you're already doing quite well, so I guess it's only a matter of time before your toilet paper is made of $100 bills. As proud Diamond member of our community (All hail!), what would you advise new players getting into poker? What do you think are the main attributes of a winning player?

GooRukYONG: Hope you are guessing right! (smiles) Advice to new players? Learn, learn, learn, play, learn, learn, play, learn, play, learn, play, learn.. And when you get stuck somewhere... Drink vodka with TwiceT! Most important attribute is tiltlessness in my opinion. Once you can control your emotions, you will be able to play focused longer = more money.

PokerStrategy.com: Drinking vodka with TwiceT will only develop your alcohol addiction, not your poker skills. Do you have any particular poker pro that you look up to? If so, who and why?

GooRukYONG: You have no idea what drinking vodka with TwiceT can develop!! (laughs) Obviously I look up to TwiceT, TheLastNail and BalugaWhale. Reason for Baluga is - I love his videos and his book, he has great understanding of poker and can explain his thoughts really well. TwiceT and TLN are the heroes from our little world. They're the icons from our neighbourhood that show us that it's not impossible to become poker pro.

Huge thanks to JuiceQuadre

GooRukYONG, practising the "lesbian tour guide" wave

PokerStrategy.com: That was beautiful. If you fail as poker pro, you could consider the publishing business. But enough about poker - how is your vacation going so far?

GooRukYONG: Hehe, I love Thailand, so whatever happens here is usually awesome (laughs). It kicked off with sick party action with TwiceT, supeyrio and cutegoldfish. Then I had few weeks for poker and last Friday I got back from paradise, where I spent 11 days. Unfortunately I'm leaving on Friday already.

PokerStrategy.com: You're from the Czech Republic according to your Wikipedia entry (you believed me for a moment, didn't you), so what is there to do in that country of yours?

GooRukYONG: Haha, yeah, you got me (laughs). What we do: BEEER!!!

PokerStrategy.com: I see. I had a feeling you'd put 'beer' as the main thing to do there. What about you? What else do you do when you're not taking advantage of nits on Rush Poker? Got any hobbies or something?

GooRukYONG: Over here, I enjoyed playing badminton (it's a really sick game in a real court). Other than that, I'm spending my time playing football, squash, tennis, golf and obviously drinking beer with my friends!

PokerStrategy.com: Wow, you pretty much convinced me and if I ever visit you, I'll definitely be up for some badminton and squash. Neah, just kidding, can you imagine me playing that? But anyway, I took enough of your time away from enjoying Asialand, so if you have something to add, now is the time. Make it count!

GooRukYONG: Ok.. I'm up for any challenge in squash/badminton!! (I feel pretty confident in those hehe). All right, I hope it's not gonna sound gay or something, but I feel the urge to say it: The main reason why I actually am here having this interview is cause I started taking poker seriously and the person who made me start taking it seriously was JuiceQuadre, so.. huge thanks to him! (smiles) One more thing I can suggest to new players - find yourself a friend who you will support and who will support you. It's really great to know you have someone to talk to about poker as well as real life issues!

PokerStrategy.com: Alright, thanks for your time and have fun with JuiceQuadre and your 'poker' sessions. Yeah, it did sound a bit gay.

GooRukYONG: Ok, fuck you!

PokerStrategy.com: Yeah, you'd like that.

Diamond Interview Series: nomination, archive, feedback