19 Jan 08
I thought online poker was boring
He cannot imagine a life as a poker professional right now says Dr. Tobias Georgi aka OnkelHotte. Together with Maik 'Wishmaster' Girke and Jan 'sammy' Samuelsen he tells us about his past as an eGamer and the work with PokerStrategy.
Interview with the directors of our strategy section: OnkelHotte, sammy and Wishmaster!
Hotte: My name is Tobias aka OnkelHotte and I am 30 years old.Wishmaster and sammy have been responsible for our strategy section for about 1.5 years now. In the beginning of 2008, OnkelHotte joined to support them.
I studied biology in Düsseldorf and did my PhD in the research centre in Jülich in the area of biotechnology. After having worked as a scientific employee for 1.5 years, I started working for PokerStrategy on the 01.01.2008.
Wishmaster: I am 26 years old and I studied 6 semesters on a teaching profession for Maths and Philosophy before I put off my studies to support the PokerStrategy team.
Sammy: My name is Jan, I am 25 years old and I studied physics in the beautiful city Hamburg.
You are basically all PokerStrategy veterans. Since when and why are you members of PokerStrategy?
Hotte: Like many other PokerStrategy veterans, I come from the Starcraft scene. Korn, one of the most famous German players back then, called a lot of attention to poker a little more than three years ago. Back then I had lots of experience with live poker and in the beginning I though that online poker was boring because you can't see your opponent. However, this changed quickly when I joined the PokerStrategy community. After I gained the first insights about which mathematical and theoretical depth Hold'em offers, playing poker, understanding poker, creating and communicating theoretical concepts soon became my favourite hobby.
Wishmaster: Well me as an old Starcraft (Broodwar) player had a lot of contact with Korn through several 1on1s or LAN parties. Korn sponsored a Starcraft tournament in which he awarded 400€ to the winner of the tournament. Additionally he gave an interview, which advertised the PokerStrategy.com project. That was enough to spark my interest for poker.
Sammy: I got to poker just like many others through the Broodwar.de forum. I registered at PokerStrategy in the beginning of April 2005 just to play a bit of poker for fun. As I moved up in limits from playing 2c/4c to $3/$6 the ambition of playing poker more than just for fun got me.
In autumn 2005 I played Fl up to $10/$20 but I wanted to start something new and started to work on No-Limit. At the end of the year I held my first public coaching and in the beginning of 2006 I started to work on a No-Limit section for PokerStrategy as an external employee.
How did you manage to get this job many probably dream of?
Wishmaster: After a while I made the „Fixed Limit Highstakes" on PartyPoker unsafe. I successfully played $10/$20 and higher and also worked as a coach.
I was also present at all the professional seminars back then and Matthias Wahls asked me on one of those if was interested in working for PokerStrategy.com. I accepted the offer and I have been working full time in the content area since then.
Hotte: I was well known because of my hand ratings, my strategy articles and seminars. In the end PokerStrategy asked me if I was interested to support the team. As I was ready for something new, I took the chance! :-)
Rumours spread that PokerStrategy employees don't have any time to play the high stakes any more. Is this really the case?
Sammy: The rumours are partly true. Our time is obviously very restricted, but a small session is always possible now and then. :)
Wishmaster: There is not much time left with an own flat, a full time job and a girlfriend. Its very difficult for me to only invest little time into poker. I always want to be able to play a good game in the high limits. True to the maxim „all or nothing".
I am a little sad when I think about my disrupted poker career. I didn't reach my personal limits back then and I could have definitely played limits up to $30/$60.
However, I have an excellent employer and a very creative kind of work, which is a lot of fun and enables me to grow personally. I definitely don't want to swap this for the lucrative poker game.
Hotte: Yes and no! If you are in the office for 10 to 12 hours you don't have the opportunity to reach the volume of hands usual highstakes professionals reach. However, I wouldn't want to forget my goal of playing 100/200+ one day. The relation to the game has to be kept on a certain level so that you can understand and evolve strategic concepts. I am currently playing 10/20 - 20/40 Fl, but I certainly will be playing 30/60 or higher in the course of the year.
Are you sad that you can only observe FL 100/200 or NL5000 when players like Schnibl0r or Ragen play, rather than play yourself?
Hotte: Definitely not! Even though the life of a poker professional sounds very exciting, I am more the type who goes to work every morning and who wants to be among other people. Not everyone is born to spend his whole day in front of the PC at home. I have made my hobby a profession and play poker in my free time. It is the perfect combination for me.
Sammy: Not at all. If I had wanted to do that, I would have continued to play rather than take the full time job at PS.com. =)
What are the greatest challenges in the job? Are there any similarities to the jobs you had before or dreamt of?
Wishmaster: As I was very close to becoming a teacher, my current work has a lot in common with my studies. Instead of concentrating on maths and philosophy, I try to community poker as effectively as possible.
The greatest challenge is to live up to the great expectations about the content. We want to expand our market leader position in the segment of poker schools in the future as well.
Hotte: The job is so unique because it offers a variety of activities and you have to be active in several different areas. For example you have to be very creative in order to create new formats and ideas, which have to be implemented operationally. As the volume of the work is too great for the capacities of Maik, Sammy and me, the work has to be delegated sometimes as well. This never allows for boredom. I benefit a lot from my scientific education where I learnt to work in a very structured and analytical way in large projects.
Sammy: Especially the interaction with the different characters makes this job very interesting. I always work very close with the community and obviously stay in contact with many different people such as poker players or the several external employees.
Are there many projects which are very important to you in which you invest a lot of time? Can you give us a little preview about what the user can expect in the future?
Hotte: We are currently working on the revival of the video section. There will be some new formats in the short run but we are trying to implement the feedback from our users
Wishmaster: A large project, which will reach the alpha status in this quarter, is a new software suit, which will basically have the same functionality as Pokertracker and Pokerace. The first aim is not to develop the perfect tool but to make a basic version available to our members, which evolves into a complex solution step by step.
Sammy: The strategy section will be improved in many. The new SNG-beginners section will serve as a benchmark for the NL and FL beginners and bronze section.
Hotte: The silver-, gold- and platin members can look forward to some changes as well. The Fl platin section is currently revisited completely and the other sections will follow very soon.
Sammy: Building on the SNG beginners' section and the ICM trainer a lot of other things are planned or already being worked on. The Nash-Ranges are an excellent basis to come close to a realistic game. The next further step is the integration of the „Future Game Simulation" which eliminates the most fatal mistake of the ICM. Many more features are planned as well, which optimise the ICM model further to make this tool even mightier.
Wishmaster: Another project on which we will continue to work is the PokerStrategy Handreplayer. We want to improve the presentation of hands and create interactivity with the users in form of quiz elements so that I can soon communicate poker theory comfortably by these quizzes.
Thank you very much for taking the time. As you got lots of things to do, have fun and good luck with everything.
