Poker on Twitch from a gamer's perspective

We chat to FearCrads, a professional gamer who has turned his attention to streaming poker on Twitch. Plus join his money-added tournament tonight.

Poker players are quickly adopting Twitch as a new place to develop an audience an teach the game, but what about the other side of the coin? Today we speak to FearCrads who is a professional Twitch streamer and gamer. He has recently started streaming poker games to his huge Twitch, YouTube and Twitter following. 

PokerStrategy.com: How did gaming become a viable career path for you?

FearCrads: I’ve done gaming in general since I was six years old. I picked up Call of Duty when I was about 14 years old and played that rather excessively over the past few years.

I wanted to get better at Call of Duty and searched for tips on Youtube, I thought I could probably do something like this as well, so I bought a capture card to record on my Xbox and started making videos for YouTube.

PokerStrategy.com: You must have got a strange reaction from your friends and family about doing this as a career?

FearCrads: They were very judgemental at first, which I can understand. My Dad at first thought it was a scam when I first started monetising my YouTube videos. Some time passed and when I was 18 years old I was earning $3,000-$4,000 a month, then they were ok with it. I even helped them out with their mortgage for a while, so they became very supportive of it.

I am going down a route that will help with my future; I work with a lot of big companies, I currently do some work with RedBull. I didn’t go to University, so having Red Bull on my CV is massive. I enjoy that side more than playing the games. I recently did some presenting work for Renault and really enjoyed that. Now I am working with companies like that, my parents understand it is good for my career.

"I streamed poker two years ago"

PokerStrategy.com: A lot of non-gamers are really perplexed at why anyone would watch a game rather than play it. 

FearCrads: My parents asked the same thing. I think it depends on the person and what game it is. Some people will watch streamers to see if a game is any good, some people just want to be entertained and some people just want to improve at a game.

PokerStrategy.com: How long have you been playing poker?

FearCrads: I actually streamed poker two years ago without realising it was against Twitch’s terms of service at the time. I had a good run on Full Tilt, won about $1,600 in two days at $10 buy-ins. I didn’t play for about a year and a half, then a few months ago PokerStars got in touch with me and some other gamers and we got trained by professionals like Nanonoko, that got me really interested in poker again.

"Some of my friends pull in seven-figures"

PokerStrategy.com: A lot of gamers like ElkY and Nanonoko went on to become successful poker players. Do gamers view poker as a big end goal?

FearCrads: It depends who you talk to. I know some gamers who don’t play poker who are pulling in seven-figures, for them I don’t think poker is a goal at all. Since poker has been introduced to Twitch, the gaming community view it as just another game. When I started streaming some people didn’t even realise that poker was now allowed by Twitch’s terms of service.

PokerStrategy.com: So what level are you at as a poker player?

FearCrads: I play $11 tournaments, I took a stab at the Sunday Million and bubbled it. I’ve improved a lot, my followers enjoy it and wanted to see more of it. I started playing more live tournaments in my area at Dusk Till Dawn. I really enjoy poker because I love numbers and statistics.

PokerStrategy.com: It sounds like you are the ideal level of player to bring Twitch fans into poker. An enthusiastic amateur who is enjoying learning the game. 

FearCrads: With Twitch I’m not the best player in the games, so I don’t give people advice on what to do. There are people and videos out there that could give ten times better advice than me. I try and be someone that people relate to at the stakes they would play.

FearCrads's Money Added Tournaments

You can watch FearCrads stream poker on his Twitch stream on Sunday nights. You can also play along with him in some exclusive money-added tournaments at NetBet Poker. 

Just search for FearCrads or Twitch in the tournament lobby. These tournaments are password protected, so you will have to watch FearCrad's Twitch stream on the night to get the password. 

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