TheLastNail: From $1 To Diamond

From now on we will try to bring our Diamond members into the spotlight even more. And what better way to do this than to have a talk with them in a series of special interviews? The first one to open the road for this series is thelastnail, who is currently second in our Top 250 and Top Ten Jackpot promotions for May.

This interview was conducted by vhallee

PokerStrategy: Hello, TheLastNail, and thank you for accepting to spend some time with us for this interview. Why don't we start with a short intro about yourself? Who is TheLastNail?

thelastnail: Hi! Thanks for interviewing me actually, it's an honour 🙂 I am a 23 year-old person from Slovakia, who decided to give poker a serious shot about 4 months ago and now more or less pursuing being a pro...

PokerStrategy: Four months and you already reached Diamond status. Congratulations! But how did you get into poker anyway?

thelastnail: Well, actually it was quite a coincidence. I always enjoyed playing games in my life, PC, sports or was an active chess player also and there was an increasing interest in this game of poker among fellow classmates.
I was just watching them play for some time, then got invited for some of their sessions, obviously as a fish, who couldn't play. This was exactly 1 year ago, in May 08.
At one of these meetings, one of the friends, who wasn't particularly good, mentioned he got $50 for free at some site, so I noted it down with interest into my mobile phone. I found the saved message some time later and that's how I got here to PokerStrategy.com.
Everything I ever got to know about poker started from then on, since I still hardly knew the rules of the game.. (I was commonly asking people if a full house is more than a flush etc 🙂 )

PokerStrategy: It's interesting how coincidences work. And once you started, what kind of poker did you go for? What type of poker do you play today?

thelastnail: I didn't know anything about poker, but somehow chose to play small SnG firstly.. with BI of $0.1-$0.5 😀 .. I was trying my best not to lose the 50$ I got 😀 and I somehow liked the feeling of "winning" one can get in these SnGs and how people were eliminated one by one.
The idea behind it was clearly just to have fun, since I had no ideas whatsoever about taking poker seriously, I thought it's a classical gambling game, and all I wanted was to make it to 100$ or something and then cash it out asap and be happy.
Now I play NL200 and recently also NL400, I changed to CG in about August when I lost all of 50$ and won 1$ back at freeroll and decided it s a time for some change, then also discovered there are articles at PokerStrategy.com, and some videos, so I gradually started learning, and then climbing up the limits. I play FR predominantly, very seldom I tried SH and HU also, but more or less for fun.

PokerStrategy: And when you switched to cash games, did you also realize that you could do this full time? Or it was after some time that you took this into consideration?

thelastnail: Well... since I started with NL5 and took me some time to even find out there is multi-tabling available 😀 I of course just played for fun.. I was at a University, but there were some problems in my life, which somehow ruptured into me not continuing, but I still played mostly for fun up to about December.
Later in December I got somehow more excited, was playing predominantly NL20, starting with NL50 as far as I remember and this was about the first time I started thinking about doing it full-time.
I think the most inspirational for me in this regard was getting to know opal99 and twicet, since I discovered there are people who take poker quite seriously and are earning well. In late January I got pretty convinced I will give it a shot, so from my first winnings I bought a new notebook + better modem (I was losing quite a lot on disconnects) and started playing more from then on.

PokerStrategy: Well, thanks to them, we now have a very active Diamond member - thank you, opal99 and twicet! 🙂 But you are not just active, you are also the runner-up in our Top250 and Top Ten Jackpot Promotion! How does it feel to be that high up in the rankings?

thelastnail: 🙂 Well.. it feels good to be up there with Opal99 because we said to each other we want to rule these rankings for quite some time now, but of course it's mainly a matter of pride than it is of money. It is nice though to get some bonus, so that a person can be more effective on his way to BM, which should be a logical goal set at about this point.

PokerStrategy: Speaking of pride, there were some talks about a little challenge between you and any NL English community players. Would you like to give us more details about this?

thelastnail: So as I suggested in my blog lately, I am willing to go to a bet with any NL player from the community in reaching the BM status first, the odds are negotiable, I only have 64k StrategyPoints at this moment, and I am willing to bet up to $5k for this. The reason behind this is quite simple: to get some motivation to become the first Black Member for the English community. I also might accept some FL players after mulling it over, but definitely not opal99 😀

PokerStrategy: Hehe Ok. So this goes first to all our No Limit players out there: do you think you can become a Black Member faster than thelastnail? Then put your money where your mouth is 🙂 Speaking of Black Member, the Black Member Party is going to start quite soon and it will include Diamond members as well. Do you have any plans on attending this event?

thelastnail: Yep, of course I practice my rave skills hard 😀 Seriously now, I'm coming and looking forward to get to know the community very much.

PokerStrategy: And we are looking forward to seeing you there too 🙂 Now moving back a bit more to poker in detail, how long do you actually play every day? How many tables do you open? What additional software/tools do you use? Please describe to us a normal session.

thelastnail: Well.. it depends very much on my mood/ tiredness or so.. These days I spent most of the time with one particular person <3 .. so I didn't play more than 3-4 h/day mostly, my normal standard is usually to play in average 6-7h actually with one break in between. I usually play at about 13tables, because I have a good system of arranging the tables for this, I also play more at times, but generally not for too long, because I cannot keep my composure.. On the other hand, if there are not more than 9tables available I usually quit, because I just discovered I am loosening up a bit too much for my liking, so need more tabs to keep myself busy enough I guess. I only use HEM as software, no table selection, no mining, etc, although I tried to down some minings in the past, but is not worth all that much in my opinion at FR.

PokerStrategy: I see. Well 9-tabling is definitely nice. What about beginners reading this interview? If you were to give them some advices to become Diamond members, and thus better players, what would you tell them?

thelastnail: Well, it was repeated many times, but I can do it as well: of course analyse your game (which I started veeeery late, actually only in between Feb& March), post hands in hand analysis forums, discuss it with somebody, don't play when tired (also did this many times, shame on me), don't play when your internet connection sucks (just invest some money at first to this essential "working tool" it will be worth it many many more times).

PokerStrategy: What about live poker? Do you enjoy participating in some tournaments or offline cash tables? If so, did you have any notable accomplishments over there as well, or you are more focused on the online side of poker?

thelastnail: Interesting question, and I definitely have plans for trying live poker more, of course CG, but just don't know of any places around my small home town. As for the past, I only went to 1 specific gaming room, when living still in Bratislava, when I attended solely freerolls with unlimited rebuy structure for the first 3 levels.. Of course I didn't rebuy, just waited patiently and started playing more after the break. I was there like ~8times in total, last time in January when I won it, which was €160, was quite thrilled at that point about it, must admit, but from then on more& more started recognizing online poker is much much more worth it, so haven't played from then on there. Also the truth is I cannot play tourneys at all, so most probably I wouldn't be any competitive at bigger tourneys, which also leaves only CG as something to think about, we ll see.

PokerStrategy: Best of luck to you, should you participate in some live tournaments anytime soon. You also have a life outside of the poker world, I guess. What do you like to do in your free time? How does a regular day in TheLastNail's life look like?

thelastnail: My usual day (CET time zone in here):
6/7 AM – 1/2 PM: sleep (yes, I have changed biorhythm solely for poker purposes, to get most of overseas mainstream of bad players, for more than 3months now smile .. used to be very bad, I couldn't actually get myself to sleep first month, was all the time tired, but then started to take pills for sleep, I think the name for the hormone is melatonin.. so that helped me quite a lot, now I have these drapes I've mentioned, so not much problem with light, and I of course use ear protection not to hear any sounds in flat or from outside..
2 – 6/7 PM: I do one of the following> go to town to buy something, do w/e necessary stuff, go to gym/ swimming, occasionally meet some people... this is going to be more frequent now I guess 😛 .. I read a book rarely or watch TV, mostly some sport broadcasts..
7/8 PM: I usually am already at computer and roaming somewhere on the Internet, mostly poker related stuff, or chat with ppl, read news, etc... usually around 10PM I start to play and play up to about 4/5AM standard and then before I go to sleep I once again just browse some net sites.. in between I do sometimes some housework, but not that much 🙂
In days to come I want to improve my efficiency, especially not to waste so much time on the Internet overall, and devote more time to my friends & reading more books, I like philosophical ones or encyclopaedias.

PokerStrategy: You mentioned that you are taking poker seriously. Where do you see yourself in the next 5 or 10 years?

thelastnail: Frankly, I don't want to play poker for too long, my concept is just to make enough money to start a decent life, help my family, and have the luxury to choose whatever I want to study/do later on..My concept is for now, definitely to go to uni and study, I d like to be a teacher or a scientist later in my life, but both of these professions earn very little here in Central Europe. I definitely have no plan of being a lifetime poker player or anything of this sort and I want to organize my own family life, so in 5 years I count on learning how to be a good father and caring husband I guess + studying..

PokerStrategy: I see. Well, I can only hope you manage to build a healthy bankroll to support your plans :). Is there someone/ something you would like to mention (in a good or bad way) before we end this interview?

thelastnail: I want to say hello and a big thank you especially to: Opal99, SoyCD & Twicet /in alphabetical order 🙂 / from poker community, they've been very helpful along my way and several times helped me get through states when I was emotionally very drained. I also want to say hello to my former schoolmates especially Tomasko, Misko, Mario, Martinko, also being very supportive, my family, who started to support me lately as well, and all the friends in Bratislava I have abandoned because of moving away to play poker.  Also thank you to my recruiter "Robo M." to which I am also extremely thankful to and that I regretfully forgot to put him in as for a referral so he never got anything for me 🙁
Last but not least, thanks to Andy and Susika, and of course the "biggest" woman in my life so far, Monika, who really taught me how to live the life and will never forget about her.

PokerStrategy: We will continue interviewing more of our Diamond members. If you were to choose the next Diamond to be interviewed, who will it be?

thelastnail: opal99 or twicet if they haven't been interviewed so far 🙂

PokerStrategy: Ok, we will try to get them for the next series. Thank you for your time and good luck at the tables!

thelastnail: Thanks, have a nice day, good luck everyone!