Why Katerina Malasidou gave up a career in accounting to play poker

New PokerStars Team Online Pro Katerina Malasidou tells the story of how she became a poker pro even though she barely understood the game at the time.

"You need to be an ambassador for the game to get sponsorship"

PokerStrategy.com: Congratulations on getting into PokerStars Team Online. A lot of our members would love to get this, how did you do it?

Katerina Malasidou: Last fall, I think it was in October, they sent an email to Supernova and Supernova Elites that they would be taking applications from people for Team Online. I just sent my application like everyone else, and I was accepted.  I guess it had to do something with me being a woman, because there was only one woman on the team.

I also have a blog where I write everything poker-related, basically all my experiences, everything that’s going on in my life and has to do with poker, I write about in there, I think that also helped. I started blogging before I even knew how to play poker. My first blog post was "okay, I don’t know the rules. I’m not clear as to whether a flush is better than a full house or not." 

PokerStrategy.com: Sponsorship these days is a lot more than just wearing a patch and playing, are you expecting it to be a lot or work?

Katerina Malasidou: Yes, the way I see it, to get the sponsorship, you also need to be an ambassador for the game, and be out there and be more reachable for the other players, and that's what I try to do through my blog, because in the end, I’m just another player like everyone else, so I just share my experiences. 

"I owe my poker career to my boyfriend"

PokerStrategy.com: Your boyfriend André Coimbra is also a PokerStars Team Online member, what's it like essentially working with your partner?

Katerina Malasidou: I think it’s good. I don’t have many negative things to say about it. For me, it has been working great obviously, because if it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn’t be playing poker today.

I think it also helped our relationship because before poker was something that we could not really talk about, but it was his work, so he wanted to share some things with me, but I wouldn’t necessarily understand, because I was outside of the poker world.

Whereas nowadays, it’s one more thing that we have in common, and we can talk about, and of course, we help each other, we discuss about plays and hands and stuff like that.  It’s good.

PokerStrategy.com: Do you ever find yourself talking about poker too much and not being able to relax together? 

Katerina Malasidou: No, I don’t think there’s ever a point where we talk too much about poker. It’s just that some poker discussions can get heated because when we disagree … well, we disagree sometimes, and things get heated up, but that’s as far as negative things go. 

"I was very inexperienced when I turned professional"

PokerStrategy.com: I read somewhere that you quit your job as an accountant very early to play poker, before you even really understood the game all that well. Why did you take such a risk?

Katerina Malasidou: I was very inexperienced. For me to learn the game on the side was not as easy because I was spending a lot of time at that job. It wasn't very close to my house, so I had basically to spend one hour going there, one hour coming back, plus the actual time I spent working, it was pretty hard.

It was a lot of hours, and it was a job that I wasn't really enjoying. I was working as an accountant, and my degree is actually in teaching French as a foreign language. That had nothing to do with my background. Many hours at work, I was doing something that I wasn't enjoying.

The money I earned, I mean, sure it was a salary that I was getting at the end of the month, but it wasn't something crazy or anything.

While I was working there, I was observing from the outside Andre’s life as a poker player, and he would get to travel. He would go to the Bahamas and send me photos of him at the swimming pool, sunny days, while I was in January, for example, I was locked inside an office, raining outside, no sunlight. I was a bit jealous of the lifestyle.

PokerStrategy.com: Did having a poker pro as a boyfriend make it easier to make the jump? 

Katerina Malasidou: Yeah, definitely, and that’s one of the main reasons, why I told you earlier, that if it weren’t for Andre, I wouldn’t be playing, because it wasn't just that the taught me the rules of the game. 

It was at that particular moment, which was a turning point in my life. He couldn’t guarantee that I would win and make money out of it, but he said that he would help me and support me and that he really believed that I could actually make a living out of it and be good at it with his help.  

PokerStrategy.com: It still must have been tremendous pressure because you didn't have that foundation of a proven track record? 

Katerina Malasidou: Yes, it was all the pressure because I went from being at an office and having a salary at the end the month to a situation that was very new to me. I knew that there would be no money coming at the end of the month because I obviously started by studying a lot and playing micro-stakes.

So that added pressure, and it was very hard at the beginning from a psychological point of view. I was feeling pretty insecure. I think every player has moments where they feel insecure, whether it’s a downswing or a moment where they’ve been away from the games for some time and they feel like they’re not playing their best, but when you’re starting out, and you’re starting out with the perspective of having poker as a profession, it adds a lot of pressure.

"There is still value in Hyper Turbos"

PokerStrategy.com: Like Andre you play Hyper Turbo Satellites. How profitable are these nowadays? 

Katerina Malasidou: There’s definitely a lot of value, but the games are getting tougher and tougher, because the Hypers are starting to get more and more people’s attention, I guess, so that makes the games more difficult. The edges are really small, I would even say tiny, but since it is a Hyper Turbo speed, you get to play a lot of them, so another important thing is to actually have some volume.

Because the edges are small, that makes the variance of them is very, very big, so if you play like 1000, 5000 tournaments, that's not a big enough sample to determine whether you’re in good or bad. You need many thousands of tournaments before you can say, “Okay, I’m doing this right” or “No, something is wrong here."

PokerStrategy.com: You said your next goal is Supernova Elite, is that likely this year? 

Katerina Malasidou: For me this year, I think it’s going to be very difficult, like I don’t really have it in my plans for this year because of the stakes. I’m playing mid stakes right now, so I would have to play a lot more tables at the time to be able to make it. There are some people at my stakes that are Supernova Elite, but I only play 12 tables, whereas those people can play 24. My plan is to try to move up in stakes, and if I do improve my game and manage to play higher, I think it’s definitely possible.

I could try to increase the volume, but I think it’s much better as an option to try to improve my game and move up in stakes rather than go crazy by 30-tabling or something like that, which is very hard.  I would rather spend time on improving my game, because even if I don’t go up in stakes. 

PokerStrategy.com: So you have achieved one huge goal by getting Team Online, what's your plan for the rest of 2014?

Katerina Malasidou: I would like to inspire more women to play the game because there aren’t that many playing compared to men, and it’s nice to see more girls at the tables. Apart from that, I just want to share my love for the game with everyone.

PokerStrategy.com: Thanks Katerina, and congrats on becoming part of Team Online. 
 
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By Barry Carter l Barry Carter on Twitter