In tournaments you can go a long time without any meaningful results but you can be learning while losing

With over m in career tournament winnings, Julian Thew is in the top tier of British poker players. He is the only player to have won two GUKPT titles and he’s also made three EPT final tables, including a win in Baden in 2007, where he took home over €670,000. Speaking during an APAT Academy workshop at the Dusk Till Dawn club, he reveals how he got to where he is in the poker world and shares his winning tips...

Finding the felt

‘I had a sporting background, but hit 30 and packed it in. Afterwards I felt that there was a competitive element missing from my life. Then poker came on telly and I became fascinated with it.’

‘In 2000 I began playing home games with friends and that’s how I got the poker bug. I was playing once a week losing £10 a week for six months. That Christmas I received a poker book, read it, and from then on I began to break even in the home games. The natural progression was to take it a step further and play in a cardroom. A casino near where I lived in Dublin had two or three tournaments a week, and after entering the cardroom for the first time I felt at home and all I wanted to do with my free time was play poker.’

‘Internet poker wasn’t big at that time, but you could still find reports from tournaments online and buy books. So I read a lot of poker books – really immersed myself in it. I don’t think I won for the first six months playing in casinos. I’m sure I lost a couple of thousand but I slowly got better, made a few finals, and won a few small comps.’

Learning while losing

‘In 2001 I moved back to England. I found I had a much wider selection of places to play. The Midlands, where I was based, was brilliant because I had a good choice of venues.’

‘I was very prepared to put the miles in. It was always important for me to go to different places and play against as many people as possible. That was a big part of my learning curve. In tournaments you can go a long time without any meaningful results but you can be learning while losing. Learning from your mistakes is very important.’

‘When I moved back to England I moved in with my girlfriend [now wife]. My poker did cause problems for the first 12 or 18 months. I wanted to play live two to three times a week. The wife was not so keen, especially if I was coming back at 4am having lost.’

Kicking on

‘Eventually poker became a nice top-up to my income and I began picking up bits and pieces from other players. Lucy Rokach and Peter Costa were both big influences on me. I can’t stress enough how incorporating facets from other people’s games was crucial to my improvement.’

‘2001 was very different from now. The internet was only just starting to have an influence and there was none of the pressure back then to play above your means. For players starting out today it’s very easy to set your goals too high. Back then there was a £100 freezeout competition maybe once a month; the exposure to your bankroll was far less than it is these days.’

‘To build a platform it was very much a case of grinding it out in the £20 and £30 rebuys. A win in one of those for around £1,000 was fantastic. I still play a wide variety of buy-ins and I don’t turn my nose up at any cash I make. Regardless of the buy-in, it’s still important for me to play well.’

Success and sponsorship

‘In 2004 I decided to cut back hours at work which meant I could play later hours during the week. Getting the right balance between work and poker was a big step forward for me.’

‘In October 2004 I played the £3,000 EPT event at the Vic. I was chip leader at the end of day one, chip leader with nine left and then finished ninth for £8,000 (Julian’s nickname is ‘Yo-Yo’). I was very disappointed. Then two weeks later at the EPT Dublin I finished seventh. A week later I got a call from William Hill offering me sponsorship. I thought it was a wind-up! It wasn’t and I’ve been sponsored by them ever since.’

‘Once you’re sponsored everything changes. You haven’t got that pressure of worrying about money or where to get buy-ins from. I can pick and choose the events I enter and it definitely frees up the way you play. Even after getting sponsored I stayed in my job for another year and didn’t go full-time until end of 2006.’

How I improved

‘I played at as many different venues as possible, getting experience of as many different styles as possible, and moved up very slowly through the buy-ins.’

‘I read a lot of poker books – I probably have about 50 at home. I’ve always been a great note-taker and I’ve got folders full of them. I also kept very accurate records down to the nearest pound.’

‘I still take notes and keep records, and I always review my performances, as I think you can learn a lot from your mistakes. At the end of every year I like to do a full review – not a financial one but one which looks at the state of my game.’