Poker News Daily: How did you get your start in the game of poker?
Plens: When I graduated from college, I didn’t want to get a job. At the time of the Moneymaker boom, I was about 25 years-old and in college. I was always a gambler and as poker started getting popular, I found out that it could be beat with skill. That made me want to take a shot at it and it’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
PND: What is it about your online tournament strategy that gives you an edge over your competitors, even in high-stakes tournaments?
Plens: I feel really efficient with my chips. I know that I give the impression sometimes to people that I’m a little bit spewy with my chips, but the one thing I pride myself on is that I always have a purpose. I always know what my game plan is when I put my chips into the pot. Without revealing too much of my game, I don’t often put in a significant amount of chips without being willing to go the rest of the way. I don’t often risk a quarter of my stack or a third of my stack without having a good chance for a big chip up. I don’t often decide to go crazy throwing a total bluff for half of my stack and then have to retreat to the other half of my stack. It’s not a part of my game.
PND: How has having a college degree contributed to your success?
Plens: I don’t think it has. There’s a little bit of a mathematical background to poker, but most of it is skill and getting experience in certain situations. I guess there is a little bit of a math element if someone were to learn that part of the game. I’ve looked at it a little bit and I guess college has prepared me in that respect.
I was in engineering and economics and those were learning how to tackle new abstract problems in a short amount of time. It allows me to look at a new poker situation, break it down, and find out what the best route is. Poker is a bunch of situations strung together that are pretty complicated and have imperfect information. It takes a lot of analysis and talking with your friends to get the best answer.
PND: Have your family and friends been supportive of your poker career?
Plens: As I’ve been a little bit more successful, my parents have been a little bit more supportive, but I don’t blame them for not being too keen on what I was doing in the beginning. As a child in college, you don’t expect to come out a gambler and a poker player. It’s hard to explain that to all of the neighbors when they ask what your son does for a living. My parents like the fact that I enjoy doing what I’m doing. Now that they’ve seen I’m a bit more successful, they’re obviously a bit more supportive of it.
PND: Who are some of the online poker players who have helped your poker career?
Plens: The three players that come to mind as having the most influence on my game over the past three years are Sorel Mizzi (who goes by the name Imper1um) Russell Carson (rdcrsn), and Jeffrey Hakim (YoungSupemacy). Those three guys have probably talked about situations with me the most. Sorel and Russell are both also Toronto players, so as I developed and showed more results, it was natural for good poker players in the same city to gravitate towards each other. Jeff was another player from Canada who I met at a tournament in Vienna.
Those three players each have very unique styles which all contributed to part of my game. If I break down my game, I can definitely see a lot of elements from them. They’re very good at picking spots for 3 bets. Sorel is very dangerous with a deep stack and knowing where he’s at in a hand. His reads are incredible. The main thing about Jeff’s game that impresses me is his ability to hold onto a short stack and turn it into a chip lead.
PND: What can you tell us about the live poker scene in Canada?
Plens: It’s thriving. They don’t allow any casinos within the city limits of Toronto, so what they have are a bunch of underground poker clubs and that’s where I got my start. I was playing there for a couple of years, mostly limit poker at the beginning. It was a bit more popular at the time and I was actually dealing at one of the clubs for about a year. That allowed me to see a lot of scenarios and stay in the game because I wasn’t very good in the beginning. Income to support my stay in poker was necessary at the time. From there, I branched out into online poker and got into No Limit more.
