The countdown to the 2025 WSOP is on. 100 bracelets. All the poker players. And PokerOrg will be on the floor from start to finish.
Alex Foxen has been among the most feared crushers across the poker world for the last few years, excelling in both no-limit hold 'em and pot-limit Omaha events.
Alex is also one of the founders of the innovative training company, Chip Leader Coaching. Check out part one of this interview.
'Experience is more important than anything'
Chance Kornuth, your partner at Chip Leader Coaching, once told me you’re not afraid of looking silly at the poker table if you make a wrong decision.
I would say that's probably the number one differentiator that I see in myself. I am comfortable being unsure about my decisions because I have solid reasoning behind them.
If my assumptions are correct, it's the best play. I’ll never know for sure if those assumptions are right, and that’s okay. I trust the process of doing that repeatedly, and I know that sometimes I'll be drastically wrong. But I think, on average, I'll be outperforming whatever baseline theory you could follow.
That approach is directly connected to working on my mindset, being at peace with the nature of reality in poker, and not getting too philosophical about it.
What are some tips you would offer to players who are just beginning to dip their toes into PLO?
It would probably be the same advice I would give everyone on any game. It’s about doing the work away from the table. That’s very valuable.
You need to have some basic ballpark understanding of what hand wins on average because that is obviously the most significant shift from NLH to PLO. The threshold for value hands and what hands are most often to be good changes drastically when you double the number of cards.
But really, experience is more important than anything. Just play.
Can you learn from watching PLO streams?
I always tell people that watching final-table streams can be very misleading in PLO, specifically because ICM is so much more important in PLO.
You’ll see in the streams these unrealistic ranges that won't be helpful for anything other than specifically at a final table.
And with the nuance of ICM, final tables can be even more misleading. A player’s certain range might be specifically tight or loose because of a player type or responses; many factors can lead to drastic shifts in ranges.
I would probably advise against watching final tables. If you can find a way to access a day one of a PLO tournament or a cash game stream, those will be good learning tools to improve your PLO game.
'It's not fair to have one person on stream for 90 hours'
Kristen has had an amazing few years on the tournament circuit. You have to be immensely proud of her.
Yeah, definitely. She spent much of her career playing cash games and was late to playing tournaments, especially the higher stakes.
I'm definitely happy to see her perform at the level that I think she’s always been capable of. But we’re always evolving, right? That's the focus for both of us: to be constantly improving. If you're not better than a month ago, the last month has been bad. That’s kind of the way I like to see it.
And I think we both have a similar mindset of always looking for that extra edge and ways to improve physically, psychologically, emotionally, or even technically from a poker perspective. All of those things adding up over time make a big difference.
In part one of our interview, we talked about Hellmuth’s take on the Main Event being so long and brutal.
It’s true. We should all want to be healthy. There’s no need to sacrifice your health to play the WSOP Main. Perhaps the Main Event could add a day and take an hour or two off each day. I don't think anyone would be mad to play an extra day.
Can you expand on that experience as you watched Kristen deal with the long hours and days during her epic run last year?
There was some incongruity with the streaming schedule when Krissy went deep last year. She played on a live stream all of day one, then not on day two. I think she played most of day three, then all of days four, five, six, seven, and eight.
She played something like 90 hours on a live stream in one tournament. Anyone who's played on a live stream recognizes that there's something about it, and I don't know if it's just the lights or what. That’s why she was wearing the blue blocker glasses for much of that. The lights exhaust you.
By the end of the day, I can only imagine the players on stream are very exhausted.
I understand people wanted to see Krissy play, but I think there needs to be some limitation on that. It's not fair to have one person on stream for 90 hours when other people barely play on it at all.
If everyone's on stream, that's one thing. If it's actually random, that's another thing. I fully expect Krissy, myself, and other well-known regulars to be on stream more than a random person. But perhaps there is some way of limiting this.
But back to the original point, I think we can probably shorten hours a little bit. I think this is where some of the operators are greedy. They don't want to run an extra day because of the cost. I don't think that adding an extra day will suddenly make the Main Event not a profitable venture for them.
As someone who understands the free market, I know that the WSOP is not obliged to do that. But I do think it might serve them better by making everyone able to play more.
How so?
This summer, I will play less volume at the lower stakes. That's mostly because the days are so long that I need to prioritize my energy. It would be cool if that weren't necessary or less necessary.
You can follow Alex on X and Instagram. Follow Chip Leader Coaching on X.
Feature image cortesy of WPT.
