Run It Once offers many benefits to its Elite membership subscribers – from coaches of the highest caliber to a library of over 8,000 videos, there are numerous reasons to join the RIO community.
Additionally, with the revamp of the RIO Discord server and accompanying Q&A sessions, it's safe to say that RIO provides an unparalleled level of access to some of the sharpest minds in poker.
Earlier this year, Justin Bonomo fielded questions from Elite members, offering insights on his study habits, dealing with nerves at the table, and his long term goals in poker. Now, Sam Greenwood has taken up the mantle, taking questions on everything from his climb through the ranks of the all-time money list, how he evaluates destination poker trips, to his opinion on the two best and not-so-best players in the high roller scene.
Since July of 2020, you have gone from $22 million in live tournament earnings to $34 million today, well inside the top 20. What are some of the most unique scores in that time period and how do you feel about the progression of your game over the last few years? And, as an addendum to that question, do you think your game has significantly changed in that period of time? Or, do you think that tournaments themselves were the bigger driver of that explosion?
Sam Greenwood: I think now what you're seeing with the all-time money list – even if you look at Bryn [Kenney] or [Justin] Bonomo – whoever does the best in the highest buy-ins will make up a lot of ground.
I did well in the PCA $250k, which field-wise and structure-wise is basically the same as a $100k. I cashed it for $3.25 million, but if that's a 100k, I'm only cashing for $1.1 million. So, in terms of climbing the leaderboard, a lot of it had to do with being fortunate that my biggest cashes were in the highest stakes tournaments.
You're at a point in your game, and presumably your network, where you are unlikely to grind the average lower stakes tournament. How much of a factor is the destination for you nowadays, when deciding what you're playing?
SG: There's the destination in terms of where you would want to go for vacation and there's the destination in terms of what's a good poker stop. For the latter, it's things like the quality of the hotel. Are there direct flights? Is the poker room nice? Are there good late night food options? Those sorts of things.
I just played EPT Paris and Paris is a wonderful city, but I left the hotel four times over a two-week period. Hotel, casino, hotel, casino. When I was single, I might have tacked on a couple days of vacation. Now, my wife has a job where she doesn't travel and I don't want to leave for extended periods of time. Basically, I'm in and out as quickly as possible.
Do you fancy yourself a games player? That includes video games, board games, chess, anything of that nature.
SG: I've joked about how excited I am to have a kid because once they turn six or whatever I can start playing video games again. If I could have a kid that just wants to play FIFA with me I could say to my wife, 'Hey, quality time with the kid.'
Back in the day, I roomed with Justin Bonomo at PCA. We played a full day of a super high roller and came back to the room, and he was playing Hearthstone. That was the craziest thing to me. I want to unwind doing something that is totally unrelated to poker. I liked gaming when I didn't play poker, I gamed a lot more. It filled this competitive thing, it was stressful and intense at times. Now, when I have some kind of leisure time, I don't want to game.
I've always enjoyed going to movies or concerts, something like that because I can put my phone away and focus on the thing in front of me.
What does it take, specifically in 2024, for someone aspiring to play the Triton events consistently? What are the top pros doing that us average Joes are missing?
SG: Two of the hardest things are consistently executing and executing well. One of the beauties of poker is that anyone can outplay you in a given hand. And I don't mean his ace-king beats your queens, I mean like successfully got one over on you, got a bluff through, got you do something a little different than normal.
I tweeted something to this effect, but when Barny Boatman won EPT Paris and Jean-Noel Thorel came second in the Main Event at Triton Jeju, both of them played a variety of hands where pros took a weird deviation and it ended up costing them quite a bit. Limitless [Wiktor Malinowski] didn't four-bet shove queens against Jean-Noel for some reason and Jean-Noel had jacks and ended up bluffing him post-flop.
I think the top pros execute consistently and they execute well. Specifically, they execute when they're losing, when it's day fifteen of a trip and they're tired.
You recently had a joint video series with Patrick Leonard - the third part is going to be released soon. Do you want to talk a little about working with him?
SG: I had a lot of fun doing it. In terms of the process, we played the final table and then reviewed the final table, there wasn't much beyond that.
For final tables, everyone plays them differently. Everyone has different attitudes, different insights. I always think it's interesting to pick somebody's brain and listen to what they have to say about a final table like that. Even if they don't change your mind about what you think the correct play might be in the circumstances. It'll give you some perspective that can inform your game.
There was a game in college that I used to do at a gathering and the idea is you write down your least favorite person in the room and your favorite person in the room and you don't specify which is which. Then you publicly tally the votes on a secret ballot. Can you come up with two of the top players and two of the, call it worse, but that's not really an apt description, just not-so-good players. And not specify which is which.
SG: I'll also add one more caveat here. The idea I'm doing is say there's a million dollar tournament, these are players who would play that tournament. I don't want to name a reg that occasionally plays a $100k.
So, it's Artur Martirosian, Christoph Vogelsang, Juan Pardo, and Michael Addamo.
If you're interested in hearing more from Sam Greenwood, the entire conversation is available to Run It Once Elite members.
Additional benefits from Elite membership include access to the revamped Run It Once Discord, instruction from some of the best coaching minds in the industry, and the Run It Once video library with captions available in eight languages.
