About You

1. What is your name, age and where are you located? What is your personal twitter account?

Zachary Freeman, 35, Los Angeles CA. @ZachPoker

2. What are Your online poker Screen names?

zachucsb

3. How would you define yourself as a poker player? / What poker games do you normally play? Are you learning any new games?

I’m not amazing or close to the best at any aspect of poker but I am very good at most aspects. I guess that means I’d say I’m well rounded. I have good fundamentals, and strong theory understanding in a variety of games. I have good discipline, tilt control, and bankroll management. My strongest aspect would probably be understanding the psychology of people at the table and my deductive reasoning skills. That got me by when my fundamentals and poker theory weren’t as strong.

4. What do you most enjoy about your job?

I enjoy the poker! I enjoy learning poker, talking poker and playing poker. I quit a career as a Aerospace Engineer because I was much happier playing poker. Surely, secondarily I also like that I only need to play 3x week or so, and I enjoy the relationships I’ve made with people of similar interests.

5. Who are the top 3 players in your main game from your home country in your personal opinion?

There are players that I admire aspects of their games but I can’t think of anyone in the games I play that I consider to have the full package. That is mostly a reflection of the quality of games I play in more than my ability to give praise. I admire my friend Matt’s non emotional and consistently tight and solid play. I admire Corp Mike’s good card sense and extreme self confidence and lack of inhibition to make plays. I admire Bryce Yockey’s love for poker, and his understanding of many games. I admire Abe aka Limon for his off the felt poker smartness. He is extraordinarily smart as a gambler. He just doesn’t take the worst of any bet ever while still never coming off as a nit. I have learned a lot from him and whatever I have won off him in poker I have probably given more back in golf. I especially admire those who are really high intensity players. The ones that are always putting you in difficult spots. Those guys at the end of the day don’t win the most because it’s a rare trait to have ability for full throttle aggression while also having appropriate discretion. My goal is to always makes as many plays as i can without overdoing it. I usually wish I went for it a little more.

6. What reg in your game do you respect most? Can you briefly describe why?

I respect and envy aspects of many players, but there isn’t one reg that I would swap my game for his.

7. Besides yourself who do you think the most underrated poker player is?

Michael Basic. He is underrated unless you ask him to rate himself! Well it’s just that he is an anomaly. He is an elite poekr player that only plays small stakes $5/$5 Live NLHE. He could and has beat stakes much higher but he just prefers to play small. It seems illogical but he just loves that game and doesn’t rely heavily on the money he earns from poker. Those who know him know he is great. He so rarely plays tournaments and doesn’t even have a cash on Hendon Mob. He loves the banter with recreational players, he loves the opportunity to exploit players beyond what is normally possible. His game and mind are perfectly built to produce a winrate over a very large sample in that game that you would think impossible. He combines a theory understanding on par with high stakes online winners with a photographic memory and insane hand recall. You know when you tell your friends hands and they usually don’t really listen that well? Well often I will tell Mike a hand, I played from years ago and as long as I told him the hand in the past, even years prior, or if he was at the table he will correct me on the suits of the flop or the turn bet sizing. It’s insane. That all combines to produce a win rate of considerably over $100/hr in a capped slow live $5/$5 game. To put that in online terms its the equivalent of 80BB/100 hands over a large sample.

Past

1. Why and when did you start playing poker? Do you still play for the same reasons?

I moved to Redondo Beach for an engineering internship. I didn’t know many people down here so after work I would play $1/$2NLHE at Hustler Casino. I still have all my notes and records from that time and built up my poker roll at those stakes. I loved the fact that I could win or lose just based on how well I out performed my opponents in a battle of logic, discipline, psychology and knowledge. I still play for the very same reasons.

2. What were the best and worst months of your poker career? What happened?

I have had several bad swings just as any pro does. 2013 I believe, 6 months into the year I was dead even, my son was 6 months old, and I had a mortgage payment that was too large. My increased expenses made my downswing very stressful. Fortunately, I had a very strong next few months and I was finally successful in refinancing my mortgage which dropped my expenses a lot.

The best months would be when I was approached by an aquatance that I played 5/5NL and 5/10NL with at Hustler Casino. He told me he was partnering in a private game of 50/100NL and 25/50PLO. He offered to put me in 100% 50/50 split no makeup! I was naive and inexperienced to the scene.

I ran very well right away. I soon learned that my backer was unstable (manic) and was blowing money in many other ways and staking many other worse palyeres with equally bad deals for him. I told him to stop staking so many people and I told him to charge me makeup. I wanted the situation to last. It was too late, he was in over his head. Before my last session under him he told me, “Zach you always get me out of a jam and I am in a jam, Go get em!” Well, First orbit I play a 4bet pot with AAxx and I am drawing to 1 out when I get allin on a AKK flop. Later that night I found out my backer borowed my buyin at 5%/week from a loan shark. It was all downhill from there for him. That all said those few months allowed me to put together enough money for a downpayment on my house and introduced me to the scene of high stakes poker.

3. Are you satisfied with your 2015 poker year?

Yes. very much so. My results have been medium good but moreso I think I am in a great place in regards to game access/selection. I also have made some really good relationships and connections in the poker world.

4. How did Black Friday impact you? How did you adapt after Black Friday?

Black Friday did not affect me too badly. I was grinding 30% online 70% live at the time. I was in the midst of learning all the mixed games and perhaps was starting to be profitable at them. Then black Friday hit but it might have been a good thing because my son was 4mo. old and I played terribly any time he was crying in the background. Black Friday may have saved me money!

5. What was the biggest factor in your development as a player?

I started with books and read a lot of them. I then did a lot of posting and reading on 2p2 which helped a ton. I subsribed to Cardrunners which helped me learn better fundamentals. Just repeatedly watching Taylor Caby or Brian Townsend fold hands that I was playing helped a lot. Then I dove into Bluefire and watched pretty much only Phil’s videos and Giggy’s. Those were great. I have learned more from Phil Galfond on how to play PLO and how to think in poker than anybody else. I currently watch his and a few others’ videos on Run it Once but I have a hard time finding time with a family of 4 and my obligations of making my own videos. That said I think its important to never be complacent or satisified in a field. We don’t want to become Blockbuster and not see Netflix coming.

6. What was the biggest mistake(s) you have done as a poker player?

Loaning money! Just dont do it to anybody who actually needs it.

Not quiting a poker game when my intuition and clues told me that I was getting cheated. I kept playing until it was abundantly clear it was happening but I was just too inexperienced and naive to realize earlier.

7. What’s your biggest prop bet?

In a private game I played a prob bet where if a 2,3,or 4 comes on the flop I win; otherwise he wins. I had a big edge and ran hot and won a high 5 figure amount. In reflection this may have been the bait. Because the game paid me in cash that night which is non standard. That guaranteed I would be coming back for more. This ended up being the game that cheated me later on.
I also made a large bet on Obama winning the presidential election. My wife trusts my poker and gambling judgment. When I her I made the bet on Obama she said, “What! Why would you make a bet on Obama, you don’t know anything about politics” She was unhappy. I replied, “Correct, I know almost nothing about politics but Abe (Limon) does and more importantly he is betting a lot more than me and he doesn’t make bad bets ever”.

Present

1. How do you prepare for your poker activities?

I study in my off time to always get better. But in pure preparation for a session, sleep is the one best thing I can do to prepare. Being rested is huge for me.

2. If you could pick the brain of anyone in the world for 3 hours, who would he/she be?

I don’t know! I like these hypothetical fantasy questions but this one has never intrigued me. There are plenty of people I would be interested to talk with but none I am dying to.

3. What 3 poker pros should PokerStars sign to their team online roster?

No clue. I play mostly live, I am in the US and I am old. aka I am out of touch

4. What is your favorite way to relieve stress when running bad?

When I come home from a stressful poker session I smell my sleeping kids and my wife and it just cuts right through it all.

5. How much volume are you playing on Eurosites?

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6. Why are you not playing mid/high stakes already? If you are, what are the 3 most important things that got you there?

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7. What is the most important positive change you’ve made to your poker approach this year?

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Future

1. What are your poker and other goals for the next 12 months?

Stay in access to good and big games and to play my best. Nothing surprising.

2. Are you confident that you will meet those goals? Why?

I am confident that I will do what it takes to give me a good chance. There is too much uncertainty in the results of poker to be confident something will happen.

3. Do you see yourself still playing poker in 10 years?

Yes. That said my long term goal is to rely on poker for income less and less each year. I want to continue to add to my investments to provide non poker income long term.

4. Do you have any ambition to coach/teach other players?

I like coaching but its time consuming and if I charge enough to make it worthwhile, the price is usually to high for the student.

5. What’s the poker dream for you?

Dream. Well as lame as it sounds. Winning the F*&^# Main Event. Actually I would be totally happy placing 3rd or something. My dream would be to make life changing money. I could happily retire tomorrow playing poker as I felt like it and just do hobbies and hang with family and friends.

6. How do you see the poker landscape changing in the next five years?

I am not sure. I hope its gotten close to as bad as it will get. Its still quite good in some ways but its a lot worse than it was. To keep good winrates you have to just become really good.

7. How much time are you putting into studying financial issues like investing. What are your preferred sources for this? What investments are you making with your poker winnings?

When I have money to invest I spend a lot of time. I mostly study real estate and I took about 3 months off of poker when I was purchasing an investment property.

Other

1. Do you have any regular non-poker hobbies? Whats your favorite way to spend your spare time?

I took up golf 2 years ago and I am hooked. I play and practice a lot. I still suck, but am getting better. My first goal was to break 100, then 90, and now my goal is to consistently shoot in the 80s. I play with poker friends every week in the AM and it is just the nuts when you add in gambling. I used to play a lot of basketball and it sounds cliche’ but it feels like a little piece of me died now that I don’t play regularly. It has been my passion for most of my life. My free time is in the late mornings and normal people aren’t around then and poker players arent big into bball.

2. If you could give you from five years ago (make it ten if over 30) one major piece of advice, what would it be?

Nothing really. I made plenty of mistakes and I will continue to but none were so devastating that the pain out weighed the lesson. I like making mistakes and learning from them. I just like the process of bettering myself.

3. What are the 3 things everyone should have on their bucket list?

Have fun and feel accomplished or successful at something.
Be nice and have intimacy in your life both platonic and romantic.
Those aren’t really bucket list items but bucket list activities are just so person specific. The ones I listed are what I find most important in life.

4. Do you follow any poker podcasts or poker players on Twitch?

No.

5. If you could change one thing with online poker, what would that be? What if you could change one thing with live poker?

I would just change how much dead money is in there. I would increase it.

6. What is the best place and the best restaurant your have ever visited?

Driving through the little towns of Tuscany with my wife was one of my best vacations. We went to some amazing restaurants there. One in Florence we will always remember.

7. Who do you challenge to do the Poker Player Snapshot next and why?

I would like to see the poker player snapshot from a losing player. I would like to see how they view things. It would be informative and refreshing to hear a different perspective. It would also be hard to implement.