Iron claims to be the most productive player of the BPC Community. The 37-year-old grinder, originally from Austria, currently lives in Germany with his wife and son. He has a full-time acting job, takes care of his family, is coaching a student and still manages to play more hands than any other 6max CFP student. A remarkable performance. Time to find out how he does this all.
Hi Iron, you told me you were trying to play poker professionally for 2 years. Tell me about your time before CFP. Where did it start?
Yes, that’s true; I have been trying to become a professional player for the past two years. I did this in my free time, besides my job, and I took it pretty seriously. I had an average monthly poker income of around 2k before joining CFP. The problem for me was the insecurity, I didn’t really know if I could keep this up long-term. I didn’t want to be dependent on the months I run well; I just wanted to know I am good enough to make a living out of this.
That’s why I joined the Coaching For Profits. Gordon is very professional and he can teach me how to make a good living out of poker, after all, it’s a risky career to choose. That’s also why I kept my job during the first 8 months of the program.
CFP cost you at least 60 hours a week and you also have a job? How do you manage that?
Yes, it was tough. I still go to work for 40 hours a week, but next month I’m going to quit my job. Finally! The job was a big problem actually. It was the main reason why it took me so long to improve my game.
I work 7 days a week and only took 3 days off since the start of CFP. I think I’m the hardest working person in the BPC community. I mean I have a full-time job, a family and still I manage to play the most hands of all the 6 max guys in our group.
The downside of the situation is that I don’t sleep much. If you play tired, it’s like playing when you are drunk. You are not that focused on the tables, so now I always stop when I get tired and take a quick break and start again, it works out pretty well.
I mean I also have a family and could only spend maximum 1 hour per day with them.
That’s pretty sick indeed. Your family must be very supportive. How do they deal with your choice to be a poker professional?
I live with my wife and my 3-year-old son. The problem is we have only a 2 room apartment and my son needs a lot of attention, so it isn’t always easy. I mean I sacrificed time with them during these months, but now I am quitting my job, so it was worth it. Half of those 40 hours I will spend with my family and during the other half, I can focus even more on my poker game. So I’m looking forward to the next months, it will all be better. We are also going to move back to Austria, as we are living in Germany because of my acting job.
You have a wife and a son; isn’t it a big risk for you to choose a career in poker?
Yes, this is definitely a big risk. Before I started my career in poker, I already had a professional acting career. Acting and poker are both a bit of a risky career to choose. With acting sometimes I didn’t know I would have a job/income sometimes, so I was already used to this way of life. I had to invest a lot of time in my poker career and lately, things are going great, so it’s not that risky anymore. Now I earn more with poker than with my acting.
Does this mean you stepped up your game? In your blog, I see you struggled a lot the first months. What are your results after 8 months of Coaching For Profits?
In the first month of the program, I had an upswing using mainly because of my old playing style. Because of the changes, I had to make I struggled a lot in the beginning. I had a few break-even months and even 2 losing months, so it wasn’t always a happy grind. But overall I improved a lot. I’m in the program now for 8 months. Last month I had an 8,7k month and this month it’s going to be around the same number unless something crazy happens.
So you improved a lot and I see you are a BPC coach now. How many students do you coach and why did you choose to do this?
Yes since I’m a winning player on 200NL I coach 1 student now. It’s Nuno, he plays 25NL at the moment. I plan to stay a coach for BPC, it fits into my future plans. I think I’m a good coach and I see the improvement of Nuno too. I helped him with several leaks. I’m happy I only have 1 student at the moment because I also need to develop my coaching skills further. My student also has a full-time job, so we understand each other, he deals with the same problems I had. So I know where to look at.
I enjoy coaching a lot and it improves my game too. It’s a bit of extra money, but I earn more with playing myself at the moment. It’s a good distraction between my sessions and I just like to help out other people, talk with someone about poker. So I enjoy it a lot overall.
With a background in acting, do you also play real live poker? You must have a good poker face.
Well what I enjoy about live poker is the interaction with people, so I did play some sit & go’s in the past in the casino, but it’s also a very slow game so I prefer online poker. That’s also what I like about CFP we have a great supporting community. We can help each other out, we can sweat each other and see how we develop.
We all have the same goal, we all want to become a good player and want to finish the program, go through the same struggles. I hope if we finish the program our group of players stay close and will continue to support each other.
Are we going to meet in Croatia?
Yes definitely! I will be there and we are going to have a great time. I will finally meet the people I work with, that’s the main reason. Also, Gordon is planning to expand the program and I want to join this as well. I plan to become a better coach and want to have a more active role within BPC in the coming years.
The meeting in Croatia will be business mainly; I hope I will find out how I can reach my goals in poker faster. I mean, I’m shooting at NL400 at the moment and I’m not planning to stay here. I want to move up again and after I beat 400NL I want to beat 1000NL. The meeting is a good place for this to find out.
I’m not going to be involved in any challenges (referring to Imachampion), maybe I’m too old for that, I mean with my 37 years I’m the daddy of the 6max group. I just want to finish CFP as soon as possible, improve my poker and my coaching skill, the rest is not so important for me.
