As poker industry news informs, nowadays many people aspire to a career in professional poker. The main question is how to achieve this goal without losing all your money?
Mustapha Kanit, a professional poker player and the 2nd on the Italian All-Time Money list, has given advice for the novices in poker. Poker pro has also talked about his career, favorite poker games, and plans for the next years.
As the number two player on Italy’s All-Time Money List and a professional poker player with extensive experience, could you tell our readers what is the key to success in a poker game?
I think that to succeed as a professional poker player you need many different traits. But, for sure, resilience is very important. At the end of the day, this is the key to success.
When playing poker, you’re going to lose most of the time. This is especially true for the tournaments, where you’re going to be losing more often than winning. But when you do win, typically, you win bigger. You need to get used to being there, trading negative, and keep going. Having really good bankroll management also helps. Even the best players in the world can go from six to eight months without winning anything. I think that this is the only difference between someone that can succeed and someone who can’t. You’re going to have hard times, no matter what, and you need to be on point and keep pushing yourself. This is the reality of poker. At the same time, focusing on improvement is very important. You also don’t need to care about the winnings, especially at the beginning of your career, and keep learning. This is the key to success.
My biggest advice is to put some money that you can afford to lose and just keep playing low-risk and focus on learning. You’re not going to become the best player in the world if you just aim to make money. The real way is to start small and beat your game. Keep improving and learning and then let your bankroll will go up. And if you keep going this way, you’ll be able to play limits that you never thought would be possible.
Mustapha, what are the main peculiarities of your style of the game? What is your advice for novices in poker?
It is important to try new things. I define myself as a very aggressive player but it’s because I’ve tried so many different styles of playing. For a really long time, I was the tightest player. Then I started to take the advantage of some situations, after that I became extremely aggressive. And then I began to play more cautiously in some situations again.
The key is to keep trying. Try the line, and even if a hand was stupid or bad, you have to analyze it and think about what you could have done differently. Try to go up and keep improving. Think about why the other players made their calls and try analyzing the hands of other players.
Which tournament was the most memorable for you? Could you tell our readers about the luckiest and unluckiest games in your career?
I don’t have just one. Every win, I think, is memorable in its own way.
However, there are some places where you feel really comfortable playing. For me, it’s always been Monaco, Barcelona, and Melbourne. These are the places where I love to be at different times of the year. Barcelona is great in August, same with Monaco in May, and Melbourne is very special in January. And when you feel good you do better, in general. So, for me, it’s very important to be in places where I just feel comfortable, and then my poker is at the top as well. That’s why my most memorable tournaments are the 10k in Barcelona that I won or the 50k that I won in Monaco. I also have had many deep runs in Melbourne. I always enjoy playing there.
And for online, I think it’s important to have a good setup. For me, Vienna was great, I always played a lot from there and I loved it. The only thing I was thinking was the game. During these big serious tournaments, the competition was really hard and every day I played around 50 tables against the best in players in the world. Being able to compete at the highest levels against the best players was very special to me. It was amazing.
What’s your favorite poker game?
I still love hold’em. It’s the most popular game, which is very complex at the same time. Occasionally, I like to play PLO (Pot-Limit Omaha). But my favorite poker games are definitely during the tournaments. I like the competition, the different stages of it, the fact that you need to change strategies multiple times. The tables are always different and you need to be good at all types of poker to succeed in tournaments. You have to be skilled in the deep stack, short stack, IFM, and many other different aspects of poker. So, this is why I enjoy tournaments. And also, I feel like there is less pressure than in the cash games. In cash games, you’re trying to “kill” everyone around you, and in tournaments, the atmosphere is way nicer.
The last two years were all about online poker, but now live tournaments are coming back as well. What do you prefer more: online or live poker?
For me, it’s the balance of both live and online. Sometimes I really like live poker, and when I’m burnt out or have many troubles I like to go back home and put in the work online. I think that online poker is very important when you want to improve your game. Because online you learn much quicker than when you’re playing live: you play more tables, you have more chances to analyze and improve your game. However, I would say that for playing I enjoy the live poker rooms a bit more. A big dip run online is also something that I love. To be honest, I would say it’s equal. Then, of course, if you’re deep in the main event tour series there’s not much that can beat it because it’s the best.
It is known that you prefer high-roller poker tournaments. What is the reason for that?
The thing is that I’ve started from the low stakes (around $10), with no Internet connection, playing just by myself when I was 16. And I was able to reach the highest tournaments in the world by myself, without backers and anything, by working hard, trying hard, and just keeping going and trying. That is why when I was ready to play high stakes, I felt really comfortable about it. And I did well because I felt that my skill set was good enough to play in those tournaments and to beat my opponents. I was very comfortable playing with any size of buy-ins because I felt like I was one of the best in the field and that helped me a lot.
I was going through difficult times and I was constantly improving my game. And then, at one point, I just felt that I had a good edge in any tournament. I didn’t always do good, I had really big downs, but when I reached the top, I was very comfortable playing high stakes. I also tried to keep good bankroll management at a good risk level, which helped me to perform well in the tournaments as well.
You also always play against the same players and you can have bigger reads and notes on some people. For example, we’ve played together every day for years with Adrian Mateos. The information we have on each other is way different. And you’re also competing against the best, which is very special in any sport.
I like main events too. In my opinion, winning the main event is great. You play for several days and the return on money is good. Winning the main event is truly unique.
What is your ambition for the upcoming years? Are you planning on winning the WSOP bracelet?
To be honest, I never was very interested in winning the WSOP bracelet. But as this year they’re doing the tournament at a different time of the year when it’s less hot, I feel good about going to Vegas for a few months, putting the work there, and maybe bringing the bracelet home.
It’s been a while since the WSOP events were held in Italy, and they’ve never happened in Morocco. So, it definitely will be fun. I missed many big events in Vegas because I was always tired after playing poker for three months in other live tournaments (like in Monaco) or after big competitions online. When I was 21-23-years old I actually went to Vegas for 2 and a half months. But in the end, I never was focused enough during the main event because the weather was too hot. And as the main event was what I’ve cared for the most, I wanted to be at the main WSOP event at my top. So, I couldn’t stay in Vegas for too long.
Now, as the WSOP tournament isn’t held during the summer and the weather is way better, I’m excited to go to Vegas and spend two months there. And hopefully, I will bring the WSOP bracelet home.
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