It’s late Sunday night. Instead of dreading an upcoming workday, or preparing my loins for the required industrial output of the week, I’m watching a Russian kid who goes by the name of innerpsycho play two simultaneous $2.50/$5 tables on (Pokerstars) Zoom with about a $900 stake. He also happens to be playing on the final table of a $44NLHE 6-max tournament (same platform) and a $50 6-plus Hold’em game, a variant of traditional Texas Hold’em that plays with a 36 card deck. And, he’s listening to Mozart’s the Magic flute, to boot. I dare say, he couldn’t be more quintessentially Russian if there were trails of borscht dripping from the edges of his Twitch profile.
I don’t speak Russian. I don’t understand his running commentary as he interacts with his viewing audience (over 1,800 concurrent). I don’t understand the chat screen. I don’t understand his Twitch profile — and when I run segments of it through Google translate, I get the following:
Hand2Note – XAD used by me, much more convenient and faster than HM2 and PT4. 10% discount on the first purchase on promo code H2N10AZ when clicking on the link StarsHelper is an indispensable tool when playing at PokerStars, hotkeys, transferring stacks to BB and other useful functions. PokerPopUp – professional X-Dads and PopUp for all programs. Discount link 5% GTO Trainer – GTO – coach for working out skills of a balanced game – Discount on the link 10%
Presumably these are his endorsements for third-party analysis tools and logging/streaming software. Perhaps he’s also being endorsed by these groups. I don’t know.
What I can tell you, based on his play, is that he plays a cerebral and tight-aggressive style, occasionally gambling on coin-flip hands (A-K offsuit or a low pocket pair). But he’s highly competent, plays more aggressively when he’s behind the button (as is common amongst high-end players) and, and seems reasonably level headed — so much so that he opts in to PokerStars’ “Run It Twice” option, a feature that allows you to see two separately dealt boards on coin-flip hands, with Pokerstars awarding each board’s winner half the pot. It’s a form of insurance against bad beats.
Two hours into my viewing of his play, he snaps into English in response to a chat question. It was not unlike that moment in The Hunt for Red October:
He snaps back to Russian, and casually rakes in a $700 pot with 87 of hearts, having hit top pair on a low flop, and his opponent calling down with two unpaired overcards. He wins both “Run it Twice” draws and takes the full pot. He then, casually mentions, in English that his current take for the day is around $10.5K.
I stumbled upon this channel because it was hosted (syndicated) by Lex Velheduis, a Dutch former Starcraft streamer with over 95,000 followers, who has turned to poker to really open the valve on his real-world uptake of Vespene gas — that is, to dispatch with the pretense of playing tournaments and Starcraft ladder games for prize money and instead just extract it directly from other, lesser poker sharks.
This phenomenon of playing non-video games on Twitch is growing rapidly, with the $4 billion streaming service inhaling other programming channels in leaps and bounds.
As an old school, semi-pro Pokerstars player (before the 2011 US FBI crackdown), watching someone grind through four hours of multi-table white-knuckle poker makes for riveting TV. It’s not dissimilar from watching a chess master play on 8 simultaneous tables, turning the screws on multiple opponents at once. Both poker and chess require a grit and steadfastness that is second nature to marathon gamers of many stripes.
Or, as remembered by Captain Marko Ramius of the Red October:
The hard part about playing chicken is knowin’ when to flinch.
In other words, what was once a medium only able to sustain scare games and Call of Duty is now supporting the polar opposite — an incremental, probability-laden patience game. It indicates to us that not only has Twitch not yet reached its final form, but that there are few limits as to what can make compelling television.
Are there other nouveau poker prodigies you want covered on YTR? Or other unusual Twitch streams that you think are worth a look? Contact us at drlaserfalcon@youtuberreview.com.
