The Betfair Poker Interview – Paul Foltyn
Paul Foltyn is one of the best tournament players on the planet, currently ranked third in the UK and 19th in the world for online tournament play, and he has kindly taken some time from his busy schedule to answer some questions from our readers.
You’re known as a variety of names online from LEADBOOTS to Paolo and Pab, with most people refering to you as Pab. Where do these names stem from?
My nickname for a longtime now had been Pab and that is what most people call me, except my parents who still go with Paul. It came about through Sunday League football when I was younger but don’t really recall how but it has stuck for well over 10 years now.. As far as the online name LEADBOOTS goes, I’m not sure how that came about either but is definitely my favourite screename I play under.
How did you get into poker?
I got into poker at the time of the Late Night Poker boom in the UK. After watching on TV I was instantly hooked along with several friends and we began playing small home games on a regular basis. I then discovered online poker and was playing freerolls at every opportunity to try and win some real money to play with. I was reading books, playing a ton and gradually started winning small tournaments etc using the profit from freerolls for the initial buy ins.
While studying at university I was still playing a lot of poker, mainly online and qualified for my first big live tournament in 2005 which was the Irish Open. I continued to play mainly online while studying and was pretty successful right until the time I completed university and went backpacking around the world for six months.
During this time I didn’t play any poker and returned home after that fully intent on utilising my degree and embarking on some sort of career. I had some time at home over Christmas and payed online a little bit and was lucky enough to get a few wins including a big tournament for $10,000.
After that I never looked back and started playing all the time with a great amount of success and then in my first visit to vegas for the WSOP in 2006 I final tabled a $5k buy in event and after that I relaised this is what I was going to be doing for some time.
You have over $1,000,000 profit from MTTs over just two of the major sites, with a largest score of $93,250 at the start of this year, have you splashed out on any “balla” purchases or have you been quite sensible with it?
Not really made any kind of ‘balla’ purchases tbh, I’m pretty much a life nit. I am not backed and the high stakes tournament schedule online these days is very expensive so I am always wary of over extending and then getting caught short during/after a downswing.
During November you pledged a percentage of your winnings to Children In Need and ended up sending £1525. Was there any particular reason for the charitable donation? Do you plan on helping other charities with your poker winnings?
The charity thing was a spur of the moment thing I did for the WCOOP period in September of last year. I had no idea why I did it but the amount I donated was dependant on how well i did over the period and in the end I did amazingly well and donated around $6,500 I believe to several charities. It felt really good to give something back and also received a lot of positive feedback on my blog so decided to do it again for the FTOPS in November. I didn’t really win a lot this time so the amount donated was a lot lower but better than nothing I guess.
I have heard you have something fun happening on your blog very soon that coincides with the FTOPS, care to divulge any information?
Following on from the charity donations mentioned above I am going to be doing another one in conjuction with moorman for the FTOPS period starting tomorrow. I am living in a house in Melbourne at the moment with a few other poker players including moorman and we will all be grinding hard over the ftops period. Moorman backs quite a lot of high stakes online players now so I proposed an idea to him and he was keen to get involved. Over the entire FTOPS period If i knock one of Moorman’s horses out of a tournament he has to donate $500 to charity and if one of his horses knocks me out of a tournament I have to donate $500. Once the FTOPS is over we plan to donate the money to the money to the American Red Cross in order to help the people of Haiti!
You’ve been making the transition from online to live and won your first tournament (The £3k GUKPT Main Event for £167,505) relatively early into your live career. It looked like a tough FT as it had the likes of Richard Ashby, Stuart Rutter and Surinder Sunar at it yet the Doncaster lad came out on top! What did it feel like to win your first live event? Was it comparable to winning an online event?
Winning the GUKPT still is the highlight of my poker career imo. I had made a big live final a few years before but I was really nervous and not that good of a player and wasted a glorious opportunity. I had been dying to get back to another big live final and put the record straight and was such a relief to be able to do so. The final was stacked with good players but I think I still had more final table experience than anyone else there due the high volume I play online. I was very aware of changing stack sizes and dynamics than others and my experience from a few years ago meant I was fully relaxed and focused this time and able to play my best poker. As in any tournament I got lucky at the right times and was able to take it down.
Coach me?
Not sure I have the patience to be a good teacher tbh…..
So there you have it, a little insight into one of the world’s best poker players. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question Paul and the very best of luck for the rest of 2010.
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