Thoughts on My Challenge vs Bill Perkins

I talk about how the challenge started,

In all honesty, I did not realize what I was signing myself up for.

For some reason, probably due from the completion of Doug and Daniel’s match and doing commentary with Joey Ingram, I was pretty wrapped up in Heads Up No Limit (HUNL) and wanted to step in the ring. I saw an opportunity in where Bill Perkins wanted to play HUNL, but I knew that the likelihood would be near zero that he would accept a straight up match. So in order to overcome that obstacle, I thought laying a bb/100 spot as a handicap would better my chances of getting a match started. Unfortunately for me, I was unaware of chirpings of Bill asking if Doug will give him 9.75bb/100 to play him, and agreed to a 9bb/100 spot with Bill.

Let’s be perfectly honest here. I was not a HUNL player at all before this challenge started. I was a 6-max player who’s played some pretty high stakes in that format, and also played MTTs online. So I’m nowhere near Doug’s level of prowess in HUNL, and Bill wanted 9.75bb/100 from him. So getting 9 from me was an absolute steal on his end, and I probably could have worked pretty hard to get to 5-6bb/100 from him if I put my foot down a little bit. Round 1, negotiating, goes to Mr. Perkins.

If I remember correctly, we started soft negotiations around this in February, almost immediately when the previous challenge (Polk vs. Negreanu) ended. They were playing 200/400 at the time, so it only seemed appropriate to offer the challenge at the same stakes. For anyone unfamiliar, 200/400 100bb max is going to be a buy-in of $40k, where chips don’t get taken off the table. I’m sure to play multiple 100k+ pots throughout this challenge, where I’ll inevitably win some and definitely lose some (hopefully I win more than I lose, of course).

I didn’t have funding for this endeavor at the start, either. Of course I personally don’t have a few million to pay for the buy-ins + spot + side bet if I got absolutely crushed throughout the challenge. I was more working off of a shot in the dark that I know people (either directly or through my network) who’d want to take action in this. Through knowing Bill’s prolific history in the “poker-sphere” as someone who enjoys playing poker strictly for the fun of the game, but wasn’t a professional and wasn’t spending time and energy keeping up with the latest software that pros use to improve and study. Additionally, even if he had the access to solvers and other things necessary to improve his game, his work ethic would be questioned on, “How hard will he actually try, considering he’s getting paid $720k to play 20,000 hands of poker?”

As of recently due to the challenge looming, these questions and more have been swirling in my mind of how hard is he working, and how good will he be? And honestly, sure, that’s important, but it’s not in my control. What is in my control is who I work with and how much effort I personally put in. While the challenge starts in roughly 10 days, I can confidently say that I’m thrilled with the people who’ve taken my side in this and have worked with me tirelessly to help me get to a point where I’m playing some extremely solid HUNL. I’m excited to get in the ring and partake in this challenge.

Win, lose, or draw (which is actually theoretically possible), I’m in a position where I’m able to partake in a massive challenge that’s going to be looked into pretty intensively in the poker community (not much interesting stuff happens here, so when it does the people are waiting). Yes, this challenge is a significant undertaking, but it doesn’t define me, my career, or anything regarding it. It’s a moment in time where I wanted to improve in a format and at the end of the day laid a massive spot. Let’s briefly go through the scenarios of how my life changes through each of the three scenarios:

If I win, my life goes on, I continue to play poker at a high level, and study/learn with my friends as much as I can.

If I lose, my life goes on, I continue to play poker at a high level, and study/learn with my friends as much as I can.

If I draw, my life goes on, I continue to play poker at a high level, and study/learn with my friends as much as I can.

It’s redundant on purpose, because what’s important here in this challenge, regardless of result, is how I personally go about the process of learning and preparing for it. I know I’m going to play poker that not only I’m proud of, but that the people who spent countless hours of playing and studying with me will also be proud of. Whether people react positively or negatively in comments of “how I play,” or anything along those lines are not in any sort of place to make any comment that should resonate with me. I’ll know how I performed, my team will know, and that’s irrelevant to the outside audience.

Of course it goes without saying, I want to win the challenge and perform at the best of my ability. However, just because I execute that, even if I do play absolutely lights out, it doesn’t mean that I get to win the challenge. If Bill is on par with me even with the 9bb/100 spot, and I’m playing as good as I can, then good for him. And I mean that. I know that I’m going to play some great HUNL, and if he can stick around, then he put in the work, time, energy, effort, whatever you want to call it. Who knows, maybe he’s even beating me prior to the spot. It would be quite hard to fathom that being the case, but if it’s true, then hats off to his team and coaches who brought him to be able to play some great HUNL. At the moment currently, I’m willing to play near almost anyone at HUNL and feel pretty solid about where I stand in that regard. So congratulations to him if that’s the case. His performance has nothing to do with me personally, so my job is to do is to work on my process, adapt where the team sees fit, and execute based on not only what I know, but how I feel in the moment, too.

It’s good to get this off my chest, and truly just get to the challenge. I’m going to try to play my absolute best with my team in my corner, and I can’t wait to see the cards fall where they may.

Onwards and upwards…