Tristan Wade (Cre8ive) Interview with PokerSoftware

Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade is the Director of Training at DeepStacks Live and an incredible young poker player and instructor.  Wade has more than $2 million in live and online career poker earnings and had the best World Series of Poker (WSOP) of his young career this year.  We sat down with him to talk about his great run and what’s been going on in the poker pro’s world.

PSW: You’ve had a tremendous WSOP this year with two final tables.

Tristan Wade: Yeah, it’s been a great WSOP.  I definitely wanted to win one and I probably had a more realistic chance to win in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event despite finishing seventh.  There were only a couple of professionals at the table and I entered second in chips, so that one was a frustrating final table because I feel like I had a really good shot to win it.

But then I final tabled the $10,000 Six-Max, which is probably the toughest tournament they have in the Series.  It’s certainly the toughest No Limit tournament I’ve ever played in and I was happy to get fourth.  It’s an unbelievable tournament with an unbelievable field.  There are just so many great players that makes it so hard to win because you just have to have so many things go your way, but like you said, I had a great summer with two final tables, two decent cashes, and I still have bracelets on the horizon hopefully, either here or in Europe if I decide to go.

PSW: In the $1,500 final table, you endured a tremendously short journey from 18 players to nine and then it took what seemed like forever to bust someone in ninth place.  Can you talk a little about that bubble?

Tristan Wade: It was a little frustrating.  I mean, not just for me, because I try not to let anything at the poker table affect my emotions or feelings or anything, but I could see it definitely taking a toll on some of the players at the table.  To have 12 all-ins and have each one of them survive to double-up is pretty ridiculous and for that to take four hours, and the blinds went up four times, just really took away all of the play at the final table.

It didn’t bother me too much, but you just have to say, “that’s poker” and “that’s the nature of the beast sometimes” and be able to adapt.

PSW: The $10,000 Six-Max didn’t play the same way however.  You seemed to fight off the short stack for a long time and then finally put together a big stack at the final table.  How was your first experience at the ESPN featured table?

Tristan Wade: “The Thunderdome” was cool.  I actually felt really comfortable there.  I just felt like I really deserved to be there.  I’m on the same playing field as the other players and I was ready to embrace the moment, play my best, and hopefully win one of the toughest tournaments in the world.  It was really fun playing with the crowd, especially the British fans of Chris “moorman1” Moorman, who were really great and crazy.  It was great.  It was a really fun time.

PSW: You just recently conducted a DeepStacks Live course at the Palms Casino in conjunction with the new Epic Poker League founded by Annie Duke and former WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack.  How did that go?

Tristan Wade: That class was really good.  We taught an advanced tournament strategy course, but we had a few students who were beginners, so we mixed it up a little by teaching some of the core fundamentals early in the seminar.  But, it was a great turnout with only about a week’s notice to put it on.

Annie Duke came in and taught a session that was really informative and did a really great job.  Then, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Randall Flowers, and the rest of the DeepStacks Live team taught our Advanced Strategies to No Limit Hold’em Tournaments.  The course was recorded with the DeepStacks 360 Cam and should be available online very soon.

PSW: Since Black Friday, have you been playing much online poker?  If so, are you using any software when you play?

Tristan Wade: Honestly, I haven’t played online poker at all since Black Friday.  I know that there are a couple of sites still operating, but I kind of figured that after the government went after the big sites, they would just go after all of the sites.  So, I haven’t uploaded any money onto some of the smaller websites at all.

I was looking to try out some poker software right before Black Friday, but never really got the opportunity to put it into use.  I used Holdem Manager a little in the past, but honestly, I really didn’t rely on it very much and it was short-lived for me. I find that there are just so many regulars in the events that I play – events like the $100 rebuys and the $1,000 events online have players where I already know who they are and how they play, so I didn’t really see the need.

But, as I dropped down into some of the $50 events that were getting such great prize pools, I thought it might be a good idea to try out a couple of programs in events with players that I’m not as familiar with.  Unfortunately, Black Friday came along and I didn’t get the chance.

PSW: Do you use any software for hand history reviews?

Tristan Wade: Yeah, I actually used the Universal Hand Replayer a great deal with my students.  I would have them send me their tournament histories and go through each hand to talk about trouble spots.  It’s a great tool to tell the whole story of a tournament and I liked that a little better than just seeing one specific hand.

PSW: So what’s on tap for you now that the WSOP is over?

Tristan Wade: I have a few things to do with Off Tilt Poker Tables, where I’m a spokesman, and you can get some awesome custom poker tables.  The site to go to is OffTiltPokerTables.com/Tristan and you can see some great deals on poker tables.

And it’s DeepStacks and DeepStacks Live all the time.  As the Director of Training for DeepStacksU, I’m involved in every class we do around the globe.  It’s been great to be part of a company that has seen such incredible growth, as players are constantly looking to take their games to the next level.  I’ll have some tournaments in Florida that I’ll be playing in and then maybe try and win a bracelet over at the WSOP in Europe.

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