Matt Stout (All In At 420) Interview with PokerSoftware

Matt “All In At 420” Stout, a Lock Poker pro, is a highly accomplished live and online player with more than $5 million in career earnings.  We caught up with him shortly after he made his first career World Series of Poker (WSOP) final table to talk poker and his favorite software.

PokerSoftware: Congratulations on making your first WSOP final table.  How does it feel to finally get the monkey off your back?

Matt Stout: Yeah, it only took me six years to make a WSOP final table, but now we can cross that one off the bucket list.  Now, we just have to take care of that larger goal of winning a bracelet.

PokerSoftware: You have three WSOP cashes in 2011. Would you consider this to be a down year?

Matt Stout: No, definitely not.  I mean, a bad year at the Series is one where you’re 0-for-the-Series or have barely any min-cashes.  I’m not mad about this year at all.  I’ve definitely had losing Series in the past and now with the final table score, I think that I’m going to be up in this year’s Series, or at least close to it.

You can’t really complain too much when you final table a WSOP event, win $63,000, and get most of the buy-ins back for the Series.

PokerSoftware: You’ve been able to log a decent amount of action online at Lock Poker since Black Friday since the site wasn’t impacted by the actions of the U.S. Department of Justice. Do you notice a difference at the Series this year because not as many people are playing online?

Matt Stout: There are definitely a lot more players at some of the smaller prelim events this year.  The kids that are here now playing the smaller $1,000 and $1,500 buy-ins who would have stayed at home grinding online everyday – those aren’t exactly the players I was hoping to get to come out and play.

I don’t really care if we add 200 dedicated online grinders who have solid fundamentals and play pretty well, but that doesn’t really help the situation.  Most years, you’d say that larger fields don’t mean better fields.  A lot of people just assume that the two things go together, but in this case I would say that more often than not, the extra people being added to the field are going to make the tournaments tougher, not softer.

PokerSoftware: You’re commonly found online at the tournament tables as opposed to cash games.  Is there a reason that you gravitate to MTTs over ring games?

Matt Stout: I’ve never found the same level of satisfaction at cash games as I have at tournaments.  Obviously, tournaments operate at a way higher variance and if you’re playing for a living, it’s kind of nice to have a lower variance, and cash game players have that advantage.  But I’ve never felt like I could motivate myself to grind out session after session playing cash games.

I don’t really even have that much fun when I have big wins in cash game sessions.  It’s just picking up money and walking away; there isn’t a great sense of accomplishment for me.  Being able to make final tables and win tournaments are what keep me in the game and what motivate me.

PokerSoftware: Do you operate with a HUD when you play your tournament sessions?

Matt Stout: Yeah, I use Holdem Manager.  I’m usually looking at VPIP, PFR, 3bet Percentage, and AF, but I don’t think I look at the statistics when I’m playing in the moment as much as everyone else does.  I mean, obviously they’re there and I see them, but I don’t really make too many of my decisions based on the numbers until I get into some tough spots.  Then, I really start to look at them, especially if I’m multi-tabling.

For the most part, I feel like a lot of the decisions are still pure poker and, for the record, I kind of wish there weren’t any HUDs.  I really feel that my edge would be bigger if we all didn’t have the numbers and were all just playing pure poker.  But, I can’t continue to let all these kids have an edge on me.  So, I eventually gave in and starting using them.

PokerSoftware: Do you use any other software programs when you play aside from Holdem Manager?

Matt Stout: I used Table Ninja and TableNinjaFT for a little bit, but I decided that I operated a little better without those two. There were a few little nuances like changing the bet sizing after I typed in a specific one.  Small things like that caused me to stay away from it, so the HUD and the hand history tracker are really the only things I use.

PokerSoftware: What’s on tap for you after the Main Event?  Do you have any projects in the works?

Matt Stout: I just started a new web project called StoutPoker.com.  Right now, it’s just my blog with a few video blogs.  Soon, I’ll be adding links for private training as well as camps for my students and the general public.  Outside of that, you’ll be able to catch me at the tables online at Lock Poker and on the tournament trail grinding away.