Anton ‘surprisefirm’ Petrov has experienced success in poker due to his background in engineering

Poker is inherently a math-based game. And the most successful players know that math like the back of their hand. How many outs do I have? What are my implied odds? What are my pot odds? How much would I get in an ICM chop? It’s all math in the end.

Because their careers are in part based on math, engineers can have a leg up in poker from the get-go. Take Russia’s Anton ‘surprisefirm’ Petrov, for example, who just hit $1 million in career online tournament winnings and moved up to #180 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings.

Petrov was an engineer by trade before moving to poker full-time in 2013, although he’s been playing since 2011.

“It was too difficult to combine engineering and poker because I worked in telecommunications doing 12-hour shifts,” Petrov said. “One day I realized that I hated my job and my poker earnings were two or three times what I was making from my profession. So, I decided to concentrate on poker fully.”

His decision seems to have been a smart one. In fact, he’s just two weeks removed from finishing as the runner-up in the $215 No Limit Hold’em SCOOP Sunday Million for a healthy $162,000 officially. In the process, he earned 791 PLB Points and shot up the rankings like a Gemini rocket. It was his second time final tabling the Sunday Million in the last three years.

Petrov knows his engineering background has propelled his poker game forward. “My engineering education helped me be able to analyze situations,” he said. “It’s helped me with my ability to deal with ranges in many different situations and systematize the information. I have also been able to improve my own game with the help of different software like ICMizer and Flopzilla.”

“People who have an engineering education play poker better than other people,” he summarized.

Being able to download a piece of software like ICMizer or Flopzilla and immediately be able to use it is a huge benefit of being computer-savvy like some engineers are. For Petrov, being software-literate provided an invaluable advantage in his new profession.

His software of choice begins with Hold’em Manager 2, which he uses to get statistics about his play and his opponents’ play. He also uses it to analyze hand histories.

“I try to find leaks with the help of Hold’em Manager 2,” he said. “Or I can find bad win rates from the small blind. I can find the reason I have holes in my game with the help of the many filters Hold’em Manager 2 has.”

Also in his arsenal of software is StackAndTile, which he uses to organize tables while he has up to six online poker rooms open. You can also find him using PokerStove, ICMizer, Flopzilla, and PioSOLVER, the latter of which he uses with a friend who owns it. All of his software aptitude comes naturally.

“Engineers can count odds, percentages, ranges, and acquire information faster than others,” he said. “I can quickly analyze a situation like an open-push under the gun in a nine-max game with 2-2 and an M of six. Many regulars, however, are still playing push-fold poker pretty poorly. My engineering background helps me think analytically and be able to file information logically and systematically in my head.”

Less than a week into 2013, Petrov finished seventh in the PokerStars Sunday Million for $30,000. At the time, it was his largest online MTT score to date and, as a result, he was all-in on leaving his engineering gig for the good pastures of poker.

“My bosses and colleagues weren’t surprised I was leaving because I played already and told them about my successes,” he said. “So, they wished me good luck.”

Three years later, a runner-up finish in the SCOOP Sunday Million was more than quintuple his 2013 cash and is now his largest online poker score.

“I had huge troubles making nice, deep runs,” he said. “I was disappointed a lot, but in April, variance began to come around. I had a string of nice runs and earned over $30,000. Then, I had my nice run in the Sunday Million again. I now completely realize why I suffered so much.”

Over the years, he has won the PokerStars Big $55 three times for $54,000 combined and is now the 15th-ranked online poker player in Russia. He is about to pass $700,000 in winnings on PokerStars alone and has already hit 2,700 tracked in the money finishes across the various sites that PocketFives tracks.

“Believe in the dream and never give up,” he closed by saying. “Don’t listen to those who understand nothing about it.”