This week, the PocketFives.com Poker Podcast welcomes two veterans of the game. Grayson the_dean22 Nichols (pictured) joined the community way back in 2005 and owns the 43rd spot in the Online Poker Player Rankings. He has over $3 million in tracked cashes to date and recently took down the Mini Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) Main Event for $152,000. Pat TorontoToro Pezzin has been playing poker for 15 years and is a card-carrying member of Team PokerStars Canada.
Nichols began his appearance on the PocketFives.com Podcast by relaying how he got his start in poker: “I started playing in college with my buddies when ‘Rounders’ came out and it went from there. I deposited a little bit of money on PartyPoker and was a habitual loser for the first couple of months. I picked up a few books and didn’t look back after that.” His mix of backers has included players like Gary GB2005 Bogdanski (pictured), Jordan iMsoLucky0 Morgan, Alex AJKHoosier1 Kamberis, and Chris moorman1 Moorman. The latter two are DoylesRoom Brunson 10 members.We were first introduced to Nichols in 2007 at the UB.com Aruba Poker Classic. The game has changed leaps and bounds since then and we asked Nichols to describe what he’s had to adjust to in recent years: “I was much tighter then than I am now. There was a little transition getting used to playing more aggressively, but I have definitely opened up my game quite a bit since three years ago.”
Nichols hails from Orlando, Florida, a state that recently lifted its constraints on live poker leading to, among other events, a World Poker Tour (WPT) stop at the Seminole Hard Rock next April. Nichols agreed that a major poker overhaul is in the offing for the Sunshine State: “I think it was a great move for everyone in Florida. The action is going to be much better. The fact that the WPT already scheduled one of their stops in Florida that fast after the law was passed says it’s a good thing.” The WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown will have a $10,000 buy-in.
Also joining the Podcast this week is Pezzin (pictured) a member of Team PokerStars Canada who final tabled two Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) events in May for a combined $112,000. Pezzin shared his poker story: “I started playing poker in 1995 and Limit Hold’em was the most popular game in charity casinos in Toronto. I ran into Daniel Negreanu there and we started planning frequent trips to Las Vegas starting in 1998. I mostly focused on cash games and then started playing tournaments after the Chris Moneymaker boom.”Pezzin recorded seven in the money finishes at the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP). His crowning glory came last year in the World Championship of Limit Hold’em, when he finished as the runner-up to fellow Canuck Greg “FBT” Mueller and earned $285,000. On his success in deep stack tournaments, Pezzin told us, “They give you a little more time to understand [your opponents] and play some of their weaknesses. In a shorter, shallower tournament, you have to take a little more of a gamble.”
Along with players like Negreanu (pictured) and former November Niner Darus BejoMas Suharto, Pezzin is a proud member of Team PokerStars Canada. He described what it’s like working with the world’s largest online poker site, which also takes action from the United States: “PokerStars is definitely the largest online site in the world. It offers many opportunities in many different games and many different levels of tournaments. It’s been instrumental in me being able to stay home and raise a family as well as play poker. It offers many Canadians the same opportunity, as there aren’t that many casinos that offer live poker here in Canada.”Check out the rest of this week’s PocketFives.com Podcast featuring Grayson the_dean22 Nichols and PokerStars sponsored pro Pat TorontoToro Pezzin.
