Poker Articles

On April 7, 2001, Edward Moncada played his first hand of poker.  A friend of his, who was a successful internet entrepreneur who played poker on the side, told him that he might be good at it.  According to Edward, "that was the day everything changed."

"I got consumed in the game, I really liked it," he told me.  "Of course in the first year, I was probably a losing or break even player.  Then I started to become a winning player."  

He would find the young players who were having great success, and he would watch them play and become friends with them.  The information he received from these players was really pivotal in teaching him the ins and outs of the game, particularly from a player named Alex Roberts, who also mentored poker professional Gabe Thaler.

Soon after, he began playing $50 and $100 tournaments in live venues.  His tournament game did not really take off, however, until he started playing online at Pokerstars.  "It was no longer me playing tournaments 2 or 3 times a week," he said.  "Whatever tournaments they had that I could afford, I would play."  It didn't take him long to move on to more sites, and he started playing as many tournaments as possible.  He got to play as many tournaments in one year online as the circuit players play in several years, and his bankroll started to grow at a high rate.

Although he started traveling the circuit about two and a half years ago, Edward has kept up his online play, typically on Pokerstars, Full Tilt, and Paradise, using the names MyFatJuan, ebolivia, and ImRickJms (ImRickJmsBiatch on Full Tilt).  Most of his biggest wins have come online as well, including a few wins in the Sunday $100 rebuy on Stars and first place in the big Sunday tournament there, where he got $78,500.  He has also won the $50k guaranteed tournament on Full Tilt.

The main thing he says online poker has taught him is how to be patient in looking for the right spots to get his money in.  "I typically think that when I'm playing online, I'm doing less bluffing," he confessed.  "I'm waiting for hands.  There are enough people out there bluffing off their money that you can just wait for your spots."

On June 14, 2005, Edward won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the $2,000 Pot Limit Holdem event, outlasting 539 other contenders en route to a first prize of $298,070.  One might argue that everything will change once again for him after winning this tournament, as he will now be able to play all of the 5k and 10k events throughout the year.  He had played some circuit events and had participated in a few events in the 2004 WSOP, but this win put him over the top as a legitimate contender against the top players in the world.

He has now proven that he can successfully play the biggest tournaments in the live arena, and he believes he has the extra skill set that makes this possible, that of reading physical tells.  "I watch them put a bet in and rewind it and replay it exactly how it came out, and I can study it and compare it to previous experiences with that player," he told me.  "I think you need a combination of both to be a good tournament player; the understanding of the long term and the understanding of reading your opponents, their body language and their gestures.  I definitely know that without my experiences as an online tournament player, there’s no way I could have won this tournament."

When I asked Ed if he was going to stick to live play after this big win, he immediately told me that it was his intention that day (it was a Sunday when spoke) to stay at home all day and play all the tournaments, because he loves playing the Sunday tournaments.  "You’ll still see me playing all those tournaments and playing a lot of tournaments," he said.  "The reward is too high compared to the risk to pass up.  I also like playing online."  He went on to tell me that he’ll probably continue playing mostly online, since that is his preference, although he won’t be missing many major live events from now on.

On how to get to his level, Edward simply advises players to play as much as they can.  "The guys that I saw really putting in all the time and playing, such as JohnnyBax, you see it really paying off," he said.  "There are a lot of great players out there who are always willing to talk strategy, you just gotta ask them.  I think online is the best place to get the experience."

It’s nice to hear a WSOP bracelet winner say that the skills he picked up playing online led him to winning a major live event.  Hopefully this won't be the last time for Edward Moncada to be the last man standing, and as the poker world continues to evolve, I hope to see more and more of the top online players doing the same.