macker21 Chops PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up
PocketFives.com: Thanks for joining us and congratulations on the chop. Can you give us the background behind the three-way deal in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up?
Ryan McClean: I was serving a chat ban on PokerStars from an incident at a different final table a few days earlier, so I couldn’t communicate at all to discuss a chop. I went on a bit of a rant after requesting a moderator to come to the table to work out a chop and it took a good 15 minutes until someone from PokerStars showed up. Anyway, we got down to three-handed and we had the tournament paused to see what the chip equity numbers would be. I was tied for the chip lead with about 18 million, almost the identical stack to the guy in second (ely_cash41), and ucfchamp had about 10 million.
Ely and I were to get $114,000 each and ucfchamp was to get something like $97,000. Ely was holding out for more money to make the deal and we ended up giving him $1,000 apiece. I just didn’t feel like risking blowing the chop and potentially finishing third for $77,000. $113,000 was guaranteed to be more than second place money, so I was fine with making the deal to lock that up.
PocketFives.com: How did it feel recording the largest cash of your poker career?
Ryan McClean: It was an unbelievable relief. I had been so close so many times to that huge score, but the cards just never seemed to fall my way when it mattered and I was wondering if it was ever going to come. I called up all of my friends that didn’t have to work the next day and we went out to the local casino/bar that we call home and drank until closing. Then, we ordered up some more booze, grabbed a hotel room, and celebrated until about six in the morning. It was a Sunday night, so it wasn’t the greatest night to want to party, but we had fun.
My plans for the money are pretty simple. I just closed a deal to have a new house built. My brother and I are going in on it together, so I will put a chunk towards that and then I now have the bankroll to up my play a notch, play more higher buy-in tournaments, and shoot for more live events too.
Ryan McClean: There were a few big ones. One of the most stressful was at the final table. I shoved under the gun with pocket queens for about 20 big blinds. It folded around to the big blind, who called me with A-9 offsuit. The flop came out seven-high, all clubs. He had the nine of clubs and I didn’t have a club. These are the types of hands I would usually lose, but on this day, my hand actually held.
I also folded pocket queens on a J-10-X board with two to a flush. We were four-way to the flop, but there were a couple of short stacks at the table and I didn’t want to make the mistake of busting out before they did. I watched the replay and the guy who bet the flop (after being the pre-flop raiser) had K-Q for a straight draw, so who knows what would have happened. It turned out all right though.
PocketFives.com: How did you get started in poker originally?
Ryan McClean: I got started in poker in 2004. Living in Canada, it was the year of the NHL lockout, so they filled a lot of the televised sports programming with poker. I got hooked on it and we would play cards on the bus to our hockey games in college. I started playing online a bit and then started going to casinos in Edmonton frequently. The casinos didn't really have No Limit cash then, so I got started playing $3/$6 Limit before $1/$2 No Limit became the most readily available game around town. I started to make some good money playing that.
PocketFives.com: Do you play poker professionally?
Ryan McClean: I have played full-time since September 2008. Before that, I played a lot of hours both live and online, but had a full-time job as a video news editor at Global Television in Edmonton. My family took my decision fairly hard. They had my best interests at heart, but thought I was probably making a mistake. It was not an easy sell. We had quite a few heated discussions over it, but they also respected that I had to make my own decisions and it was something I had to try; otherwise, I would always be questioning whether I could have made it.
PocketFives.com: As we enter 2010, what is your standing goal in poker?
Ryan McClean: My biggest goals are to continue to progress and hopefully make my mark in a big live event too. My claim to fame before this was knocking Daniel Negreanu (pictured at right) out of the 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and having a decent cash (I finished 305th), but that was over two years ago. Now, and I need to start making my mark and this score in the Warm-Up should help me do that.
PocketFives.com: Can you tell us about your mindset entering a large-field tournament like the Sunday Warm-Up?
Ryan McClean: I don’t do anything special or different. The whole key for me is just always playing my stack, cards, and position in what I feel is the right way and then have my hands hold up in big pots. I usually have the best hand when my chips are in the middle. Then, it’s just a matter of them holding up when it counts. I like the majors because of the big starting stacks and huge fields. I think the deeper-stacked we are playing, the better suited it is to my game, as I play a lot of cash games as well.
PocketFives.com: Are there any shout outs you’d like to extend?
Ryan McClean: I'd like to thank all my friends and family for their support. Hopefully, there’s more to come.
