Bluff's 2008 Online Player Of The Year: The Maven
BLUFF’s 2008 Online Player of the Year is more than just a man behind several computer monitors. Life for David “The Maven” Chicotsky is much more than that. After discovering poker while watching a friend make over $1,000 a day playing $2/$4 No Limit, Chicotsky decided he had found a new calling that could provide a salary that would easily eclipse the $300 a week he was making at the time.
“I got in there and started playing very low stakes sit-and-goes and cash games, $.05/$.10 and $.10/$.25. I worked my up to $.50/$1 and $1/$2. I was multi-tabling roughly six tables across various sites,” he says.
Eventually, Chicotsky played enough to become one of the top point earners on the then-fl edgling Bodog platform and earned a coveted trip to a poker paradise in Costa Rica. “Somehow, I got approached to play in Calvin Ayre’s wild card tournament that matched the best live pros in the world with online pros, celebrities, and amateurs. Luckily, I guess, I had built up enough of a name as a grinder on the site. That’s where I met a number of the poker world’s bigger names like Daniel Negreanu, Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak, David Williams, and Humberto Brenes.”
In addition to meeting a number of top pros, Chicotsky met his future mentor, roommate, and business partner, Alan “Bodog Ari” Engel. “When I fi rst met him he was in Calvin Ayre’s living room chain smoking, playing a cash game with a bunch of guys there. He was super-aggressive just beating these guys. Bluffi ng off his whole stack that was 100 big blinds deep. Absolutely fearless. Everyone there knew he was the shit, basically,” Chicotsky says.
Taken aback by Engel’s prowess at the tables, Chicotsky wasn’t the only one who saw that Engel had developed a style of play that helped him run circles around his opponents. “I realized real quick that this guy has a lot to teach me. So while I was there I asked him to train me. He’s Jewish and I’m Jewish, and I was telling him ‘Shalom’ when I saw him — I was on a mission. I literally begged him, ‘Please, please train me.’ ”
Unfortunately for The Maven, Bodog Ari shot him down because he was focusing on playing live tournaments at the time. As a number of top players do, Engel claimed that he didn’t have time to teach the up-and-coming Chicotsky. Despite being rejected several more times, Chicotsky persisted and eventually Engel relented.
“One Sunday I was playing in the Sunday $100,000 tournament on Bodog and Vanessa Rousso is at my table. I had met her at the Calvin Ayre invitational. So Vanessa, Ari, and myself are all at the same table. Then Wes Deaver (AV8pounder) joins the chat box, and we had our own little reunion at our table.
”So while at the table, I’m schmoozing with Vanessa and schmoozing with Wes on the chat. I fi nally asked Ari, ‘So what’s the deal? I’ve asked you several times before. Help a brother out and train me.’ He said, ‘OK, whatever.’ I booked my fl ight fi ve minutes after he gave me his address. “
Confi dent and excited at the chance to learn nuances of the game from one of the world’s best online players, Chicotsky arrived in Las Vegas eager to get started but was surprised by Ari’s somewhat unenthusiastic greeting. “I showed up at his front door three days later, and when I rang the doorbell he answered and was like, ’Hi. Who are you?’ I ended up sleeping on a mattress on the fl oor for six days. At the time, Ari was playing from 7:30 am to 3 am, and sleeping three or four hours a night. He was like a poker basket case.”
Despite his initial surprise at his less-thanwarm welcome, it didn’t take long before Chicotsky knew he was in the right place. “I learned really quickly what it takes to dominate the game. It’s not just about playing well. You have to play hard for long periods of time. On his off time, Ari was reading poker blogs, watching YouTube clips and DVR recordings. He refused to miss any piece of information that came from the poker world. Maniacal to the max.”
After spending six days with Engel, Chicotsky immediately found results. “The very next week I got third in the Bodog $100,000 and a couple of other big hits. I scored $15,000 the next week. For a guy who was making $500 to $1,000 a week, this was huge.”
Over the course of the next six months, Chicotsky traveled frequently to Las Vegas. One month, while Engel was in Israel visiting his family, Chicotsky moved into his room and began studying the game with Engel’s landlord. A student of Engel’s for two and a half years, Chicotsky’s landlord, Nachman Berlin, spent more than a month passing on Engel’s secrets to the eager understudy.
THE STUDENT BECOMES THE MASTER
Chicotsky continued to prosper at the tables but decided he needed to take a new direction with his game. “I paid all my credit cards off, moved to Costa Rica, and got myself a little penthouse and was steadily making money. Everything was on the right track, so I started fl ying people into Costa Rica and giving them tourney, cash game, and multi-tabling lessons.”
Quickly discovering he had a passion for passing on the secrets of the game, Chicotsky began capitalizing on his newfound reputation as Engel’s protégé. “Once I had his name behind mine, I knew I had a product I could push — my own name, my own franchise. As far as teaching goes, I‘ve always been more of a self-promoter.
“I’ve always been interested in being out there, foot on the pavement, grounding and pounding. I read Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal, and was really inspired. I wanted to be a deal maker. Instead of locking myself in a room playing poker all day long, I fi gured I could get other people in here and teach them. I knew I could make extra side income, and it is guaranteed money.”
Although money is one of the motivating factors for Chicotsky’s decision to become an instructor, he confesses a passion for helping others with their game. “It’s not about the money anymore. In essence, I have enough money. I don’t need any more money. I like when someone comes here a D-level player and leaves here a week later a B-level player. Then, six months later they win a tournament for $44,000. It’s pretty neat to see a transformation.
“I was never much into video games, but the ones I did like were games where I could see progress like SimCity. I could raise taxes and accrue a city that grows. It is the same thing with poker. I’ve got, like, thirty guys out there that I’ve helped out. When they win I feel like I win.”
Although Chicotsky doesn’t advertise his services, he does provide his students with a unique opportunity to learn the game from a crew of top players. “For the record, I think it’s the most tricked-out training center of all time. The last time I ran into D.N., he even asked to come by for a tour,” Chicotsky boasts.
According to Chicotsky, he is quick to tell his students to pay attention to the fundamentals of the game. “Even the best pros in the world have a habit of screwing up during tournament play. They build a big stack, get beat, and then donk it off. I always laugh and tell my students that this ‘pro’ might be better than me, but look at his stats. I still make more money than he does.
“He might be better post fl op or a deep stack player or this or that, but take all that and throw it in the trash, because at the end of the day it’s about how much you made last year. Did you make $150,000 or $500,000? That’s all I want to know. Poker is not a shortterm game, though. That’s what I love about this. I’ve got twenty or thirty students using my exact system, and they’re all winners.”
Although Chicotsky has found enormous success with his game, he credits Engel for the system he uses to guide his students. “Essentially, everything I know was created by the best pros in the world. Ari took the systems of all the best pros: Kevin ‘BelowAbove’ Saul, Chad ‘Lilholdem’ Baptista, and Steven ‘gboro780’ Gross. Ari took a piece of this and a piece of that and put them together. I feel all I did was take a sander out and smooth over the edges. My system is really smooth, really streamlined, it’s really easy. I always tell people I could write it down on a napkin.”
With lessons based on a somewhat simple system, Chicotsky has developed his method over time and tweaked it so that it now provides potential students with the best bang for their buck. “I like to phrase my training as advanced tournament training. I used to call it hard-core tournament training where we used to do a four-day cram session as though we were cramming for a test and our lives depended on it, but I don’t do that anymore because we have eleven beds in the house. We now have the facilities for someone to come and stay for fi ve weeks and watch me play. I charge a high enough rate up front that it is reasonable for me to allow a player to train for an extended period of time.”
With a number of students and instructors playing at the same house, some might wonder about the possibility of collusion among the players. But, according to Chicotsky, measures are in place to prevent this from happening. “Everything done in this house is saved. If someone was to play a tourney here, it’s saved. We do that for liability. We don’t allow any cheating here.
“If there was any collusion, we would know they did it, fi rst of all. And if there was any collusion, well, I don’t even want to talk about what would happen to that person — we would kick them out of the house immediately. There are cameras everywhere, and we’re making sure it is a safe environment free of cheating. That has always been a top priority.”
In addition to allowing Chicotsky and the other instructors to review hands to make sure there is no cheating, the recordings benefi t the students as well. “It is very common for someone to play here for ten hours a day. Then at the end of their session, I’ll sit down with them and go over ten to fi fteen of their hand histories.”
According to the online ace, he and his team can take a complete novice and turn him into a winner. “He doesn’t even know that a fl ush beats a straight. I’ve had that experience with ’alienface,‘ who won the Bodog Tournament Leader Board in 2008. He didn’t know that a fl ush beats a straight. He watched me play for a week and watched my best student, ‘daisyxoxo’ (who currently leads the 2009 Online P.O.Y. race), play for a week. Before you knew it, the guy got good.”
One thing potential students can expect to learn from Chicotsky is a sense of humility at the tables. In his mind, the vanity of looking at a prize pool can easily lead to insta-tilt. “You’re looking at the prize pools and you’re worrying about the players, and you’re getting real excited or you’re getting upset that you lost. Then you’re on tilt. You’re not Patrick Antonius, you’re not Daniel Negreanu, and you’re not the best. They don’t act like that.
“Another analogy I tell my students is, ‘Imagine you’re driving around and for every red light you hit you feel let down. Every yellow light you’re like, ‘whoo-hoo,’ and every green light you get super excited. Then imagine that you are driving around doing this for eight hours. You would be worn out emotionally. It’s a tough thing. You want to keep yourself off that rollercoaster.”
Another thing Chicotsky’s students can bank on learning is a strong-minded approach to playing the game. An avid student of Kung-Fu, Chicotsky has learned to worry about his game and not his opponent’s. “You have to use what you have, never go on tilt, and not put your opponents on a pedestal. If you sit down with Daniel Negreanu and think he’s the best player in the world, then you’re never going to beat him. You have to say to yourself, ’I’m going to beat him.’ Daniel Negreanu wears boxers or briefs just like you or I. If you’ve read my blogs you can see that my biggest focus is having a mental edge.”
THE P.O.Y. RUN
Although Chicotsky was having solid results in 2008 and was leading PokerDB’s Silver division, he saw an opportunity toward the end of the year to make a move and win the coveted Gold division. “Leading the Silver division for most the year playing lower stakes was a nice recognition for me, and it brought me more students. At one point I was fourteenth on the Gold division halfway through the year. Then I kept creeping upward. I was in seventh place with fi ve months to go.
“In the middle of December, I got an email from someone from BLUFF that told me that I was in third place and that the winner would get the front cover. That’s all I had to hear. I got my assistant, Zach, to write down every single tournament that was over $50 or over. I didn’t care whether it was Pot Limit Omaha, High/Low, Pot Limit Hold’em, Limit HE, or No Limit as long as it was above $50.”
After realizing he had a shot at the title, he began putting in marathon-like sessions multi-tabling 27 tournaments at once on a daily basis. “I carried that fi fteen to seventeen- hour day all the way through December 31st. I didn’t take New Year’s off, didn’t take Christmas Eve off, and didn’t take Hanukkah off. I had a big advantage. I had been prepping myself all year by playing that many tables unknowingly. I had been 27 tabling. I was comfortable making pushes at the end of the week and at the end of the month.”
According to Chicotsky, his role model, Engel, displayed what it takes to be one of the best, and it helped him stay committed on the way to the title. “Ari sets a great example. He plays every single day except for Friday, 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year, and doesn’t complain. He has a great attitude. When he’s done playing, he moseys around for thirty minutes before going to bed. He does everything properly.”
One of the keys to his success in 2008 lies in the self-confi dence that comes from being a well-rounded person who happens to play a ton of poker. “I think my nature is conservative, but it’s not. I’m very entrepreneurial, a risk-taker. I use both sides of my brain well. I can write, play music, and write poetry. I can also do math.
“That helps me when adversity is thrown my way, like with winning the Gold division. I couldn’t have won the Gold division if I hadn’t learned PLO, Hi/Lo, and Limit like in a snap. What I did was fl y in a bracelet winner who won a Hi/Lo limit bracelet. I also fl ew in pretty much the top PLO cash game player in the world. I just watched them play for a couple nights, and you know what? I realized that it’s not that hard. It was just like No Limit. I could take a guy off the street with an IQ of 100 and in ten days have him beating the fi eld.
Another big factor in his success comes thanks to his relatively cool composure. No longer affected by the adrenaline rush that less-experienced players enjoy, Chicotsky does his best to “follow the middle path” in life and at the tables. “I was driving to a business meeting recently here with a top poker pro. I’m driving about ninety in a rental car with a donut tire front left. This guy cuts me off out of nowhere. I actually had to turn the car sideways going ninety miles an hour. All four tires were smoking while we were going sideways, and luckily I yanked back straight.
“I had the initial rush of adrenaline like you get when you’re about to get in a fi ght. Then it really quickly left me. I saw him fi ve miles down the road. I didn’t cut him off, didn’t fl ick him off or turn the radio up real loud. I kept nice and calm. It’s the same thing in poker. When someone loses a real big hand, they cry or get mad. When they win a big hand, they get excited and throw their hands in the air.
“I don’t want any part of that. I consider that partying. There’s no partying allowed around me. If you are playing in this house, you can’t party. And if you do, you’re not welcome here. You will never see me party. You will never see Ari party. We are cold, straight-faced killers.”
THE MAVEN’S FUTURE
In addition to teaching and playing online, Chicotsky is looking to make his name on the live tournament scene. “I’m going live. I plan on playing $10,000 televised events — hopefully, only the $10,000 events. Right now I’ve got feelers out for sponsorships. Whoever chooses me or whoever I choose, it’s going to be a win-win for both of us. Because guess what? Just like James Brown, who said he was the hardest-working man in show business, they found the hardest-working guy in poker. Some of these live pros, who are supposed to be really good, have only played three to four hundred tournaments in their whole lives. Well, guess what? I played 600 last month.”
Continuing his teaching, Chicotsky has dedicated himself to offering his insights to a new group of players. “Right now I’m charging fi ve fi gures to train people. I’m giving them intensive training.”
“I always like to say that I’m giving people six-fi gure information for fi ve fi gures. Realistically, nine out of ten people that approach me can’t afford it. I decide that if nine out of ten players that approach me can’t afford it, I needed to put out a product that’s ten percent of the cost. Something they can use at their computer from home. They can log in and log out at any time. My site, coming soon, called TheMavenVT will test them. My entire system will be right there. It’ll be piggy-backed with Daniel Negreanu’s PokerVT, which I couldn’t be more thrilled about.”
According to Chicotsky, the site gives players a chance to learn the basics of the system before they hire him or his crew to teach them the fi nishing touches at the training house. “I’m offering players a chance to improve their poker careers and, hopefully, their lives with much less cost. Once they have tested all the way through the system, I’ll give them actual tests. Once they’re profi - cient in these tests, then either Ari or myself can train them in a live setting for much less cost.
“The hardest part is getting someone going and comfortable with the system. Once they know the system, they can sit behind me and watch because it doesn’t really cost me much. Mentally, I don’t have to focus on them as much. We have all these units where they can just sit back, watch, and learn.”
For players looking to leap ahead of the game, this site may just be the key to unlocking future wealth. “We’re talking about MTT theory, which is the driving force behind my system. There are a lot of pushes I make, a lot of all-ins, even raises that nine out of ten pros won’t make. But with my system it all works together and fi ts like a glove. I have about thirty nuggets of information that come with my system. I can take someone and break the nuggets down for him. While I’m playing, I can say, ‘Here is #7; here is #9. Always do this in this situation, and when this happens always do that.’”
According to Chicotsky, poker refl ects life in that you don’t have to be an Iron Chef to be an excellent cook if you can follow instructions. “I like to give the analogy that if I give you a pound of fl our, a pound of sugar, two eggs, brown sugar, and baking soda, and tell you to bake me a cake, I can guarantee you that your cake will taste terrible. Now if I give the same ingredients with a recipe, even if you’re not a good baker, your cake will taste great.
“It’s the same thing here. If you just have a plan going in, you’re so much better off. If this happens to me, I’m going to do this. If there is a good player to my left, then I’m going to react this way. If there is a good player to my right, then I’m going to act this way.”
Always trying to improve his teaching, Chicotsky makes it a point to keep learning the different facets of the game. He is quick to imbibe the wealth of knowledge of the players with whom he comes in contact. “We’ve taken other pros that come here to teach and watched them play. When they’re training our students, Ari and I both watch. So we’re always learning. If they take better notes, then next week I’m going to have better notes. If they are making these adjustments late in the tournament that I wasn’t making, and he’s a really capable player — which they all are — then I’m making the adjustment.”
After fi nding success and winning the P.O.Y. title, Chicotsky believes he still has a lot to teach his students and a lot to learn about the game. “My perspective on the game is always changing. I was always making a raise three times the big blind a year ago, then I was making a minimumplus raise, then I was making it two-anda- half times the blind. Now, after talking to Daniel Negreanu, I’m mini-raising everything and I’m making more than I ever have before.
“Every little tip I pick up helps both me and my students. I still remember the very fi rst tip I learned came at Calvin Eyre’s house. I was talking to Phil Laak, and he said that if you have jack-deuce on the button with ten to twelve big blinds in a tournament, then you’re all in every time. I said, ‘Really? You want to do that?’ He said, ‘If you can’t do that, then you’re never going to be a tournament pro.’ Guess what? Next week, I was pushing with that hand. Every little bit helps.”
