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Bluff: Let’s start when you were a kid — what were you into during your childhood?
SBRugby: I was into a lot of sports as a kid. Soccer, baseball, football, rugby. I was very competitive. I really liked all games. I played a lot of chess. My family was always into that type of thing.
Bluff: How about school; what did you end up studying?
SBRugby: I started off undeclared. I browsed around with some different things, but finally got into electrical engineering. That is when I really got serious about school. I then started a PhD program in electrical engineering and material science. It was during that time that I decided to take poker seriously. It was just too good of an opportunity.
Bluff: Tell us about your first poker experience.
SBRugby: My first experience was at a friend’s house, my senior year in college. Some guys were getting together for a friendly poker night, and that’s how I started.
Bluff: Did you win?
SBRugby: No, I lost. I even remember how I lost. My three jacks lost to a flush. I was just winging it. It was a five dollar buy-in, just a friendly guy’s night of poker.
Bluff:Were you hooked right away?
SBRugby: It actually took some time before I was hooked. It wasn’t until I played $2/4 Limit, in a casino, and I really enjoyed that. I started to play every week. I put $50 online, and lost that; that was when I was hooked.
Bluff: How old were you?
SBRugby: It was two years ago, so I was twenty-three at the time.
Bluff:Wow, so your rise to where you are now has been pretty astronomical.
SBRugby: Yes, it happened very quickly. I have been very fortunate.
Bluff: On that note, did you always play with your own money? Did you ever have a backer?
SBRugby: I always have played on my own money. I have always been a big believer that you should play with your own money. Part of moving up is that you need to play the lower limits in order to build the skills to play in the bigger games. The only time I had any stake was during High Stakes Poker; I sold about twenty-five percent of myself, just because it was a bigger game than I was used to.
Bluff:We know your relationship with CardRunners is great. Were they instrumental in your success even when you were just getting your feet wet?
SBRugby: I actually started off playing Limit, and it wasn’t till I started playing No Limit that I joined CardRunners. I started playing No-Limit January 1 of ‘06. I guess a little over a year ago.
Bluff: What stakes were you playing at that time?
SBRugby: I was playing $.25/.50 NL Hold’em. I had a bankroll of a few thousand dollars that I had earned by playing Limit Hold’em. I heard about CardRunners, and it was totally instrumental in my development of my No Limit game.
Bluff: Talk to us about the rise from January ‘06 to where you are at now. How quickly were you moving levels?
SBRugby: I would always follow proper bankroll requirements. I would keep playing a level until I would have 20 buy-ins for the next level game. I would move up, and if I lost I would move back down, until I regained the twenty buy-ins. I would repeat that process all the way up the levels.
Bluff: Did you ever take a shot at a limit that was over your bankroll requirement?
SBRugby: Not in any major ways. I would be taking shots by moving up when I had twenty buy-ins, but I never took a shot where I only had five buy-ins for a level. The lowest I actually ever went once was seventeen buy-ins.
Bluff: Tell us what level was the hardest to adjust to.
SBRugby:Well, when you get to $200/400, each player has a lot more personality. There are really only twenty players in that game. You need to know all your opponents and their tendencies. Your game becomes very player dependent. At the lower limits, it is a lot more grinding. You pull up your heads-up display; you know your stats on your opponent and make the mathematically correct decision. At the nosebleed stakes, it’s more shorthanded and heads up, so you really need to know your players. You can’t really use the stat displays and whatnot.
Bluff: When did you realize that you could support yourself by playing poker?
SBRugby:Well, about a year ago, I would say. Maybe last April. I made 36k one month playing $5/10 NL on Party. I moved up the next month to 10/20NL and made about 60k. Then I started into the 25/50NL, and 100/200NL games, and was making 150k to 200k a month. I realized I should pursue this full time. I spoke to my professor and dropped out of grad school.
Bluff: What did your family and friends think about all of this? Were they shocked, supportive?
SBRugby:Well, my friends have been great. They see my house and realize I have done really well for myself. My grandfather on my dad’s side was actually really into poker in his day. He played with Doyle, Amarillo Slim, and all of those guys. Not at the huge stakes, but the level below or so. He was playing 20/40 Limit, when the biggest games at the time were like 100/200. He did well at playing poker. So my dad was really supportive of it. My mom, it didn’t go over too well with her. She trusted me though, and let me make my own decisions.
Bluff:We know you play some huge stakes. Tell us a bit about the biggest win and biggest loss of your poker career.
SBRugby: The biggest win — I have had a couple of 500k, 600k days, mainly headsup sessions. One night against Ram (vaswani), I played a long time and won quite a bit. Another big session came against Patrik (Antonius). Biggest loss, that was at heads-up PL Omaha. I either lack some skills there, or I ran below expectation. I have had a couple of 400-500k downswings at heads-up PLO.
Bluff: How do you deal with the emotional swings of both? Do you treat yourself when you win, and when you lose, how do you avoid that sticking with you?
SBRugby:Well, the more I play these limits, the more I get used to the swings and then they don’t bother me so much. When I first started and lost my fifty bucks, it was like the end of the world to me. Now I can lose half a million dollars and it’s not such a big deal. I guess you get used to the swings associated with the games.
As for winning sessions, I’m not a very big spender. I have invested in different business opportunities and the stock market, and just into my bankroll.
Bluff:We know you have a new house. What are some of the other things you have bought recently?
SBRugby: I would say the most extravagant purchase is my car. I bought a Porsche Cayenne Turbo. The house is a gorgeous three-bedroom place overlooking the ocean, actually a 190-degree view of the ocean right on the cliffs of Santa Barbara. Really great location.
Bluff: You mentioned there is a pool of maybe twenty players in the big games online. Are there any people in that pool, that when you see them online, you feel compelled to go play?
SBRugby: Absolutely. I have someone who monitors the games for me now. He either calls or texts me when the games get juicy. There are definitely some people I keep an eye on, and if they are playing I can make so much money that I have to go play. He (the monitor) works from 8am to 11pm, so we have a very similar schedule.
Bluff: How about giving us some of those names?
SBRugby: (laughs) Nope, sorry.
Bluff: On that note, who do you consider the best players online?
SBRugby:Well, David Benyamine is a great PLO player. Patrik is very strong. Durr does very well, Taylor Caby; there are a lot of very good poker players, a lot of guys that people don’t know about. Urindanger on Full Tilt is very good.
Bluff: Is there any player you designed your game after? A mentor of sorts?
SBRugby: If anybody, I guess it would be Taylor Caby. His videos helped my game enormously. I have gathered knowledge from everyone. I have read almost every book that has come out on poker and read the forums constantly.
Bluff: Speaking of forums, your name is a topic of constant discussion. Does that affect you at all?
SBRugby: Initially when I first started playing, I let things bug me. I then realized people will post about everyone. People will say I am lucky, or I run good; they are just trying to bring me down. It doesn’t bother me at all anymore.
Bluff: We touched briefly on your time on High Stakes Poker. In your opinion, how easy is it to transition from the online game to the live game?
SBRugby: I think people overemphasize the difference between the two. It’s really the same game. It’s not some magical entity where you are reading a player’s soul. Your opponent has a hand range and you have a hand. You have to calculate how much equity you have versus your opponent’s hand range. I don’t really think there is much difference.
Bluff: How did you like playing those guys live? Was there anyone in particular you were eager to play?
SBRugby: For one, you don’t get very many hands when you play in that game. The TV slows everything down. The High Stakes Poker lineup, I would love to play in that game every day if I could. It was a very good game.
Bluff:With the WSOP here upon us, do you plan on playing any events?
SBRugby: The CardRunners team and I are discussing which events we want to play. I’ll definitely play the Main Event and some smaller events, but which ones are still up in the air.
Bluff: Any interest in playing the 50k HORSE event?
SBRugby: Yeah, I am definitely interested in that. I need to work on my HORSE game before I decide whether or not to actually play the event.
Bluff: How about the big side games? Can we expect to see you there?
SBRugby: They don’t really go big enough. If they had big PLO and NL Hold’em games, I would play. Usually the biggest are 200/400 and that isn’t big enough for me live. I may as well just play online, because it’s more profitable: I can play more tables and more hands. If they had a 1k-2k No Limit game, I would definitely play that.
Bluff: How about trying both at the same time?
SBRugby: (laughs)
Bluff:What do you do on your off time to relax?
SBRugby: Really try to stay in shape. It’s so easy to eat and get big; I work hard not to get that way. I also have a dog I love to play with. So we spend a lot of time walking, and hanging out on the beach. I like to spend time with my friends. It’s hard, though. Playing online poker you have to make a big effort to keep your social life alive. You don’t really meet a lot of people playing. I try to regulate a schedule, and hang out with a group of friends on a regular basis.
Bluff: Where do you see yourself down the road?
SBRugby: I really want to keep improving my PLO game. I want to keep improving at all the HORSE games. That is a big process, and not my strong point. I want to become the best poker player I can possibly be, in all aspects of every game. I would definitely like to sit in the big game at the Bellagio. If it were just NL and PLO, I would be playing that game now. But since it’s mixed games, I need to keep on working on it before I sit in that game.
I could see myself five years from now playing a lot less poker, and mixing in some other investment and business opportunities. But right now, at least, poker is what I love doing.
Bluff:Well, thanks for all your time! We appreciate you taking us inside the world of high stakes online poker.
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