High stakes reg Luke Schwartz has given a revealing interview with Twitch poker streamer Jeff Gross. The cash game grinder told many stories from how he got started to the glory days on Full Tilt Poker.
Early Start
Luke Schwartz got his start with poker quite a bit earlier than most of us. Around the age of nine he was introduced to the game holidaying in the USA. While known as that motormouth Brit, he reveals that his parents are American, a fact not many of us knew.
Gross delves into Schwartz’s start into tournament poker. HendonMob shows that his first 18 results entered were final tables! A sign of what was to come later.
Schwartz tells how once he got settled into cash games he had a period of going broke trying to beat $5/$10 NL. This cycle repeated many times until he finally cracked it.
Eventually, he ramped up his account to more than $2 million but still failed to land a much coveted Full Tilt Poker sponsorship deal that most high stakes players aimed at.
The Deep Depths of Despair
It wasn’t all plain sailing for Schwartz once he established himself as a top draw cash game player. Always a sports betting fan, he turned into somewhat of a degenerate betting up to $20,000 on random horses during a single race.
Realising that his family was the most important thing in his life, Schwartz managed to turn things around and focussed his energy on being a great mixed games player.
So great, in fact, he declares himself as the best in the world in that niche.
One man who does think Luke Schwartz is a great player and worthy of recognition is Phil Nagy, CEO of Americas Card Room. Schwartz now has an official deal in place to represent them.
The chat turns to what a poor job PokerStars does these days at satisfying their customers. Americas Card Room and partypoker, in contrast, are stepping up to the plate by being innovative and doing all they can to challenge Pokerstars’ domination.
Ready for the Galfond Challenge
Schwartz was one of the applicants to play Phil Galfond in his Galfond Challenge offered to all comers. The pair eventually agreed to play 15,000 hands of $1,000/$2,000 8-game with a $250,000 side bet.
Hi Luke! Happy New Year 🙂
Thanks for your interest in the #GalfondChallenge! What a great idea!!
We can play some 1k/2k 8-game (no pigeon stakes plz) but I‘d feel bad accepting odds from you, so I’ll offer 1.1:1 on a sidebet of $250k for a 15k hand match.
🐦 Flap Flap! https://t.co/LvDvh8Crd2
— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) January 5, 2020
While Galfond made his name as a PLO wizard, he has kept himself busy playing mixed games in bobby’s Room at the Bellagio Casino, rather than PLO online.
This could be one of the more interesting matchups later this year.
Schwartz has been heavily critical of Galfond’s performances so far in his match against “VeniVidi1993”. Down almost a million dollars and looking out of sorts.
Schwartz gives an opinion shared by many in the community,
“You cannot take four years off and think you can stroll back in and come and beat the best. It doesn’t work like that.”
Ha u really are a nice guy . I'm just hyping it , was more of a slander about the post match essays and the miserable fanboys worrying about you and your bottomless pit of money 🤭. Rest up go get some Perkins money and avoid action freak . Be well phil x
— luke schwartz (@__fullflush1__) February 12, 2020
This interview showed a more mellow side to Luke Schwartz. He usually thrives on his controversial statements but wasn’t like that here.
Towards the end Schwartz gives some thoughts on some of the most well-known players still active.
Phil Ivey gets the usual respect but so does Daniel Negreanu. The Canadian takes a lot of flak in online poker news forums, regardless of the insane money that he has won over his career.
One man who Schwartz thinks isn’t worthy of his reputation is Phil Hellmuth. This isn’t exactly a controversial opinion, so we’ll leave that one alone here.
Those of you interested in watching Luke Schwartz battle with Phil Galfond later in the year can keep abreast of what’s happening here.
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