Snoopy: Tell us a bit about yourself.
Adam Latimer: I’m 24. I was born in Manchester and moved to London when I went to University, and now live in Oxford with my girlfriend who’s doing a PhD. I studied mechanical engineering at Imperial, but am currently doing business and finance at Oxford Brooks.
Snoopy: How did you get into poker?
AL: I started playing £5 and £10 tournaments when I was 19 at Imperial’s poker society, and I somehow won every week. At the time, we had no idea about payout structure, so we just did winner takes all and I won it every time between 18 people.
After doing that, someone came up to me and explained how they’d been playing online and winning some money, so I decided to give it a go myself. I read a book, which helped – Matt HIlger’s Guide to Internet Poker. It was very good actually. I started winning online and it progressed from there. I played $0.50/1 Fixed Limit Hold’em at the start.
A year later we all decided in the poker society that we’d take a trip to the Gutshot. We all went and played the £5 rebuy, which was great. I sat to the immediate left of Nik Persaud who went in almost every hand. That was my first experience of live poker.
Snoopy: Are you a tournament or cash player?
AL: I play more cash as a profession, $3/6 Pot or No Limit Omaha High-Low. I do play some multis, not necessarily the big Sunday comps, just any that I fancy playing.
Snoopy: As an Omaha cash player, how difficult was it adjusting to playing big Hold’em tournaments.
AL: Everyone started playing Hold’em, and I think when you start to learn these other forms, it’s just because you can adapt to different games and situations. In that sense, I see it as an asset.
Snoopy: As someone who hadn’t been to Vegas or played in a WSOP event, was lack of experience an obstacle at all?
AL: Not really. As a poker player, you just have to sit there and adapt to new surroundings – the players, the game – and you can’t be too worried.
Snoopy: What sites do you play on?
AL: PokerStars mainly.
Snoopy: How confident were you heading into the Grading?
AL: I was very confident, especially during the Grading because I’d been comparing my progress with the other players. The great thing was that everyone else thought I’d be going to Vegas too.
Snoopy: What was the hardest part of the Grading?
AL: Just putting in the hours really. It’s very tough doing four tables minimum, six hours a day. I don’t usually play that often and intensely, so it’s difficult to keep that up.
Snoopy: How confident were you on the day of the reveal?
AL: I was pretty confident. About 70 percent.
Snoopy: Have you ever been to Vegas?
AL: No, this isn’t my first time, but I can see myself making this an annual trip. I could live here if there were other people that I knew, but I’d rather just travel to Vegas ever year rather than make it my permanent home.
Snoopy: What’s your thought process going into these small buy-in WSOP events?
AL: I had a strategy of being slightly more ABC in the side games. I differentiate between tournament lines and cash game lines in poker and sometimes if you apply cash game lines to tournaments, it can end up going very wrong and you can do half your stack. You can’t do that because it’s all about maintaining and increasing your stack. Therefore, I’d wait for hands a lot more and hope people made mistakes. The Main Event has been a lot better because you get so many chips you don’t have to worry about things like that and you can almost play it like a cash game.
Snoopy: What’s the toughest hand you played in the Main Event?
AL: There hasn’t been anything that gave me multiple headaches. In terms of marginal, interesting hands, there was one where an aggressive player raised the cut-off and I three-bet with J-5 of clubs. The flop came A-6-5 with one club. He checked, I continuation bet and he instantly check-raised me. It was a difficult spot, but I didn’t think he’d play an ace this way, so I made the call. The turn was something like the nine of clubs and he checked, so I decided to bet because I’d improved to a flush draw. He called, and the river was a brick. He checked, and at this point, I was thinking that if he called the turn, then he’s never going to fold an ace, so I might as well check behind and hope my hand is good, which it was. He had K-T of clubs, meaning he’d turned the flush draw and tried to bluff me on the flop.
Snoopy: If you could change one thing about poker, what would you change?
AL: I quite like poker how it is. Here at the World Series, the tournament has been great with tonnes and tonnes of play. You could question little things like the play getting slow because of all the media, but you have to have that because it’s the Main Event, and it wouldn’t be so special if they weren’t there.
Snoopy: Will you always play poker?
AL: Yeah, I decided when I was 20 that this would be my career.
Snoopy: What would you do it you weren’t a professional?
AL: I’d be an equities trader.
Snoopy: What’s the strongest part of your game?
AL: People have said that I’m quite unflappable, in that I don’t get wound up. I’m not swayed by my emotions, which helps me make the correct decision.
Snoopy: If you could steal the skill of one player, what would that skill be and which player would you choose?
AL: I think every poker player has a natural style that they’d love to play. Deep down I’m a total rock. If I could just sit around and wait for aces, then that would be my most natural way of playing, but, obviously, you have to play aggressive even if you don’t want to, because aggressive is definitely the right way to play. So, I’d like to have a bit more fearlessness. There are spots when you think you should be three-barrelling this guy and putting in your stack on the river, but you get that fear in you that this is it, this is the moment. A guy like Phil Ivey has no problem doing that.
Snoopy: Who would you most likely want to stick a bad beat on?
AL: I don’t have anything against Phil Hellmuth, but that would be really funny, just to be there to see it. He’s a great player, but amusement wise, he’s the one to choose.
Snoopy: Online or live?
AL: I like them both. I always change what I’m playing to keep it interesting, so I wouldn’t really want to sacrifice one for the other, and I don’t have a particular preference. I love live poker for the interaction and the other information you get and I like online because you play more hands and can multi-table, so they both have their benefits.
Snoopy: Money or bracelet?
AL: The money is everything. A bracelet would make my day though. It’s difficult, I don’t play poker to be a millionaire, I do it because I enjoy it and wouldn’t want to do any other job. I don’t need to be rich to play poker. Having said that though, the money is definitely more important just so you can play higher games.
Snoopy: Tell us something that we don’t already know about you.
AL: I have three pet chickens and five chicks in my back garden in Oxford.