Learn Texas Holdem Video Source & Info:

Rui Cao, the subject of this new video interview for the Paul Phua Poker School, is an aggressive player who is recognised as one of the best in France. He began playing seriously straight after university, at first making his name at Omaha. As he recalls in this video, there was one particularly memorable marathon PLO session against the mighty Isildur1 (Viktor Blom)… full interview transcript below.

When did you first start playing poker?
Rui Cao: I think it was in 2006, with a few friends who were playing in someone’s place, and we just learned the game there.

How did you improve your game?
Rui Cao: I think talking with friends in general because we were a group of players who learned together, and online videos, training sites and watching other pros better than me play.

What is your tournament play like?
Rui Cao: I’m pretty good in tournaments’ early stages, and I tend not to be very good later on. My main game is cash games so it’s very similar, we’re deep stacked and, yeah, I like early-stage tournaments because I can play quite loose and it’s generally softer than tough cash games. So I like to play deep against weaker competition than cash games.

What is your biggest strength as a player?
Rui Cao: I think being aggressive, in general. Being aggressive in general and putting pressure on. I think that’s what people say about me, yeah.

What makes a great player?
Rui Cao: I think being smart is a good point, and being able to learn fast is similar, to adjust fast to the game. Other than that, some human factors as well like discipline, patience, the ability to control ourselves, I think mostly.

Do you find poker stressful?
Rui Cao: Yes, I do think poker sometimes is stressful, because we’re pro poker players so sometimes our swings are related to our moods. So it’s kind of stressful, but it’s exciting at the same time.

How do you deal with losing?
Rui Cao: Quite OK. I just sleep for 15 hours and try to forget! But yeah, I think I’m OK with losing. I learn from it. I would say that swings are just part of the game, and nothing I can do can change it – maybe play better next time. I try to improve my game and losing is part of the game, I would say.

What’s your best moment in poker?
Rui Cao: I think it was online against Viktor Blom. I think it was in PLO, in 2009 or something, and we were four-tabling and maybe at one point I was down 30 buy-ins or something, and two hours later I was up like 30 buy-ins, and it was a pretty crazy upswing. We were, like, playing crazy, and it was a really, really fun session to play in.

More Rui Cao videos:



Source: YouTube