Chris “Fox” Wallace is an instructor at PokerXfactor.com in addition to working with the new poker training site GrinderU.com where you can sign-up for free. “Fox” also runs the wildly popular FoxPoker.com where you’ll find all manner of useful information and downloads, such as spreadsheets and auto-rate rules.
“Fox” will also be running a poker boot camp for aspiring pros in Las Vegas, Nevada in March 2011. For more information regarding this unique training experience please visit propokerseminars.com where details for the seminar will be made available shortly.
You can purchase Chris "Fox" Wallace's new book No Limits: The Fundamentals of No-Limit Holdem at NoLimitsBook.com.
I recently had the chance to talk to Chris “Fox” Wallace regarding his new poker book, No Limits: The Fundamentals of No-Limit Holdem, and “Fox’s” other projects, as well as getting his thoughts on a number of different issues in poker. Enjoy.
Online Poker Examiner: Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time to talk with me. My first question for you has to do with your new book, No Limits:The Fundamentals of No-Limit Holdem. What was it you felt was lacking from other No Limit primers that made you decide to write No Limits, and could you give me some insight on the target audience you were hoping to reach?
Chris "Fox" Wallace: While there were other books that taught people about no-limit, none of them seemed to teach people how to actually think about the game. They seemed to be teaching systems or expressing concepts that the author didn't know how to relate to the game itself. No-Limit Holdem is such a fluid game that no two situations are ever the same, and that means it's impossible to play deep stacked by a set of rules or memorizing a bunch of possible situations. I like to think it's sort of a Theory of Poker for No-Limit Holdem.
OPE: Almost from the outset of your poker career you’ve always been involved with strategy and theory, both as a coach and writing about poker, did you find this experience helped when it came time to write the book?
Fox: It was a huge help. When you are playing in front of students or to make videos for a training site, you have to be able to explain every move you make. This meant that over time I began to understand why I was winning and I learned how to teach it to other people. Without that experience I don't the book would have come to fruition.
OPE: Could you talk about the self-publishing process, and what factors made you decide to go that route?
Fox: Initially I thought the book was very good, and the way the reviews have been we have seen that pretty much everyone agrees with that. I wasn't willing to take a very tiny amount of the price of each book and give 80% of the profits to the publisher when the market was mostly my students and readers and all they were going to do was print it. I actually tried to contact a number of poker publishers who haven't gotten back to me four months later, but at this point I'm glad they didn't. The few that did come back to us offered such small amounts of money it was laughable. We're definitely doing better self-publishing and sales have been even better than we expected.
OPE: You’re one of the few poker pros I’ve seen advocate for setting a stop-loss limit in certain situations, I was wondering if you think the same reasoning holds true for stop-win limits, and what situations/player personalities do you think a stop-win limit would apply to?
Fox: I used to be against a stop-loss or stop-win. I thought if the game was good I should keep playing no matter what. Now I now that everyone tilts. I don't tilt much, but it does happen. If I lose more than a few buy-ins in a no-limit game I have probably lost them because I'm not playing well or I am now on tilt from some bad beats. In many of these situations I could continue to play profitably, but I may be on tilt and unaware, so after three or four buy-ins I'm done. As for a stop-win, I wouldn't use one unless you think that you start to play badly after you are up a certain amount. It's all about how well you are playing and how good the game is, but you have to make sure that you are playing as well as you feel you are.
OPE: There is a bit of debate going on about the ethics of different software programs –some consider data-mining horrible for the game, while others point to data-mined statistics as having caught some of the biggest online poker cheats. Considering you’re one of the “go-to guys” when it comes to software for online poker players could you talk a little about your personal thoughts on third-party software, and what you think about Ladbrokes new “Anonymous Poker Tables”?
Fox: Datamining will probably always happen. Even if they got rid of hand histories it would probably happen on the big sites if there was enough reason for someone to write a program to screen scarp and compile the stats. If they wanted to go the route Cake Poker has taken and get rid of hand histories and allow people to change their screen name regularly, then it would certainly help, but then you would have people selling notes files or working around it in other ways.
Whatever the solution is, we know for sure that the system is broken on Full Tilt and Stars right now, and to a lesser extent on the other sites. They have created a prohibition they can not enforce. This punishes the people who follow the rule, and rewards those who break the rule by giving them an unfair advantage. Since they can not catch anyone buying datamined hands or using poker-edge, they need to drop the prohibition or expect that many of their players will go elsewhere to avoid facing the dilemma of cheating or being cheated.
OPE: In 2010 you seem to have upped the amount of live tournaments you have played –having made deep-runs in both WPT and WSOP tournaments—are the major live tournaments the next stage of your poker career?
Fox: I love live tournaments, though I haven't played many of the big ones. My results have always been pretty good in live tournaments, I just haven't spent enough time playing them to get a feel for what my ROI might really be. I am trying to play lots of $1k and smaller events to really put a fine edge on my game, but I'm not bankrolled for anything bigger than that and I'm widely known as the biggest bankroll nit ever. I won't play an MTT without 100 buy-ins. Since I'm not really into begging for money or actively seeking out backers, I may not be playing the bigger events until my bankroll is very large or a backer just appears and starts putting me in them. I was hoping to have a deal worked out with an online poker room that would put me in a bunch of big live events, but it appears they don't actually have the money we were discussing.
OPE: What else is in the pipeline for “Fox”?
Fox: I'm working on putting up some courses at GrinderU.com, which I think could be a great site if we can get some good coaches on board. The technology is awesome. I also have a mixed games book nearly finished, but I think it's too soon to self-publish again right away so it will probably be awhile. I really like working with PokerXFactor.com and I expect that to continue for a long time. I'm putting together a poker camp for the second weekend in March, and this will be the first time I've done anything like that, so it should be interesting. We'll be taking sign ups at propokerseminars.com within a week or so, and we already have a number of excellent instructors including a tilt control seminar with Dr. Alan Schoonmaker that was just confirmed.
OPE: When I got to page 10 of No Limits –where things get “fuzzy” I turned to my wife and said “this is the best poker book I have ever read!” and showed her the starting hand chart you included. Without including a ‘SPOILER ALERT’ I’d love to know who came up with the idea for that?
Fox: I have to say it was my idea, but my coauthor did all the design work for the book so all I gave him was the idea and he created the actual chart. I love the way it looks, though I have had a few people ask me if something went wrong in the printing process with their book!
Read my review of No Limits: The Fundamentals of No-Limit Holdem
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