By Ryan Lucchesi and Lizzy Harrison
T.J. Cloutier has won six World Series of Poker bracelets. He currently resides in Texas, but he spends his summers in Las Vegas on a quest for bracelet number seven. Cloutier considers himself an old-school player, but that doesn't mean he can't hold his own with the new generation of poker players.On day 3 of the 2007 World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, Card Player caught up with Cloutier for the following interview:
Ryan Lucchesi: I notice you have a wide range of players at your table today. You have the young guns Nick Schulman and Hevad "Rain" Khan, and then you also have Erik Seidel. How are you trying to approach the different players at the table?
T.J. Cloutier: I'm just trying to use their styles against them, if I can. I'm going to play my own style, but my style is to play each payer individually.
RL: I notice that Nick has a lot of chips, are you trying to stay away from him? Do you ever try and avoid large stacks at your table?
TJC: No, I never try and stay away from anybody. I don't want to get into a confrontation with him with a weak hand. I don't want to give him a chance to double through me, but that's just tournament poker. He's a great young player, so is Hevad, but don't worry about it. Seidel is better than both of them. He just hasn't had any chips. The reason he is better than both of them is that he has a lot of experience and he has played against top competition for so long. Both of these kids have fantastic potential, but they just don't have the experience factor, yet - but they will. Especially Nick, because he is very active; he plays lots of pots.
RL: How do you switch your strategy from the first day of a tournament to the later days?
TJC: I try to survive the first day. The second day I try to get ahold of a few chips if I hold any hands. Actually, here, I never held too much the first two days, but I ended up at the end of the second day really well off. Today, during each of the first three levels I held aces. I didn't hold them one time yesterday, but today they haven't been beat yet. I won a couple pots with them and a couple other pots with situational plays against certain players. I don't do it against players who can't play, because they're idiots and they're going to call either way. Just pick your spots. Day 3 is a move day; you have to get ahold of some chips starting today and go on with it for the rest of the tournament, that's the whole idea. Most people get in a big hurry early in the tournament, and that's terrible. You can't win it on the first day. This is one race that the tortoise always wins.
RL: You say you can't win the tournament on the first day, but you also can't win it until you make the final table. How do you switch gears in strategy when the final table approaches?
TJC: I switch gears when … it's no secret, when everybody is trying to make the money I open up and play, because I'm not trying to make the money, I'm trying to win the damn thing, there's a big difference. I've made the money probably more than any man alive has, so who cares about just getting your money back. I'm shooting for that $1.7 million, you can bank on it. I mean, I might not get there, but at least that's what I'm trying for all the time.
RL: How much more important do the size of chip stacks become to you as the tournament progresses?
TJC: I just want to have chips on the final table. I never worry about what somebody else has. You can hold three or four hands, and get played with, in a row; you can win all of those hands in a row and all of a sudden you go from a very low stack to a very large stack. And Seidel knows that, that's why he has just been hanging on there and trying to do what he can do.
RL: How important do you think the experience factor is in these live tournaments?
TJC: Well, when you get down deep, it's very important. You're not going to put yourself in situations that the other guys will put themselves in. Your intuition is from experience … the first thing you think of is usually right, because that is born from all the things you've learned and seen over the years.
RL: What younger players do you admire that you've seen come up in the last couple years?
TJC: One of them is Nick Schulman, this is the first time I've ever played with him live, and he's played well all day. He's got a good mind on him. There are a lot of them. Allen Cunningham … he's a great young player. You know Daniel [Negreanu] is just in his early thirties now, and he's a great young player. There are a lot of them; there are a lot of great young players. They might be young in age, but they're not young in experience, anymore. They're playing six or 20 games at a time, and they play every day. One thing they always ask me is about this guy and that guy. I always say come back in 10 years and ask me, because I have seen so many one- and two-year wonders; it's out of this world. I mean, you've got to be able to last like Doyle [Brunson] and me, people who have been around for a lot of years.
RL: You're one of the more relaxed and talkative players in the field today, while a lot of the younger guys are bottled up, they have a hood, a set of sunglasses, or an iPod with them at the table. What do you think of this new trend?
TJC: They're going to miss something, don't worry about it; they're going to miss something. People who wear these iPods, they're going to miss something, because a lot of times it's not what they do, it's what they say that gives you tips. So, they can wear all the s--- that they want to, but I'm never going to wear it. That's what I tell my students at the WPT Boot Camp. I'm the lead instructor for them, and when I talk to them, I tell them that when you play in these tournaments, you must pay attention to what's going on. When I start playing on a final table … I've already figured out how I'm going to play each player individually if I get down to heads up with them. When you're playing, you should be playing.
Recently, Cloutier defeated a tough final table to win the championship event of the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge IV. Card Player had the chance to talk to Cloutier again after his most current win.
Lizzy Harrison: You have cut back on your tournament schedule; what made you decide to go up to Oklahoma for the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge IV?
T.J. Cloutier: Scotty invited me the first year that he held it, and I have tried to make it up there every year since then. They really treat you well up there in Oklahoma. Dave Stewart is the CEO, and he is a great guy. They just take such good care of the players. They take us to dinner; they do everything for us up there. They see to it that it is a very nice environment.
LH: Did you play in any events other than the championship?
TJC: I only played in the championship event, which is all I am playing anywhere, anymore, except for the tournaments at the World Series of Poker. I'm getting old.
LH: Was there a point in the championship when you knew that the title would be yours?
TJC: I told my wife before I left home that I was going to win it. I don't usually say that to anyone. It's funny, three or four years ago, I told Carl McKelvey that I was going to win a pot-limit tournament at Bellagio before it started. And I did. This time I told my wife. I didn't exactly say I was going to win it, I said I thought I would, and I did. That's pretty good. It is just the way that the cards are running; this is the fourth tournament in a row I have cashed in. I felt pretty good going up to Oklahoma.
LH: What were you thinking going in to that star-studded final table?
TJC: It was a very good final table, but I have been at some of the toughest final tables in the history of poker, so it did not bother me at all. We had one final table at the Four Queens where it came down to Doyle [Brunson], Chip [Reese], Erik [Seidel], and myself. And I have never seen a better final table than the first $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. tournament. I am pretty used to playing at tough final tables.
LH: What was it like to have Scotty Nguyen at the final table of his namesake tournament?
TJC: I think that Scotty plays great and, without a doubt, is the best short-stacked player in the history of tournament poker. He just hangs on, hangs on, hangs on and then makes his move. Scotty was forced to play the last hand he played in Oklahoma. He was the short stack and he raised on the button. I was in the big blind with two tens, so I reraised him all-in. He called and showed Q-J. The flop came Q-J-10! He couldn't have gotten away from the hand on the short stack; it just happened that he flopped two pair and I flopped three tens. It was a good flop for him, but a better flop for me, since I happened to have two tens.
LH: You've won the Card Player Player of the Year award two times out of the 10 times it was held. What would it mean for you to win it a third time?
TJC: Well, there is no chance of me winning it ever again. You have to play in a lot of tournaments to win it. I mean, I guess I could play in 10 tournaments and win them all, but what are the odds of that happening? I did not give myself any chance the last two years because I cut way back on my tournament schedule. I have many other endeavors, like teaching poker at the World Poker Tour Boot Camp. I am a busy guy. If I were younger, I would still be playing all of the time, but now I just try to play in the bigger tournaments.
LH: At this point in your life, do you still play cash games, or are you focused primarily on tournament poker?
TJC: I play cash games around home [Texas] a lot. Well, not a lot, but some. They have some pretty good games in Dallas. I do enjoy playing every now and then, but you know, I don't get as big of a thrill out of it anymore. I get a thrill out of playing big tournaments. I've been doing this for a lot of years.
LH: How do you select the tournaments that you choose to play?
TJC: I try to play the ones that are on TV so I can gain exposure for the companies I represent. Most of the ones I pick are the bigger buy-in tournaments. And, of course, I will always play in the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event. I will play it until I die. Also, the main event at the WSOP, I have not missed one of those since 1983. And the Bellagio's $25,000 buy-in tournament, and the $15,000 one that is coming up, I will play in those tournaments every year. So, it is pretty much cut and dry that I will play every really big one that I can get to. I haven't had a chance to play in Monte Carlo, yet, because of scheduling conflicts. This year I was in Bulgaria. I gave a seminar in Bulgaria! They named a tournament after me there; that was great. I also went overseas this year to play in Copenhagen, and I was well received there. Now, it is kind of an international thing. Once you are known, they know you everywhere. People stop me on the street all over the place.
LH: The tournament fields these days are huge, but you keep rising to the top, what is it about your game that makes you a successful poker pro in the current poker climate?
TJC: My biggest strength is observation. I can sit down with anybody, and I will know how they play in 15 or 20 minutes. That works well for me. Also, I have total recall on if I have played with someone before. That is an important skill that you can't learn. People have said to me "How are you going to beat me, I have read all of your books," and I say "That's OK, I wrote 'em." The other thing is, you can teach a player to be a winning player, but you cannot teach them the feel that certain players are born with. My game has not changed, not for years. The only thing that has changed is that there are more players and more of them can play the game. Let's put it this way, there is a certain amount of players who are what we call the A-plus players. These are players who know the game well enough that, if they hold any cards at all, they have a good chance to win, as long as they do not get unlucky. That has not changed. It is just that some new guys have been added to the list. I mean, let's talk about the final table I just won. Gavin Smith, he is a good player, and Bill Edler, he's a great player. But they have a different style than me, they are very active. Scotty Nguyen and I, we play a lot alike, and we have both lasted a lot of years. The thing about poker is that you can play different styles and still get there. But I won't ever change my game.
LH: If a young pro asked your advice on how to be a long-term winning player, what would you suggest?
TJC: I would tell him to always work at his game. Nowadays, there are so many books to read. When I came up, I learned by the seat of my pants. Now, there is just so much information out there and so many ways to improve your game. You have to take advantage of everything that is out there. It is just like every other profession, you have to work at it. If you work at it hard enough, and you have the brain power and intestinal fortitude that it takes, you can succeed. You have to have the guts to get in there and make a bluff on the flop, do it again on fourth street, and then again on fifth street. If you want to win, you have to be able to do that.
LH: Your wife is often spotted on the rail while you play, how important is a stable marriage to a professional poker player?
TJC: I think it is good, because when old dudes like me who have been around for a while go to play poker, we play poker. However, it is not our whole life. We do other things, and we have families. I do not eat and breathe poker. That's one thing I have noticed about the younger guys, they do not have time for anything but playing poker. Hell, you have to have a life.
LH: At this point in your life, you have almost $9 million in tournament winnings, what do you consider to be your greatest tournament accomplishment?
TJC: I have more than $9 million in earnings from tournaments. I used to say my biggest accomplishment was winning the Diamond Jim Brady three years in a row. But now I have to say that it is my consistency that I am most proud of. I've been consistent over a long period of time, and people know I am not a pushover when I sit down at the table. That feels good [laughs].
LH: What is your biggest poker-related goal for the future?
TJC: I have never won the big one at the WSOP. I have two seconds, a third, and a fifth. I really want to win the big one at the WSOP. I also want to win the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event. I used to say I had two goals left, one was to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame and the other one was to win the main event at the WSOP. Well, I was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame a couple of years ago. I still want to win the WSOP main event, and my newest goal is to win the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event.
