Philipp “Moldran” Karbun may be better-known for being a professional video gamer, but he is also a regular featured poker player on the partypoker Twitch channel.
Moldran first discovered poker when he was a 19-year-old high-school graduate. Moldran began his poker career playing for play money and managed to build his first bankroll through freerolls before switching to multi-table sit ‘n’ go tournaments. Soon after getting his foot on the poker ladder, Moldran switch to large field multi-table tournaments where he enjoyed immediate success, running very deep in two of them for a combined $2,000.
“I immediately cashed out; it was a lot of money for me back then.”
These days, Moldran prefers to play short-handed sit ‘n’ go tournaments, hyper-turbo heads-up sit ‘n’ gos and turbo MTTs.
Playing video games competitively has its similarities to playing online poker, at least according to Moldran.
“I used to play World of Warcraft professionally for SK-Gaming, and many other former pro-gamers also transitioned into becoming professional poker players. Some of us have got very competitive personalities, always striving to become the best at whatever game we are playing. The experience from competing at a high level in video games definitely comes in handy when it comes down to facing tough opponents on the poker tables.
There are not only similarities between gaming and poker, some of the skills are easily transferable, too.
“Never give up and never surrender! There is always a way to comeback, no matter how short you are. In my biggest MTT win (almost $4,100), I was actually down to two big blinds before I ran it up all the way to the final table out of 3,500 players. Furthermore, I won a 6-max hyper SNG after being down to only six chips when starting stacks were 500 chips each.
You may think that playing poker on a live stream on the partypoker Twitch channel may make Moldran play poker to a higher standard, but he says it does the opposite because it can take his attention away from what is happening on his tables. But it isn’t without its positives.
“Streaming does not make me perform better, as I spend a lot of time interacting with the chat and tend to get more excited about big stacks and interesting hands. However, streaming makes playing poker so much more fun for me – sharing all the great moments with a crowd of people, and spending an entire evening talking with other passionate poker players about the game and hands is always a wonderful experience and definitely a highlight for me every week.”
Many of Moldran’s followers of his poker channel may be completely new to the game, having followed him over from his popular gaming channel, so Moldran has some advice for them and other beginners.
“In my opinion the most important advice – and I definitely had to learn this the hard way myself – is to follow a proper bankroll management. Always have at least 100 buy-ins for whichever SNG or MTT you are playing, and make sure to constantly work on improving your game off the tables.”
We couldn’t let Moldran go without asking him for some hints and tips for becoming a popular streamer; he does, after all, have a huge following on his gaming channel.
- Make sure you have a great set-up for audio, video and a reliable internet connection
- Have a USP (unique selling proposition) – something that really makes your stream stand out among all the other streamers!
- Always be very interactive – especially as a new streamer, there will be periods with only a few or no viewers at all. But you still need to provide the same entertainment and quality as you would if you had 100 viewers! That way, new people joining your stream will be immediately exposed to your personality and content and might even become new regular viewers of the stream!
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1 Comment
Dish!