Have you played poker at any of the partypoker WPT National UK festivals? Were you at the Grand Prix Million at Dusk Till Dawn, Nottingham? If so, you’ve most likely bumped into Tristan Chaplin who seems to frequent these events more than most.
The popular 36-year old forklift truck driver from sunny Essex has been playing poker for around 10-years now, been a regular feature on the UK circuit for the past two years and, thanks to Gareth “Gaz The Hippy” Smirthwaite, has been playing at partypoker since the turn of the year.
“I discovered poker on late night TV after a few drinks when I stumbled across Late Night Poker and I’ve been hooked ever since,” Tristan told the partypoker blog.
This amazing game tends to do that to people, has it you?
Tristan specialises in multi table tournaments, where he’s sampled plenty of success, and prefers these to cash games so he can put more pressure on his opponents “because guys can’t just reload as in cash.” His love of tournaments has been fuelled by him winning the Amateur Poker Association & Tour (APAT) World Championships main event in 2014, a result that netted Tristan £7,500 and a trip to fabulous Las Vegas.
Although Tristan isn’t overly keen on the look of the partypoker software, he is a big fan of “the range of tournaments available and the satellites on offer to play live events,” and describes the partnership between partypoker and Dusk Till Dawn as “immense” and “great for UK poker.” We tend to agree fully on those positives.
The man who rates Neil Channing as his favourite professional poker players, partly because he was the first big name pros he met in person after watching him on the aforementioned Late Night Poker, has some solid advice for those of you reading this article and are wanting to push your game to the next level.
“Make notes on players and discuss hands with friends because you must never stop learning or trying to pick up on something new every session,” although his tongue-in-cheek comment about not starting to play poker because it takes up all of your free time isn’t something we’d advise!
There a very good chance that you and Tristan will cross paths at some point during 2015 because he’s set his sights on reaching the final table of a major live event before the year draws to a close.
“My goals for 2015 were to cash six times in live tournament and final table a big live main event. I’ve got the six cashes now, so only a major final table to go. Beyond 2015, I want to continue enjoying playing poker because I’ve met so many nice people through playing, who I now consider friends; it really is a very social game.”
Some may say poker is for the people!
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