Patrick Antonius: How to Compete with the Best Poker Players in the World | DSH #1610

Summary

Digital Social Hour – Episode Summary

Episode: Patrick Antonius: How to Compete with the Best Poker Players in the World | DSH #1610
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Patrick Antonius
Date: November 8, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Sean Kelly sits down with legendary Finnish poker pro Patrick Antonius in Las Vegas for a wide-ranging, candid conversation. Antonius reflects on his decades in poker, the evolution of high-stakes gaming, differences between live and online play, the mental and emotional challenges of the game, and his entrepreneurial efforts with First Land of Poker (FLOP). The discussion blends technical strategy with psychological insights and personal anecdotes, offering listeners a rich behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to compete – and thrive – at the highest levels.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Perfectionism and the Nature of Poker ([00:00])

• Patrick on his mindset:
  • "In my mind, I'm kind of a perfectionist. And it makes me many days after tournaments or cash games when I'm done playing and I can't get out of some hands that I played and was that a mistake and how big. And I'm analyzing them..."
  • Patrick stresses poker’s impossibility of perfection: "It's definitely a game that no one can play any kind of perfect way. It's just one decision at a time."

2. Preference for Cash Games and Evolution of Tournaments ([01:13])

• Cash games over tournaments:

  • "I've been always a cash game player my whole life. The tournaments have been something that I never really had any goals, and they've been just fun bonus things."
  • He explains, "The cash games have been always so much bigger than tournaments... I also like the freedom. I play when I feel good, I quit when I want."

• On the impact of high roller events (Triton):

  • "[Triton] has been an absolute game changer... It's the best feeling in the world when you win a tournament."
    ([02:20])

3. The Poker Lifestyle: Location, Structure & Passion ([04:18], [07:29])

• Best places to play:

  • Favors locations like Montenegro and praises Triton's player experience.

• Daily structure:

  • Prefers day games in Las Vegas: "Play during the day and makes a big difference for me."
  • "I think I have more passion now. It's a different kind of passion..." ([07:29])

• Grind in the early years:

  • "I went through a period of maybe playing like close to 12 hours per day for six years, seven years." ([07:44])
  • "Online poker was then different than nowadays... the games were there 24/7 and very good games." ([07:50])

4. Live vs. Online Poker: Skills, Tells, and Adjustments ([09:04])

• Comparing skills:

  • "It's a different kind of skill... you need to be much more statistically oriented when you play online... you're not gonna get live reads..."
  • "Live, a lot of little things come into play and a good player always builds a feel of what's happening."

• On body language:

  • "It's pretty difficult to fake a strong body language when you have a weak hand. If you are strong you can probably look weak, but it's very difficult to... especially in some big important moments." ([09:37])

5. Mindset, Confidence, and Handling Variance ([10:55], [15:48])

• Goals and growth:

  • "I'd really be proud of myself if I can keep up with... the best players, how strong they are... for the next 20 years."
    ([10:55])
  • "I think I'm on a peak of my game." ([11:37])
  • "It's all how much you put effort on it and energy, how much motivation you have." ([11:44])

• Motivation and happiness:

  • "I noticed that I'm so much happier when I get to play a lot of poker. Too much is too much – there’s balance in everything." ([12:42])

• Thriving in high-stakes situations:

  • "Once we play for big money... it brings certain aspects in the game... I've always been good at navigating this kind of world." ([13:44])

• Key motivation:

  • "I get a lot of satisfaction playing against the best in the world... If I'm able to outplay them, that's always a challenge." ([15:48])

6. The Imperfection and Psychology of Poker ([17:37], [19:37])

• Poker as an emotional crucible:

  • "Poker gives you a feeling which you never had if you never did competitive sports... it's very fulfilling for a lot of people to experience." ([17:37])

• Game complexity and self-awareness:

  • "It's a game really that it's hard to say when it's right or wrong... you have to balance things, play same hands in different ways otherwise you're too predictable..."
  • "You just have to forget those [mistakes] and move on and focus again." ([18:26])

• Variance and confidence:

  • "You can be the best player in the world. You can have a horrible six-month streak... Everyone who plays a lot for long periods will go through these periods... it can really start messing with your head and you start questioning how am I playing..." ([19:41])
  • He describes how bad or good luck can impact confidence and make players too cautious or overconfident.

• Coping with downswings:

  • "It's good to take a break... When you feel like you're playing your best again, then it's better to go on to the bigger games..." ([22:05])

7. Poker's Changing Landscape: Training, Solvers & Human Element ([23:13], [24:27])

• Easier access to information:

  • "Nowadays it's so accessible to study the game to get better. We have all kinds of tools, right... So you can get your game pretty good pretty quickly."
  • On the early days: "[Then] you could be sure the poker books had only wrong information because nobody knew anything." ([24:16])

• Over-studied vs. intuitive players:

  • "Players who are overly studied are lacking a lot of things... they're just playing it with numbers... a lot of them are ignoring the human aspect of the game." ([25:06])

• Human behavior vs. solvers:

  • "Basically like humans under bluff every spot, almost... because people bluff less, we also call less." ([26:29])
  • "If you try to play like a computer against humans, maybe you're gonna have a lot of success bluffing because they will fold a lot." ([26:56])

• Poker’s evolution:

  • "Poker is growing a lot. It's a really nice time to be experiencing." ([28:19])

8. The Mainstream and Future of Poker ([28:21], [30:28])

• On the current boom:

  • "Live events are breaking records. I think we're knocking on the door again for mainstream... There’s a poker league possibly coming soon." ([28:25])

• Olympics and mainstream appeal:

  • "I don't know if it belongs there [the Olympics], but I definitely think it belongs to the mainstream." ([30:15])

• Popularity stats:

  • "There's more than 100 million people who play poker. It's pretty large number." ([30:32])

9. Antonius’ Approach to Solvers ([30:46])

• Personal approach:

  • "I don't use them at all. But when I study the game and I work with... my people... then we look at them."
    ([30:46])
  • "I've been having a very good baseline on my game naturally... almost always already knowing what the computer does and how big the betting sizes..."
  • "But you have to have quite a complex brain to self-balance all the hands... it's a complete kind of shit show." ([31:10])

• Unique playstyles:

  • "I just like to play in the way that my opponents are not used to... it's more likely they make mistakes." ([32:23])

10. Tennis, Padel, and Physical & Cognitive Wellness ([33:13], [38:11])

• Tennis roots and sports analogy:

  • "Playing tennis was my sport... but it was clear after a lot of injuries that I was falling behind."
    ([17:09])
  • "Padel is amazing" but admits it’s tough physically, especially on his hips ([36:00]), and shares stories of play-related injuries.

• Brain and health for poker:

  • "Health is my passion and my way to live... As a poker player I approach poker as a sport and the most important thing is that I’m well rested." ([38:11])
  • On optimizing brain health: "The brain is a master of adaptation, you need to keep changing things, even supplementation... If you do the same things over and over again, the effects start diminishing." ([40:11])
  • On the importance of memory: "Very good, very important, your memory. Our brain is everything... taking care of your body and physical health goes together with how your brain and mind functions." ([41:05])

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Memorable Quotes & Highlights

• On imperfection and variance:
  • "It's definitely a game that no one can play any kind of perfect way. It's just one decision at a time." —Patrick Antonius ([00:00], [18:26])
• On competition and satisfaction:
  • "I get a lot of satisfaction playing against the best in the world. If I'm able to outplay them... that's always a challenge." —Patrick Antonius ([15:48])
• On poker as meditation:
  • "It’s kind of your meditative state in the way... when I play, I really forget everything else." —Patrick Antonius ([15:48])
• On human vs algorithmic play:
  • "Humans under bluff every spot... If you try to play like a computer against humans, maybe you’re gonna have a lot of success bluffing because they will fold a lot." —Patrick Antonius ([26:29])
• On self-care and performance:
  • "If you haven’t slept well, if you have a lot of chronic inflammation or pain... that is stopping you to feel good. If you're feeling good, you're gonna put yourself in a much different position to make right decisions." —Patrick Antonius ([41:05])
• On future focus and entrepreneurship:
  • "Recently I signed a contract with one of the largest poker platforms... Also, I'm a co-founder of First Land of Poker... things are looking pretty good regarding our product and development. We'll do some cash game events with our land based casino partners next year." —Patrick Antonius ([42:29])

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Patrick’s Entrepreneurial Venture: First Land of Poker (FLOP) ([44:47])

• What FLOP does:
  • "We offer our digital solutions for land based poker rooms... a cloud-based web solution that automates the poker room’s daily operations... Also for the players, we have an application where they can see all the games, take seats, join a waiting list, communicate with the poker room."
  • On future goals: "It’s about player experience... still a lot of poker rooms are operating in a pretty old school way... Players time is very valuable. All these things should be optimized."
• Vision:
  • "I would say this is one of the last industries that they're using good digital solutions to improve their operation."
    ([47:27])

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Key Timestamps

• Perfectionist mindset & poker's imperfection: [00:00], [18:26]
• Cash games vs tournaments: [01:13], [02:19]
• Day vs night play, Las Vegas lifestyle: [00:57]
• Live vs online poker: [09:04]
• Passion for the game: [07:29]
• Thriving under pressure / High-stakes Adrenaline: [13:44]
• Psychological impact, variance: [19:37], [21:54]
• Poker education/tools: [23:13], [24:27]
• Human element vs solvers: [26:29]
• Entrepreneurship and FLOP: [44:47]
• Health routines and brain health: [38:11]
• Memory and physical health: [41:05]

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Tone & Closing

Patrick Antonius remains candid, thoughtful, and humble throughout, stressing the continual need for adaptability and balance in poker and life. The episode is both a technical masterclass and a philosophical meditation on what it means to compete at the highest level.

— End of Summary —

Transcript

[Patrick Antonius]

In my mind, I'm kind of a perfectionist. And it makes me many days after tournaments or cash games when I'm done playing and I can't get out of some hands that I played and was that a mistake and how big. And I'm analyzing them and you know, and it's. Sometimes you decide right things but it turns out to be horrible when I won a big pot or you would have lost a big pot sometimes when whatever you decide to do and so on and you just have to forget those and just move on and focus again. But it's definitely a game that no one can play any kind of perfect way. It's just one decision at a time.

[Interviewer]

All right guys, got Patrick Antonius here in Las Vegas. Playing a lot of poker lately out here.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, I play some.

[Interviewer]

You play any last night?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yes, we play daytime. Daytime, that's the best thing here. We have these games during the day, so I love my schedule here.

[Interviewer]

You prefer the day games over the night games?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, yeah, it's especially nowadays, Nowadays it's a, it's a really nice thing to be able to play like normal sleep, normal hours, train normal hours. Yeah, play during the day and makes a big difference for me.

[Interviewer]

You prefer the, the cash games, right, not the tournaments?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, I've been always a cash game player my whole life. It's the tournaments has been something that I never really had any goals and they've been just fun bonus things and I managed to, I managed to really crush the games very early. And the cash games have been always like so much bigger than torments. So that's why I've been, I've been just focusing on what's bigger and also I like the freedom of it that I play when I feel good, I quit when I want. Once you enter a tournament and you stuck with the schedule for days long hours and, and but especially back in the days, the problem was that the tournaments were so small, like ten thousand dollar buy in and then you can go play a cash game where you can win or lose a million. It's like you have to win a tournament five days to make it. Of course you can lose that money, but it just gives you a perspective of how big of a difference it was game size wise.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Patrick Antonius]

And nowadays, you know, Triton has been an absolute game changer that this is why I started to play more tournaments nowadays. That it's exciting, it gets my adrenaline going. It's obviously very big and it's also like very tough schedule to go and play. Two weeks every day. But I like this kind of I. I like tournaments a lot as long as it's you know like important enough.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Patrick Antonius]

Which means the money is big enough and. And it's. It's kind of like it gives you more feelings and it's. It's. I mean it's the best feeling in the world when you win a tournament. But yeah thanks to Triton that we have these kind of high roller tournaments more because otherwise there would be very few.

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[Patrick Antonius]

Wouldn'T see me playing too many tournaments. Wow.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. They really got the high rollers going to Asia now to play poker. Triton, right?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah it's. They're all over the world is just not in usa. They have events in Europe and Asia and Cyprus on Turkey side and I think they might have one in Africa later this year. Who knows.

[Interviewer]

Where's your favorite place to play at?

[Patrick Antonius]

Montenegro is beautiful where they have it. That's a very nice setup by the ocean. Good. I mean all the places maybe Jeju is a bit tough where they've had events regarding traveling and but we don't have so much time to do other things anyways once we play these tournaments. But they have really mastered the experience for the players. How they take care of everyone that's everyone's needs is I don't know what else you can have what you. What else you can ask as a player. You have food 247 served to you when you play. You don't have to think about how to organize that or dinner breaks or anything and. And they have VIP service people responding you 24 hours regarding anything and. And you see yeah best. Best tournament organization in general. So but look they're getting like people, very wealthy people and all the best players flying in from all over the world to play this tournament.

[Interviewer]

Do you change the style of your play based off where you're playing the location?

[Patrick Antonius]

I mean I always change my style based on the players that I play with. Like this is a good poker player is always adjusting so there's no really game style that you should have in my opinion you should be able to do anything, anything. Just always do the right thing at the right time, whatever is right now against this player. And poker is extremely complex game. It's something that we will never master. And you know, it's not a game that is meant to play perfect and that's the beauty of the game. And the same time it's so much skill but perfect amount of luck and. Yeah, and yeah, it's been a, it's been, it's been an interesting journey with poker, like later age in my life. I've even realized how good of a game we have like how much more, more it can offer for a person than like early on my 20s when I was just wanted to play, play, play and it was so much about just action and playing. Right. But as a, regarding, like a personal growth also like it's, it can give you a lot, you can, can learn a lot about yourself with your wins and losses and everything, how you manage yourself. There's a lot of human behavior, human psychology, lot of energy exchange, lots of, lots of things that you can take in and improve yourself.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you still have the same passion as you did in your 20s for poker?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, I think, I think I have more passion now. It's a different kind of passion because then when I was younger I was playing so much. I had a lot of passion to play and I played probably I went through a period of maybe playing like close to a 12 hour per day for six years, seven years. Wow.

[Interviewer]

No days.

[Patrick Antonius]

This is a, I mean I sometimes but I was just like, you know, I was really lucky. We had. Online poker was then different than nowadays and before. There were no like programs helping you and not even like a last hand histories were offered and the games were there 24, 7 and very good games. So you could wake up, play online, eat breakfast, play some online, few hours, go to workouts or something, come back, play again, have another workout or whatever, whatever you do and play again. Like you can split your days when you played online, just all the way before you went to sleep. And I was playing a lot online those days when I was younger, before.

[Interviewer]

The solvers, before the cheaters.

[Patrick Antonius]

No, I don't know about cheaters. I mean, I mean it's, it's. I mean there's been some scandals back in the days obviously, but, but live poker is the real experience. And this is also like I'm a much better live player than online. Maybe that wasn't the case 20 years.

[Interviewer]

Ago, but do you Think there's more skill needed involved with live poker compared to online.

[Patrick Antonius]

It's a different kind of skill we're talking about. Like you need to be much more statistically oriented when you play online based on your opponents because you, you're not gonna get live reads, you're not gonna get this kind of feel right. Sometimes you can get some little time tail or bidding size still that you can make a, make up your mind of what indicates weakness or strength. And this can be also opponent leading you another way. But live a lot of little things comes into play and good player always builds up, builds a feel of what's, what's happening, that's how strong or weak you are. And very little things that we can observe can, can influence your decisions. And it's pretty difficult to fake a strong body language when you have a weekend. We are nothing like other way around. I think if you are strong you can, you can probably, probably look weak, but it's very difficult to, to especially when it's like some big important moments that's in tournaments, you're risking your tournament life or you know, some, some play.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it's tough to get a bluff through these days. Right. People are so good at the tells now.

[Patrick Antonius]

Well, they're good at reading the game, reading the situation, reading the hands. But yeah, every situation is different. So it's hard to say.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, you've played in some big games over the years. I mean what are you, 29th all time money list, number one in Finland. Have you accomplished everything you wanted to in the game of poker? Do you have any goals to this day?

[Patrick Antonius]

I mean, I have my goals. I have my goals in general of just being responsible for myself that I really enjoy competing against the best. And it's nothing that is serious goal. Like, I mean I don't have to, I don't have to achieve these things, but I would really, really be proud of myself if I can keep up with how the game is evolving and the best players, how strong they are and if I can still compete with them in like for let's just say the next 20 years. That was because it's, it's gonna be more difficult in the older age. Yeah, I, I assume and, but I think I'm on a peak of my game.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And I still feel like you're getting better to this day.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yes, of course.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Patrick Antonius]

It's all, it's all like, it's all how much you put effort on it and energy, how much motivation you have. It's just if I will yeah. Like if I will, if I have other goals that are important, they're taking, taking my energy. That's probably going to be a lot away from poker. But at the moment I'm pretty much full time, full time poker and I really like it, I love it. It's something that makes me happy and I've experienced all kind of things when I've had periods when I don't play so much and there hasn't been so many big games available and, and then I end up, usually I end up doing other things that the as the result is not always that great. Like, like I end up over training. I start training twice a day if I have because I have a lot of energy. Like I'm not a guy who likes to sit at home and watch TV and I have a professional sports background. I used to do a lot of sports since I was little, all kind of sports and then tennis was my, was my sport. But, but yeah it's, it's, it's. I noticed that I'm so much, so much happier when I, when I get to play a lot of poker. But obviously too much is too much. There's balance in everything. But it gives you some kind of satisfaction of you know, using your brain. Being in the present moment stimulates a lot of thinking and if you don't get that you get a kind of find this kind of stimulation from some other things.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So you like adrenaline, you like that rush?

[Patrick Antonius]

I like the adrenaline in a way that when it gets his. Gets my focus into it. If the game is not meaningful, like it's too small then, then you don't. Yeah, I won't enter that kind of state of focus, the kind of intensity. That's why I always like the high stakes and it's, it's also like been my best skill that once we play for big money that it's, it is meaningful for all of us. Like no matter how much money you have it brings certain aspects in the game that we start talking about players comfort zones that yeah. What kind of hands, you know what kind of bet sizings they start been uncomfortable of bluffing or calling off and, and this, this brings another skill to the game and I've been always good at, good at kind of navigating this kind of, this kind of world. It's definitely a different type of game than low stakes when just chips are flying and chips are flying and it's laugh, you know, you get stacked and it's just laughs and so on. Like it's great poker but it's a different type of poker.

[Interviewer]

Right. You're not playing as serious and.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, I mean, all the poker is fun. I mean, even the games we play is. Is a lot of fun. We have so much laughs and fun. But it's also that we know that it's. It's. Everyone is trying. And it means when someone is risking their chips, a big bet, it's really. Yeah, he cares or she cares. If. If you get called or not, for sure.

[Interviewer]

What would you say your favorite part about poker is? Is it the money? Is it the competition? Is it the camaraderie? What do you like the most about it?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, it's a good question. I get a lot of satisfaction of playing against the best in the world. And if I'm. If I'm able to outplay them, like, this is. It's always a challenge and it's. It's something that, you know, you just don't go there and you just don't go there and do that. Like, you have to really be like, mentally there is. I like that when I play, it's really. I'm playing poker and everything else. I kind of forget. I'm trying to put my phone away and of course I'm. Sometimes I'm listening some music when I play and so on. But it's. It's. It's very. I guess this is something. What makes me also happy that I can have this kind of state of. It's kind of your meditative state in the way. And analyzing and.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

And. But there's a lot of. Lot of great things what I like about poker. But I see. I think. I think it's really like, you know, I had this thing that I was trying to play tennis, like, seriously, and I put a lot of training and.

[Interviewer]

You wanted to go try to.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yes, but it was very clear at my teenage years, after a lot of injuries, that. Falling behind a lot from the best. But people who never did competitive sports, they never got to compete in a way that they would feel these losses and wins and how it's disappointing and how it's. How happy you are when you have performed on your highest level and so on.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Patrick Antonius]

Like poker game, give them this feeling which they never had if they never did competitive sports. And this is very fulfilling, I think, for a lot of people to experience. It's. It's really. It's really something that this game has. Has to offer that. That. I don't know any other card game or game that has so many different aspects. And we're dealing player against player against player and there's so much pressure under such a quick time. You have to make decisions, solutions.

[Interviewer]

You.

[Patrick Antonius]

Have light reads, you have a lot of things that goes to into play on your decisions and.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah. And it's a game really that it's hard to say when it's right or wrong things like you have to balance things, you have to play same hands in different ways otherwise you're too predictable to play against. And it's really a game that is not meant to be played perfectly. And maybe that's my least favorite part because I'm kind of in my mind I'm kind of a perfectionist and it makes me many days after tournaments or cash games I, when I'm done playing and I can't get out of some hands that I played and was that a mistake and how big and I'm analyzing them and I, you know, and it's. Sometimes you decide right things but it turns out to be a horrible. You would have won a big pot or you would have lost a big pot sometimes when you, whatever you decide to do and so on and, and you just have to focus on, forget those and just move on and focus again. But, but yeah it's definitely a game that no one can play any kind of perfect way and it's just one decision at a time.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Patrick Antonius]

And so on.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Because even if you play near perfect you could still lose money.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah. Right. Yeah it's, it's, yeah. There's a big clock luck factor also and there's, there's all kind of things like this. That's what tests you as a poker player that you can be the best player in the world. You can have a horrible six month streak that you just, they just give you the second best hand like every day and, and you're going to be put on tough spots by players that when you have. There's a lot of spots that are very tough, complex. You have marginal hands and they just happen and you have those medium sized hands and second best hand against little bit and there's always your opponent is betting and they have just perfect hands to bluff you. Like how these hands play and, and every, everyone who plays a lot of poker for long period they will go through these kind of periods that they can really like. It can really start messing up the, with your head and you start questioning that how am I playing? Is this kind of normal, this kind of luck and runoff cards and, and, and and some players, they really I think got hurt by just purely bad Luck of losing their confidence on themselves. And they, the, the final result is basically that they started to play too scared maybe. Right. Which is very bad or also can happen other way around that lots of players had a very good run for a long time where they just get away from all the bluffs. Opponents never had some big hands to call and everything just went their ways and they have overconfidence or they think that it's if they're not self aware of how they win and how it happens that they kind of get very wrong data and they start playing two too aggressively and they're gonna. Next thing they're gonna hit the reality when the car starts to break even and so on. So there's a lot of these kind of things that you have to be very self aware of. How do you win and how do you lose?

[Interviewer]

Which is tough to do. Right. That's tough to be that self aware.

[Patrick Antonius]

It can be tough. I mean a good player should know. But once it starts to happen for really long periods that you're getting consistently bad.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

Bad luck or something, some, something similar, then yeah, it can, it can hurt your game. Like I had few periods long time ago when I was, I lost every hand for a lot of money like very quickly, like a week or two. And, and I would just, I would just. It's good to take a break whenever we have different people have different preferences of break. Some people have one day good, some people one week, whatever you think that, okay, you have cleared up your mind and you're kind of ready to play. And then it's good to play a little bit softer games or smaller games and start getting some winning hands in and some successful hands. And when you feel like you're playing your best again, you can, it's then better to go on the bigger games or so on. But we all do different things, we manage ourselves differently. And this would be like an optimal thing thing to do.

[Interviewer]

Absolutely.

[Patrick Antonius]

And I think players are managing themselves much better nowadays. And back in the days they were, they were, you know, everything, all the sports were different back in the day. Everything is changing and becoming a bit, a bit more advanced and. But I think poker is living a very interesting period of time because nowadays it's so accessible to study the game to get better. We have all kind of tools, right. Tools to help solvers and so on. So you can, you can access a lot of information so fast and get your game like a baseline game pretty good pretty quickly. And so this is great. So this I think brought a lot of players to this game that wow. Like back in the days, like what you were reading some poker books that you could be sure that there's only wrong information based on because nobody knew anything.

[Interviewer]

I was scared to play back in the day because the skill gap was so high.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So like, yeah, everyone was so good and there was just too much of a gap back in the day. Oh, back in the day 10 years ago. Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

But. But now we know nobody was good then. Actually probably like now with the solvers. Now people are finding out what is the better strategy, optimal ways of balancing your hands and so on.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

But when you go back in time 20 years ago, we had no information of anything. You would just play with players for months, days, weeks, years and figure out who's winning the most. And they were the best players who were just crushing the game and winning the most. But there were no such thing as proving based on your what statistics or anything that that's who were really the best. And it was interesting times. But what I was saying is that now we have a lot of players coming to play, but they can access all this information. But this doesn't mean that they're able to play well. It's still an extremely complex game and everyone pretty much does some things too much or too little depending on situations. And, and it's been interesting to see how players who are even overly studied, how they're lacking a lot of other things that goes into the play. Like they're just playing it with numbers and it's like everything is just calculated and, and there are a lot of them are ignoring the human aspect of the game. And humans just, we just play differently. Like we are much different than solvers. We will never be able to comprehend the complexity of balancing these hands.

[Interviewer]

And.

[Patrick Antonius]

Basically like humans under bluff every spot, almost not every spot, but a lot of them. And that's why we have adjusted our game style also because people bluff less, we also call less. So we have kind of a different baseline when we play against each other. That if you would put computers to play each other, you would see a completely different. Right looking game.

[Interviewer]

Same with chess. Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

And if you try to play like a computer against humans, it's. You're gonna go wrong in a lot of spots regarding, like you're gonna probably gonna make a lot of bad calls and be wrong a lot. And. But maybe if you try to play like a computer against humans, maybe you're gonna have a lot of success bluffing because they will fold a lot.

[Interviewer]

Interesting.

[Patrick Antonius]

But it's A Anyways, it's an interesting time because poker players used to be kind of good at reading each other, feeling it out, having this kind of feel and psychological part. Back in the days, there was a lot of players who were good at this kind of table talks and all these kind of things. And now you see a lot of players that they're just coming from another world of studying the game through the solvers and they're gonna be lacking the things then back in the days players were good at. But yeah, it's not easy things, but it's definitely. Poker is growing a lot. It's a really nice time to be, to be experiencing.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it feels like there's another boom right now.

[Patrick Antonius]

Right.

[Interviewer]

With all the streamers now there's people filming every hand.

[Patrick Antonius]

Definitely. Everywhere around the world, live events are breaking records. And I think we're knocking on the door again with, with our amazing game for mainstream. It's. It feels like it. And we will see. There's a poker league possibly coming soon.

[Interviewer]

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[Patrick Antonius]

Soon?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

To the North America and, and who knows it? This might be something that, that would, would take us further to the where I think our game belongs. We have one of the most entertaining games to watch on tv and let's.

[Interviewer]

Get it in the Olympics. That would be amazing.

[Patrick Antonius]

Right?

[Interviewer]

You could represent Finland Olympics.

[Patrick Antonius]

I don't know if it belongs there, but, but, but I definitely belongs to, to the mainstream. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. It's a universal sport, right? Anyone can play it.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah. There's more than 100 million people who play poker. It's pretty, pretty large number.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that's large.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, that's what the statistics say.

[Interviewer]

So do you use the solvers at all? Cause I've had Bryn Kenny on. He said he doesn't use them at all.

[Patrick Antonius]

I don't use them at all. But when I study the game and I work with, I have my people that I do some kind of sessions, improvements. Then we look at them like they look at my, I could say coaches or whoever I work with sometimes.

[Interviewer]

So.

[Patrick Antonius]

But in this way, like yes, we use them. I mean it's, we get information from looking at certain spots. But. But yeah, it's. I try to not look at them too much in a way. Like I, I've been having a very good baseline on my game naturally that whenever we look at some spots what the computer would do or how they balance. Like, like I'm almost always like already knowing what the computer does and what, wow, what hands and how the, how big the bedding size is. The computer would balance and so on. But the computer balances everything. The betting sizes. There's a lot of situations. It bets x amount of percent this time this size and I don't know, 30% time this size and then it checks some more times like it's, it's a complete kind of shit show. Yeah, that, that how you, you have to have quite a complex brain to be a self aware of you balancing, balancing all the, all the hands that you don't do something too much and too little and.

[Interviewer]

But.

[Patrick Antonius]

If I have to say something about my game like what I, what. I just like to think in general that I would just like to play in the way that my opponents are not used to kind of facing this kind of betting sizes and it's more likely they make you take them to areas in the game that they are more likely. More likely to make mistakes or, or maybe you're more familiar with this kind of line that you take in the hand.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

But yeah, it's a very, very complex game and I think people play too much using the same betting sizes and, and yeah, I don't know.

[Interviewer]

No, that makes sense. You said you were big on tennis. Did you watch the French Open, the recent one?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, I managed to watch the last two sets.

[Interviewer]

Nice. Was a great match.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, one of, one of the best.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that might have been the best match I've ever seen. Carlos Alcatraz. Wow.

[Patrick Antonius]

It says that it happens on the large stage, this kind of result that he Saves. They set these match points and. And Vince comes back. Like, it was probably like a 200 to 1 dog at L40 or something like similar.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

And that made it such a. And then Cena showed such a mental toughness that he was able to. Able to come back and break. Break back on the last set and look like he was becoming a favorite to win it. And they just had it. This matches. Had it all kind of.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it did. I was wondering who was going to step up and replace Federer and Nadal, and now Djokovic is getting old. Looks like these young guys are gonna do it.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, these. These are the two that a lot of people have. Have kind of predicted that they would. They would be 1 and 2 and been taking most of the Slams, and here they are. Hopefully they don't face any kind of physical issues, which. That's what happened to you. I think that's like the. Yeah, but for a lot of players, that's like. That's like something that's, you know, a good player. If you never know, you can. You can get any kind of injury, and that can put you back for a long time, and you might never recover and reach the same level. So hopefully these two stay.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

Healthy because they're playing incredible level. And every time they play, it's, like, such a pleasure to watch.

[Interviewer]

Absolutely.

[Patrick Antonius]

And there's other very strong players, too. Like, it's. Tennis is in good hands. It's really, really impressive to watch these guys play.

[Interviewer]

You play any pickleball or any. Padel? Are you two.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, Padel, I played.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

But I've been struggling still. Like, now I'm just trying to get back on tennis. Pickleball. No, not for me. I played one time. I kind of messed up. Messed up my back because of this kitchen roll that, you know, you're reaching out on these valleys. And I did, like, a heavy leg day that day. Went to play. First time I didn't know anything about the rule and managed to just yank a nerve, which. Yeah, like, also, I didn't like the fact that there's kind of no touch on this because the ball is different. And the rackets that I'm used to spinning the ball and touching. And you can just place it so precisely with tennis racket or paddle.

[Interviewer]

I like paddle last week.

[Patrick Antonius]

Paddle is amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

One in Vegas now. It's. It's fun.

[Patrick Antonius]

It's a little bit tough for my hips. The move moving is more aggressive in paddle than tennis. You just have this lot of sprinting, a lot of like as a tennis player like I don't have that paddle mind and game understanding where you just relax and let the ball go and positioning your yourself so well like like the pros do. Yeah but yeah it's anyways I'm trying to get back on tennis. I still like it and but been having a lot of physical issues with. Tennis is a tough, it's a tough physical sport.

[Interviewer]

Like it's one of the toughest body. You might have to get some stem cells.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, I still haven't done that.

[Interviewer]

I just got some last week.

[Patrick Antonius]

There's some other things I haven't done that could help and Buzzy, I. Yeah yeah, I've been having like little bit heap issues and this kind of hip replacement has been knocking on the door a few times but I managed without any, any surgeries and still managed to play. Been on a course quite a few times last year but nice. Now I'm back again. I need to work a little bit on the gym.

[Interviewer]

They say tennis is the healthiest sport you could play. Done studies on longevity and racket sports are the best for you.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, I've seen the studies. Yeah. It has something to do with this, you know, moving ball coming so fast and you're. You're hitting it, reacting on it like for the brain for sure. It stimulates I think the brain really nicely. Like also that makes me very happy every time I manage to be on a tennis court and not have too much pain and it's a really you know, good feelings. It's my favorite thing to do out of any sport to play.

[Interviewer]

Absolutely. Yeah. The brain is super important. As a poker player do you do any mental workouts or anything for brain health, meditation or anything like that?

[Patrick Antonius]

I do a lot but I don't do specifically something like basically I'm health is my like passion and my life and it's my way to live and it goes together with everything. Like as a poker I approach poker as a sport and the most important thing is that I'm well rested. But yeah, I've done a lot of lot of work on my, my training but why would I say something specific? The most important is that I play a lot of poker for my brain basically. That's like the more I play the less kind of less I go wrong. Like some small mistakes or something and you realize some spots you instantly what to take when you need to bluff or how much to how much to bet and so on. But I've been doing long time like brain brain optimization with my health guy with just basically just becoming healthier and healthier. But there's. Then there's some. Some things that will optimize your brain functioning, but it's really complex. I can't really talk about it because I don't even understand it so well myself. Like, kind of the things that I understand is that what I have learned is that the brain is like a master of adaptation, that you need to. It get used to anything pretty much after periods of time. So you always have to kind of keep changing things. Even this is like what you doing. And also like supplementation and kind of trigger it in a different way. If you do the same things over and over again, take the same supplements over, over again, it's at some point you just.

[Interviewer]

The effects start diminishing.

[Patrick Antonius]

Right? Yeah. Yeah. You always. You need to like. Yeah. It's so complex. I don't even kind of what I've learned about health that it's. It's to me, it's so complex that I leave it to the professional, the best people I'm. I understanding, but I could never understand the complexity of how deep the health goes and what to. What to do.

[Interviewer]

And there's so little we know about the brain right now.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah. And we're all different. I know also that what. What works for me doesn't. Most likely doesn't work for you. It might feel much different if you take. Eat the same things and take the same supplements as I do and. Yeah, we all different. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I would imagine you need good memory as a poker player to remember specific hands against the same people though, right?

[Patrick Antonius]

Yes. Very good. Very important. Your memory. That's very important. Yes. Yeah. You just. Our brain is everything and. But it goes also like. Also like taking care of your body and physical. Physical health goes completely together with your. How your brain and mind functions. It's as important and I think it's pretty tough to make right decisions overall. If you. If you haven't slept well, if you have a lot of chronic inflammation or pain and you have whatever issues you have, that's basically. That is stopping you to feel good. So if you're feeling good, you're gonna put yourself in a much different position to make right decisions. Whatever decisions those are. Doesn't mean that we're talking about. Poker might be about anything in life, what decisions you have. We all have to make so many decisions every day.

[Interviewer]

Yep. What's next for you? I know you got some companies you're working on. What's the main focus for you the rest of this year?

[Patrick Antonius]

Oh it's going to be a busy year.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

But every year is busy and I like it, I like it like that. Yeah. I can say that I recently I signed a contract with one of the largest poker platforms but this I'm not gonna publish here yet. I will publish it when it's the right time. But that means that there's gonna be some new things a little bit. I'll be playing some high stakes Cascades and Tritons. Yeah. Also also you're probably probably aware of I'm a co founder of First Line of Poker. Yep Flop. So it's been a long long way long way with with with my company or our company but things are looking pretty good regarding our product and development. Nice that we will do some some cash game cash game events with our land based casino partners next year most likely. But yeah this is, it's gonna be the same things pretty much for me. Like I keep poker taking care of myself. Playing a lot of poker.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

Being involved with some projects. I mean I don't know if, if you, you, you can, you can edit some of this stuff. Yeah yeah. Because I don't know maybe we gotta edit something regarding. It's so much easier if you ask questions about the first line of poker. For example you want me to me talking about it in the way but. But yeah.

[Interviewer]

So you're the co founder of First Land of poker. What is that company about?

[Patrick Antonius]

Flop which stands for first line of poker. We offer our digital solutions for land based poker room. So basically we have a cloud based web solution that automates the Pokroom's daily operations and optimizes their tasks from just opening tables, sitting place down waiting lists. Also loyalty point program and we have for the players we have an application where they can see all the games that is running. They can take seats, join a waiting list, communicate with the poker room. We also have a new thing coming with this AI that we have AI helping the players to connecting players together and guiding them to our partners poker rooms to play so they can we help them to create optimal games for the players. It's about player experience pretty much and it's still a lot of poker rooms. They're operating in a pretty old school way that if they don't use any digital solutions it's a pretty time consuming process from the time you wanna you decide you wanna go to play poker until you get to play like yeah.

[Interviewer]

Some people are waiting for an hour.

[Patrick Antonius]

Sometimes I heard yeah so you gotta drive there and sometimes how do you find the games if there's available and if you don't live even close by, like some people drive one hour to play.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Patrick Antonius]

Then they're waiting and all these kind of things should be optimized. I mean players time is very valuable and, and yeah. And it's, it's. I've been very, very surprised at how, at least back in the days how, how complicated it's been for the players. As a cast game player myself, like how much I wasted my time running and calling and you know, then I'm on the waiting list and waiting and waiting. Like there's so many bad experiences from a lot of players that they stop even playing. Like they drive one hour and then they don't have a seat and then they're waiting three hours and couldn't get a seat and back home and you want to do it again tomorrow. And like, like it's not, it's not ideal. It's not every poker room that has lots of games that you have, you know, you can choose from and you always get to play. And, and it's just optimizing, optimizing all these kind of things for the, from both sides for the poker room for them also to, to give this kind of service for the players and, and Nice. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, it's, I mean it's the way the world is moving. It's, it's, it's, it's coming. It's. I would say this is one of the last industries that they're using using good digital solutions to improve their operation. These poker rooms.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, we'll include a link to the, the website below. We'll include a link to flop in the description.

[Patrick Antonius]

Yeah, you can, yeah, you can check from first line of poker our website. Especially if you have all the poker room managers or poker rooms, they can check our solutions. Yeah, perfect.

[Interviewer]

Thanks for coming on, Patrick. That was awesome.

[Patrick Antonius]

Check them out guys.

[Interviewer]

See you next time. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you. Join Tik Tok today and get your $20 no minimum spend voucher. Just download TikTok and search for get tick G E T T I k. Redeem your voucher and start shopping now. Only for new user.