Poker Dreams: A Profile Of Two Legendary Bay Area Small Stakes Grinders
When I was in high school and dreaming of playing in the NBA a documentary called Hoop Dreams came out that followed two young aspiring basketball players from the inner city of Chicago: Arthur Agree and William Gates. Both were recruited to play at St. Joseph – where the legendary Isiah Thomas played his high school basketball – under coach Gene Pingatore. Gates was the more talented one but unfortunately he tore up his knee and was never the same afterwards. He had an undistinguished college career at Marquette. Agee played at an obscure junior college before transferring to Arkansas State. Neither of them fulfilled their dream of playing in the NBA.
Just as many young men dream of playing professional sports, as poker has grown many now aspire to be professional poker players. But just like making the NBA, making a living playing poker is a lot harder than you think. At the end of last year I wrote “The Impossible Economics Of Small Stakes Poker” (Nov 28, 2023) in which I explained how good you have to be just to break even at the small stakes due to the high rake. Very few players are profitable – much less able to make a living – at the small stakes. In this blog I’m going to profile two legendary Bay Area small stakes grinders who have found a way to do it and who I’ve had the privilege of playing with over the years: Tuan Mai and Rellie Sigua.
But first let me re-iterate how difficult it is to make a living at the small stakes by reviewing my recent trip to Rohnert Park for Graton’s $600 WSOP $250,000 Guarantee. I left my apartment in San Carlos at 7:10am on Friday morning, arriving outside The Event – where the poker tournaments are held – at Graton at 8:47am, including one pit stop to use the bathroom and grab an Odwalla smoothie for breakfast. I walked around the parking lot and did calisthenics for 5 minutes and then registered for the $160 satellite into the tournament that started at 9am. Note that the rake for the satellite was $40. In other words, you have to have a 33% return on investment (ROI) just to break even in this particular satellite. 19 players signed up creating a prize pool of three seats and $480 for fourth. The satellite was completed at 11:50am and I won one of the three seats. I immediately jumped into the 11am flight and played until after 7:30pm, bagging a 99,000 chip stack.
As a result I had Saturday off. For part of the day, I played a three hour $3/$5 cash game session at the Graton poker room in which I lost $675. I came back Sunday at 12pm for Day 2 of the tournament. I had a great first hour running my 99,000 chip stack up to 315,000. The most important hand came when I called a raise from the cutoff on the button with 97ss. The big blind called too. The flop came Q9X and it checked around to me. I bet 1/3 pot, the big blind made a big raise, the original raiser folded, I shoved All-In and the big blind folded. After that it was mostly all downhill for me and I went out around 3:20pm in 68th place for $1,663.
Let’s take a look at the economics. My profit from the tournament was $1,503 and my loss from the cash game $675 for a total poker profit of $828 during about 14 hours of play. However, my three nights at the Fairfield Inn set me back $704 and gas likely ate up the rest. In other words, I had a successful trip from a poker standpoint but I just broke even. You can’t make a living this way.
About a decade ago I started regularly playing the daily tournaments at Bay 101. Today they cost $200 to enter but back then they were $125. The best player back then was a young man by the name of Tuan Mai. He was always first on the leaderboard and for good reason. Tuan was technically sound, emotionally balanced, mentally tough, physically fit and always on point. I never saw him make a mistake. In March 2017 Tuan had a breakthrough when he finished 14th at the Bay 101 Shooting Star for more than $25,000. It wasn’t long after that – if I’m not mistaken – that he moved to Las Vegas to pursue poker where he’s been extremely successful with career earnings of $2 million.
I remember one time when Tuan and I were the final two in one of the dailies. Tuan said that he knew it was going to be us two. When we were negotiating a chop Tuan thought I should give him a little extra because he thought he was the better player but I wasn’t going to do that. He said he was tempted to play it out but reason got the better of him given the variance of playing heads up with 20 big blind stacks. I’ve been thinking of Tuan lately because I ran into his friend Chris Bonita at Bay 101 earlier this year and asked how Tuan was doing which led to me doing my own research. You probably haven’t heard of Tuan Mai but he’s plenty capable of winning any poker tournament in the world given the opportunity and some help from the deck.
Another legendary small stakes Bay Area grinder whose been able to make a living playing poker is Rellie Sigua. Because I mainly play at Bay 101 in San Jose and Rellie mainly plays at Lucky Chances in Colma I had only heard of him until earlier this year when I played with him at Graton. (I played with him again yesterday). But when you were talking about the best players in the Bay Area his name inevitably came up. Just like Tuan, Rellie is a presence at the table and you know you’re up against a true professional. Technically sound, disciplined, calm, observant and physically strong, Rellie is stone cold when in a hand.
An anecdote from yesterday tells you how Rellie thinks about poker. A player had limped in early position and called a raise to see a flop of Q62ssx. I think there was one other caller as well. They both checked to the original raiser who made a big bet which the limper called. The turn was a King, the limper shoved All In and the original raiser called. The limper turned over 76off while the original raiser turned over AQ. The limper didn’t improve on the river and he was gone. He’d had a decent stack to start the hand and there was no need for him to play the hand the way he did – or even to play the hand at all. Rellie commented about how every chip is precious and how the player had thrown away his whole tournament on nothing. That play was the exact opposite of everything Rellie stands for as a poker player.
One guy whose been able to escape from the small stakes is Dan Sepiol. As far as I can tell from his Hendon Mob, Sepiol was a low stakes tournament grinder like Tuan and Rellie until he shocked the poker world by defeating a stacked final table including Andrew Lichtenberger, Ben Heath, Chris Moorman and Artur Martirosyan at the WPT World Championship at the Wynn last December for $5+ million. It’s the dream Tuan, Rellie and the rest of us poker players aspire to but I’m sure there were many years grinding in obscurity and working on his game to build the skill set that allowed Sepiol to pull it off.
