Poker Faces in the Crowd: Matthew Janda

In 2013 Matthew Janda wrote Applications of No-Limit Hold ’em, a groundbreaking book that stresses a theoretically sound, balanced approach to poker. Then he looked ahead to medical school. Janda posted, on his CardRunners blog, a list of goals that included better time management, a healthier diet, daily IQ exercises, and avoiding a results-oriented approach in every aspect of life. “I would like to know when I enter medical school, that I am smarter, better organized, know the material better, and have a healthier life style (with regards to stress, diet, and my energy level) than the vast majority of students so I can crush skulls if I need to compete with someone and also just enjoy life more.”

These days Janda is in his fourth year of podiatric medical school and the author of No Limit Hold ’em: Emphasis on Tough Games. We recently spoke over email about his interest in poker theory, his new book, and life in medical school.

Ben Saxton: What was your original inspiration for writing Applications? How did you first get interested in poker and poker theory?

Matthew Janda: I took one game theory class in college which I really enjoyed and always thought poker theory was interesting. Also, in general I consider myself someone who learns relatively slowly at first but, once things start to click, my learning really accelerates. So in order for me to really understand something, it usually needs to be explained very clearly and it still often takes me a while to fully process it. This made getting really good at poker difficult ten years ago, as a lot of the way players improved was through trial and error and many of the best players (in addition to being very hard workers) had natural talent for the game. Since this wasn’t the best way for me to learn, I started trying to figure out poker theory.

Unfortunately, Black Friday came when a lot of poker theory stuff was really just starting to click. About a month before Black Friday, I remember discovering that a “blank” turn or river card was actually the best card possible if I had bet the previous street on a wet board. That’s because my opponent’s range would be capped and I could make a large bet and cause them to fold what seemed like nearly 100% of the time. But once Black Friday hit, it didn’t seem like there was much I could do with this information as I had no intention of moving out of the country (I had already decided I didn’t want to pursue full-time poker and planned on switching to medicine) and had no intention of playing online poker on other sites as I figured they’d be shut down as well and I already had low five figures frozen if not lost forever on Full Tilt. So I decided to coach poker theory for about $40/hour and continued to make videos for CardRunners until they let me go for not actively playing (which never happened and my videos actually got more popular). Eventually I made more videos, wrote a book, and coached poker theory part time as a hobby. Had I known other sites would not have been shut down the way Full Tilt and PokerStars were, I’d probably have kept playing, too, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I enjoy poker theory more than actually grinding.

You recently published No-Limit Hold ’em for Advanced Players: Emphasis on Tough Games. What can you tell us about it? Would you consider it to be a sequel to Applications or a standalone text?

It’s definitely a standalone text, though I wrote it largely in part because Applications got such a great response and I wanted to update many of its concepts. Some of the ranges in Applications are far from optimal due to new solvers and AI programs (PioSOLVER and PokerSnowie, among others), so I’d like to be able to explain why and where I was wrong.

Applications introduced many players to a ton of new concepts and was the result of me really swinging for the fences. There are pros and cons to this approach. The pros: if you really understand and clearly explain a concept before it’s widely understood, then it’s a great feeling and you have a very happy customer. The cons: if you’re wrong, then you confuse a player who is buying your book five years after it was originally written. At best, you waste his time; at worst, you add leaks to his game.

No-Limit Hold ’em for Advanced Players: Emphasis on Tough Games emphasizes concepts and situations more heavily than Applications. This is much easier to do now that I’ve gotten four years of feedback and used more powerful software. The book has almost no math, whereas Applications was loaded with it from modeling so many situations. That’s because we don’t need to model situations much anymore as that’s already been done in the past and we have more powerful software. This allows us to skip the math and models, which is probably the most difficult part of a book to actually read, and instead just focus on hand ranges and concepts.

Do any specific examples come to mind?

Consider raising on the flop against a continuation bet. Applications showed that if you raise on the flop with a polarized range (a range consisting of only strong or weak hands) then it’s correct to have many more weak hands (“bluffs”) than strong hands (“value raises”) the deeper stacks get. I’m very happy with this section and think it gave an “ah-hah” moment to many readers who, like me, were once confused and had no idea how aggressively they could “bluff-raise” on the flop or what variables influenced how aggressively they could raise. But there’s no reason to repeat all this math again and we also have access to Poker AI and solvers.

Instead, we can take a sample situation — like facing a continuation bet on a Th8h5c flop — and focus on why every hand in a given raising range makes sense to raise. We can talk about how, as stacks get shallower, it may be crucial to always raise with top-pair top-kicker and top-pair second-kicker, since raising denies equity so effectively and also makes the pot bigger in case we win. When stacks get deeper, on the other hand, it might still be ok to occasionally raise with ace-ten and king-ten, but we now need to be cautious that our range doesn’t consist of too many of these types of hands, or else we’ll be vulnerable to aggressive three-betting. So we have a better opportunity to discuss specific ranges and also consider what types of hands may make sense to raise even if they don’t fit perfectly into our original model of a very polarized range (“near total nuts” on the one hand and “near total air” on the other).

How was your experience in podiatric medical school? As a fourth year podiatry student who will soon be starting residency, what does your average day look like?
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I’ll start with saying that I really enjoy medicine. Everyone always asks “why feet?” but I decided to pursue podiatry largely because I find it mentally gratifying to fix a small problem before it becomes a massive one; the culture of podiatry seems like a good fit for me; I think that podiatry is a good field to be entering right now; and I knew I could probably get my DPM (Doctorate of Podiatric Medicine) with little or no debt, whereas an MD would have probably forced me to give up poker and put me in a ton of debt. On typical days I leave the house around 5:30 a.m., spend most of my day interacting with patients in clinic (occasionally I’ll have a day that’s all surgery) and get home by six p.m.

Has your career in medicine taught you about poker or vice versa?

I don’t think poker has taught me too much about medicine nor do I think medicine has taught me too much about poker, but I think both have taught me a lot about myself. I’ve also learned a lot from people in both fields. I like how most of the poker players I know have a good grasp of incentives, money management, and are able to stomach large risks. That’s awesome and you can learn so much from being around people like this. Most of the medical students and doctors I know excel at working very hard and getting their jobs done without making excuses. It’s been great to be around people like this too.

*originally published in the July 2017 issue of Two Plus Two Magazine