Interview with Marcel Luske and Noah Boeken

What is the magic of poker?

Marcel : Poker is unpredictable. Poker is like the life itself: Every time you have to make new difficult decisions.

Noah : Everybody can play poker. if you now the rules of the game, you take a few cards and chips and just start playing.

Why poker is getting so trendy at this moment?

Noah : Internet poker has become really big the last 6 years. Also that was one of the reasons why they showed more poker on television and it became more populair than it already was, meanwhile also in Europe. I started asswel on internet, and I'm still playing a lot of times at  online casinos .

Marcel: I started in a pub with some friends. When I found it out I was pretty good in it, I went on in a real casino. I'm absolutely not an online poker player; I find it really important to see my antagonists, to see how they react to certain things and to read their body language. if I look at Noah, I can see you can learn a lot from it. You play online about 4, 5 times more hands than in a real casino or tournament. So you are learning really faster.

How good are you both?

Marcel : That is hard to say, because it depends by the moments.When you play a lot of tournaments and twice you made it till the finals, your ranking is really high.

Noah : But  it is not really a sport for a ranking. You need also a bit of luck. if you are unlucky for a while.

Are you a bad player then?

Nobody cares about the Worldranking. It's just one happy poker-family .... Marcel really belongs to the worldtop. I'm not there yet, because I'm not playing long enough.

How many % of poker runs are about luck?

Noah: If you play one game, it's 100%. If you play 1000, it is 0%. Look,  you can win from me one game, but when we play 100 games, I win 80. It is for a big part a skilly game.

How can you see that your antagonists have good or bad cards in their hands?

Marcel : If the whole body is going tight by picking up the first card, they have almost always an ace. Then they look at the next card,you see the shoulders and arms are going down and the body relaxes again. They are disappointed; than they got a four or a five with it.If the shoulders are staying straightup and if the players are looking around the table and trying to be really allert, most of the time they have good cards. Now I really exaggerate of course,  but most of the time it's right.

How much money did you win till now with poker?

Noah : Difficult to say. You earn something, but a few days later you have to pay ten thousand to subscribe for another tournament. If you do it right, you can have a good life with it. At the tournament of Copenhagen the deposit was 5000euro  and I won 160.000 euro. That felt really good. The first price is usually between the 30 and 40% of the deposit money. So if there are playing one thousand people and the deposit is ten thousand, than the first price will be between 3 and 4 millions.

Do you also wear these weird sunglasses?

Noah: Marcel always wears his sunglasses up side down.That is his trade mark.

Marcel : Than the people cannot read me. Noah always listens to his ipod.

Noah : They talk a lot during the game. Often to much!.

What is the golden tip if you go to play poker?

Noah : Patience. and money management.

Marcel : Never take things personal and be strong when you loose a game.