There are high rollers, there are super high rollers and then there are serial winners at the highest stakes. Scan recent results and one of PokerStake’s most prominent players is one of the biggest winners. After taking down the recent U.S. Poker Open for over $600,000 just a few weeks ago, Aram Zobian is shooting for further success this summer.
Food, Sex and Money
“I’ve battled lust in my life.”
When I talk to Aram Zobian, he’s just arrived back in Las Vegas, his home base for operations. Coming from an Armenian family background, the 29-year-old, who was born and raised in Rhode Island strikes the image of a war general plotting his next move. His Vegas office is adorned with notes on his poker tactics – all classified, naturally – but three words on a whiteboard stand out – Food, Sex and Money. Contrary to what you might think, these aren’t the goals of this philosophical poker player.
“They’re actually the things you have to overcome – the desire for these things. It’s the lower self. Partially, [life] is about bringing up your energy and reaching for more. As a man, I’ve battled lust in my life.”
Aram Zobian aspires to having a family, kids and a wife within time. He considers it a truly worthwhile ambition, and more important than short term pleasure.
“It’s a great desire of mine,” he says. “I’m hoping that my kid is not able to catch me in a foot race! I watch videos of guys who are 60 doing muscle-ups, squatting, mostly calisthenics. To have a strong core, and strong hip flexors and raise my kid in a strong manner, is really important to me.”
Living the Dream
“I wanted to travel the world and see a lot of different countries.”
Zobian, you might imagine, would have dreamed of the U.S. Poker Open success he enjoyed back in mid-April. He did, just not in the way you might assume.
“I had a dream on Day 1 of USPO and you ever had a bad poker dream? Like when you have quads on the river, look back at your cards and have seven-three, it was one of those. This particular dream highlighted the food-sex-money desire. The subconscious communicates with us as we sleep. It’s important to aspire to better things.”
Over the past decade, Zobian has made several transitions within the game of poker. Starting in private home games, he quickly moved on to playing cash games in local casinos before segueing to online MTTs and now live MTTs, which he has enjoyed more than anything else.
“I liked those the most and stuck with those,” he says, mentioning the pleasure of meeting new people at the felt. “It’s important to learn people’s cultures and the things they value as individuals, not just at the poker table but in life.”
Raised as an orthodox catholic due to his Armenian heritage, Zobian’s younger brother has lived with him for the past two years and has also taken poker as his profession, playing full time. For Zobian, it’s a great way of keeping his brother close despite being on the opposite coast to much of his family.
“We were very close as kids and as time goes on you can drift apart,” he admits. “We’re once again close. We grew up on the East Coast in Rhode Island, the smallest state and there wasn’t much going on. I’m a much bigger fan of the West Coast.”
That small-town vibe wasn’t Zobian’s mindset and he could see that he was different to many in the smallest state in the 50 of the United States.
“I would see people always staying in the same vicinity,” he describes. “Its very common for people to stay put, wherever they live. I wanted to travel the world and see a lot of different countries.”
Mental Warfare
“At the highest level, if you bring your B-Game, you’re losing.”
Travelling to each new live event, Zobian will always take some days off. He happiy admits that he doesn’t play as intense as schedule as others.
“I’ll always explore. I just went to EPT France and went to Italy to see my sister afterwards. I went to Triton Jeju and then went to Japan for three weeks. It’s super clean and respectful, you feel safe, there’s a different energy there; it’s very peaceful. It was good to calm down the nervous system. You have to be able to draw things back so you can get ready and go through it again.”
As Zobian describes, he was once inspired by the words of Doyle Brunson – ‘a legend in the game’ – who said, “Poker can be considered war. People pretend it’s a game.” It’s an ethic that Zobian wholeheartedly agrees with.
“We’re men; we’re meant to go into battle, work hard and provide. It comes with being a man.
It’s mental warfare. The little chip-checks, the reverse tells, there are a lot of subtle things going on and I like to take part in them too. It’s a battle. Capitalising on mistakes by other people is important but doesn’t always work out as you planned it. Self-correcting at the highest level – for instance if you mis-value a hand or check back the river rather than betting with two pair and they had top pair – those mistakes are more pronounced. At a lower level, you’ll accumulate chips purely by being aggressive. At a higher level, people aren’t over-folding. At the highest level, if you bring your B-Game, you’re losing.”
Zobian knows that if you can’t execute a big bluff or make a big call at crucial time, then he’s going to lose. He has to be at his best to survive, day in, day out. That means staying mentally refreshed.
“Within a series or tournament, I’m going for quality over quantity,” he says. “It’s something DNegs (Daniel Negreanu) said during The Bahamas, really playing and loving the game, being excited to play is so important rather than just showing up and trying to maximize your EV.”
During the recent U.S. Poker Open, Zobian played all 10 days but he knew that spending all that time staring down his opponents would mean burn-out.
“I’ve got more confidence at taking things easy and not being so hard on myself if I don’t pick up on every tiny little thing 100% of the time because its impossible. If its Day 5 of the WSOP Main Event then we better be super locked in. But if it’s Day 1 of a three-day high roller, you’ve got to take it a little easier on yourself. It’s not a big gap between those hard focus and soft focus.
Sweating and Celebrating
“In the last few years I’ve been quite a lone wolf.”
Since becoming a seller on PokerStake, Zobian has loved being part of the poker community who have allowed fans to buy a piece of him. Everyone from random strangers to close friends and family have had a piece of his recent success.
“My friend told me his Mom was buying my action the other day!” he smiles. “It feels great to provide fun and money for others, as well as a sweat and a great experience.”
Recently, Andrew ‘Lucky Chewy’ Lichtenberger has become a close friend of Zobian’s.
“He is one of the highest vibing gentlemen in the poker game, with big plans ahead.” Zobian says.
While he has many friends in poker, Justin Saliba being another of his peers he enjoys spending time with, there is something of the ‘Lone Wolf’ about Zobian, an appealingly determined streak within him that conjures the image of a warrior travelling from far away, to battle his way home – in the Rhode Island player’s case, to a family in his future.
“In the last few years I’ve been quite a lone wolf.” He admits. “I’m a lot less theory oriented than other players, so sometimes when hand histories are being discussed its heavily technical aspects. The mannerisms and psychology of the game matter more to me and I don’t discuss that so much with people. I work privately with my coaches for the most part but I love the game and I’ll go through training sites and watch from Run It Once or then focus on people in my own team like Jonathan Jaffe.”
Coming up to the busiest part of the year – the 2024 World Series of Poker – for many players might mean pressure. However, coming into the WSOP on the back of such an incredible victory has bolstered Zobian’s burning ambitions, making them more prominent, nearer the present than the future.
“I think it would be cool to go on a really sick streak,” he says. “I just won the USPO. What if I won the Main Event this summer then the Poker Masters or another bracelet? Stringing together a heavy run of titles would be a phenomenal experience for both myself and fans of poker. I didn’t have much success for a long time. The nature of variance is random.”
Looking back on previous WSOP moments, Zobian says that Martin Jacobson’s Main Event almost exactly a decade ago was his favorite performance.
“He played so exceptionally well,” he describes. “He had a three-bet from 15 bigs and it was awesome to see, way before that was common. No-one would have looked down on him if he’d finished seventh, he was really impressive.”
With so much to play for and no fear, Aram Zobian is going to be a major threat in the live events that are approaching fast. There is a sense of him fulfilling his destiny in poker and he’s acutely aware of it.
“I felt I was meant to play this game,” he declares. “I’m ready to play at my highest potential… I’m excited to know what that looks like.”
Speaking on behalf of his many PokerStake investors, that feeling is very much shared by Zobian’s fans – and stakers from around the world.
It’s going to be a big summer for Aram Zobian, and anyone who has a piece of him.
