ChuckSty is the only the second player to win the PocketFives Triple Crown since several of the biggest sites pulled out of the US market. Mattg1983 proved it could be won without Paradise and Party on 10/31 with wins on Stars, UB, and Full Tilt. There is still plenty of tournament action to be found, and ChuckSty has been seeking it out in a big way in the past few months. He has been playing online poker for three years now, but only recently has he turned his focus to tournament play.
ChuckSty’s Triple Crown consisted of wins in the Stars $150, Bodog $100, and UB $30 rebuy, making for a very profitable week. Known on various sites as OneRoundEye, BlackMetalHead, ChuckSty, fullmtljckt, and bmh v.2.37, this talented player is a bit hard to follow. Thank goodness for automated rankings! He was drafted to play for the Old Timers in Battle of the Ages II, and he is very much looking forward to the competition:
ChuckSty: I think I was the last added, so I feel like I have to represent. I am glad to be playing for the Old Team. The Young Guns won the first challenge, and we want to take that back from them. Besides, I love being the underdog.
Lenny: Hopefully you can stay hot and help out your team. You’ve been playing online poker for a while now; did you have any background in live poker before you started?
ChuckSty: Well, my grandpa taught me to play 5 and 7 card stud, 5 card draw, and some other variations when I was little. We had some home games in college, too. When I graduated, I was playing music full time, which meant a lot of the time doing basically nothing. So I ended up in front of my computer for many hours, working on my music and playing online poker.
Lenny: Was it a supplemental income then or more of a hobby/diversion?
ChuckSty: I wasn’t bringing in much money then. Eventually it got bad. I was so broke, I would wake up early just to play in a daily freeroll on Pokerroom. One of the only times I’ve wanted to get up for anything in years.
Lenny: Were you able to rebuild from freerolls?
ChuckSty: Eventually I got a real job, and I was dropping about half my paychecks into online poker. Occasionally I would run it up to 10k or so, but then I would donk it off playing too high- literally, figuratively, and metaphorically.
Lenny: Yeah, it’s not a good feeling seeing your bankroll go “up in smoke." What was the breakthrough that allowed you to quit and play full time?
ChuckSty: Well, I was actually playing poker a lot at work. One day my boss caught me and said he wanted a cut. He said, “it’s only fair, since you’re playing on my time.” It was really weird, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I was pretty much ready to quit anyway, so I did.
Lenny: Tell me a little bit about your online poker buddies. You have a quite the list under “favorite players” in your profile.
ChuckSty: Yeah, I have met a lot of really cool people through online poker. Bounce11 is actually a good friend of mine from my hometown, and we moved out to Vegas together and are roommates. Another roommate, The Proctologist, is a guy I used to play against all the time back in the day in cash games. Snake8484 and Silk12 are two more from those days. Those guys used to kick my butt.
Lenny: What were those games like? Did you take turns picking off the fish, or did you mostly beat up on each other?
ChuckSty: Some of both. Whenever a fish entered the game, we would be sure to clean him out if we could, but we would also spend a lot of time in HU matches against each other. I was playing all the time then. I’m a little embarrassed to say it out loud, but I think I was playing way over 80 hours a week. I learned a lot playing with those guys. Everyone has different strengths, and you can learn so much when you play with the same people day in and day out.
Lenny: So what drew you away from the ring games and into the tourney world?
ChuckSty: Actually, it was the World Series this summer.
Lenny: Did you have much success?
ChuckSty: Just the opposite. I played pretty terribly, in fact. I kept looking around and seeing all these really bad players, and then I just kept making mistakes. So when I came home, I started playing a lot of online tourneys. It gave me something to shoot for. I don’t know, cash games are great, but there’s nothing to it other than the money. At the end of the day, I want to accomplish something. I want to play poker as a sport, not just as an investment.
Lenny: Tell me a little about your music.
ChuckSty: I really need to start playing again. I have a few things in the works, but I haven’t played live or with a band in a while.
Lenny: What do you listen to while you play poker?
ChuckSty: It really depends. I don’t listen to jazz much unless I’m feeling really mellow, and that doesn’t usually mix with poker. I like some weird music, experimental I guess. They call it post-rock, but I don’t really like the label. My favorite bands right now are Mogwai and Tortoise, although they are very different. During the UB $30 rebuy, I didn’t listen to anything. I’m so into music that it is almost too much of a distraction.
Lenny: What do you play?
ChuckSty: I studied acoustic/upright bass, but I had to learn some Jazz piano, and I kind of picked up drums and bass along the way.
Lenny: Are you still composing music?
ChuckSty: Yeah, I write music on piano and keyboard and use a sampler/synthesizer to play around with a lot of different things. I record a lot of stuff on the computer that I write with other instruments.
Lenny: You mentioned that you find the Music and Poker lifestyles to be pretty similar?
ChuckSty: I think both come from a desire to be independent and live on your own schedule. I think there is also a certain amount of creativity and art in poker. I mean, setting up a huge stone cold bluff can be either a masterpiece….or a train wreck.
Lenny: I guess you just have to learn to get the notes just right. Do you have any goals for yourself in the coming months or year?
ChuckSty: Not really anything specific. I’m pretty content. I want to win my damn PCA seat. I’ve come in second in two double shootouts.
Lenny: Anything else?
ChuckSty: Oh yeah, I want a hot tub.
Lenny: Very nice! Do you have any last thoughts?
ChuckSty: The Young Guns Team is going DOWN!
Thomas “ChuckSty” Rau has led a pretty unconventional life thus far. He ran into a bit