Heads Up is an interview series by Phenom Poker’s Michael Dunlap, where he sits down with a new guest each week, talking everything poker.
For our inaugural edition of Heads Up, we welcomed Phenom Poker Founder Matt Valeo. Michael and Matt talked about the future of Phenom Poker, what Matt and the team have learned through the first three months of running a poker room and they finished with a fun round of quick-hitter questions. Let’s get into it.
Michael Dunlap: Phenom has been live for almost three months. What have you learned? What surprises have you run into? I’d like to know what obstacles are here that you didn’t initially foresee.
Matt Valeo: Startups are fun because every day is a learning experience, filled with unpredictability and new challenges. One thing that stands out is just how much tournaments have taken over. When I was coming up playing online it felt like a pretty even mix of cash, tournament, and SnG players. But now everyone is looking for MTT products. And that may or may not always be the case.
I think one of the reasons cash games are struggling is because rake is really high in the industry right now. It’s much higher than it was when I played decent volume online. Back then the rake was very beatable for a competent player. Today on a lot of sites the rake is not as beatable for even skilled players. That might push people towards tournaments where the rake is fixed. You play one tournament, you know exactly what you’re paying in rake. And, you have a chance to win large sum of money without paying more and more and more rake. So that’s got me rethinking a bit about our long-term strategy around tournaments and rake and things like that.
MD: You launched Phenom before the U.S. elections. How will Phenom be affected by a Donald Trump presidency and how is crypto going to be affected? Will there be more or less regulations? And how does that affect the future and what you plan to do with Phenom?
MV: Whether Donald Trump won or not, I’m a big believer personally that crypto and decentralized finance will continue to gain adoption. There are a lot of advancements in digital assets as an asset class and blockchain technology as a groundbreaking framework for how transactions are made. I’m very bullish and I believe in the future of all those things.
That being said, I think a Trump presidency is much more friendly than prior administrations. so that could speed things up in terms of there’s been an ongoing battle between the SEC and a lot of the newer companies in the space. There’s been a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity and founders are often unsure of where the lines are drawn legally. Its not good for innovation. Trump has proven to be very pro-business. He’s proven to be pro-crypto. He’s also typically in favor of lowering taxes and stimulating favorable economic conditions which is good for nascent asset classes.
So for risk-on assets like crypto it brings new money into the ecosystem which fuels investment and innovation and encourages entrepreneurs to take risks on unproven ideas. So, I think the stars kind of aligned for Phenom as it touches a lot of these areas and I’m very, very excited for the potential. If he had lost, that wouldn’t have changed my mind on pursuing Phenom, but I think it can certainly help in our early stage growth. It depends on the regulations. I am not a believer in anarchy. I think regulations have their place and people need to be protected from bad actors. And I talk about this a lot, particularly in the poker industry, because there are bad actors in the poker industry whether it’s scammers or bots or shady operators.
MD: Why do you think a large company like MGM or Caesar’s hasn’t tried to open a room like Phenom?
MV: It’s kind of like asking, why did the wagon builders not get into the Ferrari market, I can’t answer that. I think that there’s always going to be disruptors in every industry. There’s disruptors and that’s because a new generation of people come along with new ideas. There’s new technologies available today that weren’t available when MGM started as a company or when MGM decided to pursue the BetMGM product for example.
MD: Take a look into the future and tell us what Phenom Poker looks like in five years.
MV: If I have my way, it would be a thriving ecosystem where people of all skill levels, all limits, whether you’re new to the game or you’re a daily grinder, can go play and have a great human versus human poker experience. You’d pay a very fair and low amount of rake. You’d get rewarded appropriately. You’d have transparency into what the future of that ecosystem looks like, and you’d have a say as a player.
I can’t tell you what it’ll look like or how many redesigns it’ll go through. But I can tell you this, if Phenom Poker is a place to play and have fun for the recreational player all the way up to the high stakes pro and everybody in between, with freedom of their funds, great rewards and fair rake, that would be a massive success to me. I would be extremely happy with that.
MD: What is your favorite poker game?
MV: I don’t know if I have a favorite. I think the purest skill-based game is No Limit Deuce to Seven Single Draw. I think that is the variant that brings out the most skill and the least amount of variance. I really enjoy playing it because it’s a very challenging game, especially when you’re playing against competent players.
MD: Where is your favorite place to play poker?
MV: The Wynn. The thing I like about the Wynn other than obviously having a beautiful luxurious property and great restaurants and all that, is that they actually care about poker. A lot of casinos it’s just like poker is this thing they’re embarrassed to have, just taking up gaming floor space in a corner. The Wynn’s approach is like, if we’re going to do something we’re going to do it right and we’re going to put the players first and they’ve been consistent about that.
MD: What has been your most memorable poker moment?
MV: I remember the first time I played online. My brother transferred me $40 on Full Tilt Poker because my debit card wouldn’t work. I was playing .10/.25c and I ran that $40 up to $1,000 in a week. I had already been playing poker home games and stuff for a while. So, I wasn’t brand new to poker, but the feeling of turning $40 into $1,000 was really big deal to me because the games that I was playing mostly were $20 and $40 sit and go tournament style home games, where I could never win that much.
From there, the first time I played $25/50 no-limit heads up. I had been climbing and grinding from $1-2 to $2-4 on up. I finally got my bankroll to a point where I felt like I want to start taking shots. I looked at that as being like that’s where the big boys play, that’s where Tom Dwan was playing, a lot of these big game players were playing, in those stakes. And I was like, I’m in there. I’m in the game.I wish there was just one, that would be easy.
I think about it, it’s just like, man, there’s a lot of moments. I can talk poker forever, poker has taken me to some very interesting places. I played poker all over the world. I played with some very interesting and even famous people. I feel like I’ve had a very unique and fun poker journey. I’ve also had downs as well. I’ve had the mega down swings that other people have had as well.
MD: Who is on your Mount Rushmore of poker?
MV: The way my mind works, I put them into categories. I think best all-around player that I’ve ever seen is Phil Ivey. It doesn’t seem to matter the game, format, opponents…he is just a consistent elite level opponent and universally respected.
Stu Ungar would be on my list as a player I never saw play personally but the universal respect among peers is very telling. Poker players are competitive and often not quick to say someone is straight up better than them. But when people talk about Stu the respect is there and so you know he was just an absolute monster on the table.
How can I not say Doyle Brunson, right? The longevity, playing the highest stakes for so long. His contribution to the game. Just an absolute legend.
From there its tough there’s a lot of great players and poker has so many sub categories now - Live Players, Online Players, cash games, mixed games, super high stakes small field MTTs, etc. Peak Dwan was incredible.
Viktor Blom is someone I played with recently who has incredible talent and his online exploits back in the day are stuff of legend. Funny story, I was living in Madrid this last year, but I came and played a couple tournaments at the World Series. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to play much, but I played in the $1500 dealer’s choice. I think I played in one other tournament. That’s all I had time for, but I got him on day one and day two of that Dealer’s Choice tournament. Viktor doesn’t play mix. I was really surprised to see him in the tournament. He’s a legendary online pot limit and no limit player, but never known to be a mixed game player. There are a lot of games in the dealer’s choice. A lot of games. I forget how many there are to pick from, but there’s a ton of games. And I’m sitting I’m like, “Holy s***, Isildur is here. What the hell is he doing here?”
Watching him learn on the fly and just piece together the information and play competently and even like I would say above competently in some of those games was so impressive to me. I call it paying tuition. People that come into mix games, they pay tuition to learn these games. Depending on what stakes you’re learning at, it could be quite expensive. I learned mix at $50/100. That’s where I learned mix games. So, yeah. I pride myself on learning quickly though and adapting. That’s probably one of my greatest strengths, which translates well to startups. But watching him I would say it was two orbits of Big O. And the dude was very good at Big O, very tricky. Clearly could see what was going on, was able to put the hand ranges together, was able to play correctly. Very impressive. And I remember I busted I don’t know middle or late day two and he ended up going really deep and then he proceeded to final table a bunch of stuff, all the high rollers and everything. And I don’t know where he sits in poker’s Mount Rushmore, but one of the most impressive players I’ve ever played against.
If I have to pick a 4th for Mount Rushmore it would probably be Patrik Antonius. He has played and beat the best in the world at the highest of stakes both cash and tournaments for so long. Even today with all the changes in game theory and the new generation of GTO wizards he’s playing and winning everywhere its remarkable when you think about it.
MD: Last question. What is your biggest poker pet peeve?
MV: People that are abusive to dealers. It’s part of poker, there’s always going to be people complaining about their luck and “I run so bad” and just people that can’t deal with the emotional swings of poker, but when they start shifting that negative energy towards dealers and staff and things like that, that really gets under my skin and I typically will speak up and say something.
Note: Commentary has been edited for clarity. Follow Michael Dunlap (@DunlapSports) and Matt Valeo (@Phenomaly) on X.