» Eric 'Sheets' Haber interview
Have you ever wondered if you could balance a business career and high stakes poker? Have you ever wondered if you can start playing poker in your mid 30's and still achieve great success? Eric 'Sheets' Haber, 42, is a shining example of someone who has done both. While Eric may not sleep as much as the rest of us, he is a successful hedge fund manager in New York and manages both poker and work with his family life. In February 2008, he won the $5,150 NLHE WSOP Atlantic City Circuit event. He is a lead instructor, along with Cliff 'JohnnyBax' Josephy at PokerXFactor.com, the online poker training site. (Note: this interview was conducted by phone, recorded, transcribed and edited for brevity.)
You are known as a very mathematically minded player. How would you describe your approach to poker?
That's kind of the debate or argument that has gone on forever in poker...how much is math and how much is reading people and the psychology. The obvious answer is it's a combination of both. I actually believe there is more math than some people think, but also realize there's more psychology than a lot of the math oriented players feel. But I really feel you need to know some basic math related concepts to succeed professionally in this environment where so many online players have that mathematical background, that to face them without the knowledge of how pot odds work and more advanced game math, you are really at a disadvantage.
Would you say that it is a disadvantage NOT being mathematically-minded in poker? What would you say about the players who have experienced a great amount of success, but claim to NOT have a mathematical basis behind their skill or decisions?
Well, of course. I don't want to be pigeon-holed into some robotic sense of a math-oriented player, because there are still a lot of things required like reading people and situations, but without a working knowledge of basic and more advanced poker math concepts, you are likely to be a losing player. And it's different online to live. Online, the best players will be raising a pot already figuring out in advance what they'll do if somebody ships on them. Whereas live you see people raise and they are surprised when someone re-raises them. They will think, let me stare into their eyes rather than try to read what type of range of hands they will have in advance, so now they will think they'll need to focus on if their hands are twitching to determine their action. Online it's a much more streamlined approach. The live players don't prepare as much in advance on what's going to happen in a particular hand.
Your specialty online is playing high stakes sit n goes, what about that form of poker fits well with your approach?
I hate sit n goes. I wish they would all go away. (he chuckles) Nah, I mean my career in poker started with only sit n goes, then I switched to exclusively multi table tournaments because I was sick of sit n goes. Then I went back to them again. If you play too many sit n goes, it really stunts your brain. Playing sit n goes for a living is sort of like card counting, once you get a rote system of play that works, you brain starts to lose it after you do the same rote routine over and over. So if you play a zillion sit n goes in a year, and essentially know what you are doing every single time, there not too much room left for creativity and growth. Which ultimately leads to your brain not operating at a high level.
So every once in a while, I'll completely give up sit n goes, not because of any downswing or anything, but because they can be really really boring. At times I will find myself playing just to maintain the Supernova status. But it's a form of poker that's pretty easy to get good at, and once you get good at it, you can't get 'ungood' at it. You can get a little bit rusty, but once you have the basics down, your not really going to ever lose a lot. You might not be as big a winner as others, but some feel you can solve a sit n go in a way that you can play as close to perfect as possible, so that's why it's a convenient way to make money. If you put in the time to learn how to play them, it's always a nice stream of income if you feel like putting in the hours. If you don't mind the pain of grinding it out for a 5% ROI, it can be a very easy game to play.
When I was doing some research on you, I noticed that your SNG stats aren't publicly accessible on Sharkscope. What do you feel is a reasonable long term ROI to shoot for in sit n goes?
It really depends on your level of play. If you are playing $16's, I've heard of people that have gotten 25% ROI's over extended periods of play. The people that you are playing who aren't very good, are really really not very good. As you move up, to the 200's and 500's and on up, then you start shooting for 5-6% ROI. But as I said, people are starting to get better. Back in the day, before people knew how to play them, I was putting upROI's of 20%. But as people learned I went down to 12%, then 8%, and for this past year, I think I made only 3%. It's become a much tougher game, but if your willing to grind it out, it's still quite profitable.
What do you feel about player's statistics and monetary winnings or losing being available to the public?
I personally feel it's nobodies business what you make or lose in poker, online or live. I always found that to be something personal. It's a person's own private record. I wouldn't want people seeing how much I made over a certain period of time. There are only certain people that need to know that information, including my wife, my accountant and the IRS. It's always bothered me that Sports Illustrated will put out an issue where they list the top sports stars like Alex Rodriguez. When I negotiated contracts at the financial services firm, or any private contracts, I never expected anyone to access how much money I made. I don't think it's appropriate for people to know your private business. In fact, the publishing of winners and losers can discourage players on the negative side. On the other hand, I don't mind the data mining from the perspective of how often somebody raises. That's something that people can track you for anyway, so I find that to be an intellectually useful thing. 
How do you balance running a hedge fund and playing poker?
It's next to impossible. Several years ago, my hedge fund was significantly bigger, and I really didn't have time to do anything but that. But once I scaled back the hedge fund, I had time to do other things. I get very little sleep. I go to sleep very late, and I wake up very early. And it's all about time management. I allocate time to take care of whatever I need to take care of in all the different businesses I deal with.
How do the different skill sets in hedge funds and poker influence each vocation?
That's a subject that could take another 10 hours to examine. I tell the joke that I spent a lot of time attaining the CFA card, a three year program of tests and studies in the financial industry and it really helped with my gambling career. It's kinda true, within investing, poker and gambling there are all kinds of things that go back and forth or hand in hand; the analysis of statistics, the analysis of variance, and the natural discipline required.
If you look at the record of hedge fund managers the last several years, you see some who were very good at picking stocks, but the ability to know when things are going against you is a discipline that is very different and difficult to learn. It causes hedge fund managers to do stupid things under pressure. And it cause poker players to do stupid things as well. There are poker players that know how to play a hand, but if things go against them they are going to start to press and lose money. It's the tip of the iceberg. You combine math plus the psychology of both careers and you have a lot of similarities.
In the financial industry, you have to look at the fundamentals of a company and analyze how they should be valued which is like the math part of poker, knowing when to push fold in certain spots. But then also in stocks there is the psychology of stocks to know what action the stock might have in spite of the fundamentals. And that's very difficult to learn. Likewise in poker it's very difficult to read someone when you can't put them on a range
How did you find poker? Did you have a mentor or particular help that accelerated your growth as a player?
I've always had something that has compelled me. Before I got into finances, I used to do horses. I used to play chess. I used to play backgammon. I did all kinds of stuff. As a lot of backgammon players turned to poker, I did too. When Gus Hansen and PhilLaak and all these Scandinavian guys moved to poker, it became easier to learn and play. It was a new different cool game to learn.
I don't know how these people self teach. When I started, I knew nothing. At my first tournament, I didn't know the rules. I was learning them in the taxi cab on the way to the tournament. When I decided I was going to learn, I bought everything. I bought theHellmuth book, the Brunson book, literally everything that was out there at the time. I was just trying to see if I could gleen anything from anything. And once I learned the basics, I became friends with Brett 'gank' Jungblutt, Scotty Fischman , and Dutch Boyd, who were at the time, some of the most expressive thinkers in poker. This goes back to 2003 and 2004 when no one knew anything about re shoving and stuff like that. Those guys taught me what I didn't find in the books. What they taught me then would be considered chapter one or two with the knowledge that is out there now. Daniel Alaei and Darrel 'gigabet' Dicken were also early helps. So I had a stable group I could bounce ideas off of so when Cliff 'johnnybax' Josephy got into playing, it became really easy. He and I talk all the time, anyways. So once he became good and better than I was, which took all of two weeks, we took off to a new level.
Do you prefer playing online or live, and why?
I like playing both, but playing online is so much easier. The travel for live is unbearable on me and my family. I used to try to travel a lot but nowadays I'm reduced to playing a couple tournaments a year. It is kinda cool live to shoot for a big hit and make a TV final table, and the live play is easier as far as skill goes. But it's just so much more convenient to play online that I would have to say I prefer online.
Having been a long time lead instructor at PokerXFactor, how have you found the teaching experience and education of so many players?
Back in the day before poker and finance, I used to teach the bar exam for a living and I loved doing it. I love teaching. I always have liked helping other people learn. Cliff and I were always approached by people to help them and didn't have time. Cliff metMindwise, who started PokerXFactor , and brought us on board. Before it ever launched, Cliff said to me "Are you sure we are doing the right thing? They're all going to get good and they're going to kill us. They're going to know how we play and the games will become impossible." And I said, yeah that's true you can't go through life like that and hopefully we'll make enough money off of it to offset some of the EV we lose. It did turn out that way too.
Everyone got better, the games got harder, everyone knows how we play, and yeah I regret it every once in a while. But regret is an emotion that's kind of useless. It makes us money, it keeps us young. And you know what, it keeps my wife happy knowing I'm doing something in the poker community that's less degenerate. I love doing the videos. I love teaching. I love the work involved in setting up the videos. And for those people that say F PokerXFactor for making the games harder, I say too bad. So you have to work harder. Life is about work. So you have to be a bit smarter to get it done.
The poker world is filled with so many aspiring youngsters. What advantages are their for the older, more life experienced players against the horde of youthful online and live poker aficionados?
There is none. There is no advantage over them. They have literally unlimited time to do the work and study. They are just as smart mathematically. After a certain age, your math skills plateau, then it becomes a matter of grinding the time to get good. A 21 year old not in college who isn't married or encumbered has all the advantage over a 42 year old who's working with a family and other responsibilities. Also tilt is not reserved for just the young. Good for them. That's why the young people are ruling the poker world right now.
What mistakes do you see good tournament players make that inhibit them from being great?
It's the same stuff we talk about all the time at PokerXFactor: overvaluing small pairs, calling too much, not knowing stack sizes. Just the normal stuff that's always been a problem. It's been the same issues over the last 5 years that some people can't seem to figure out.
What is your biggest weakness in poker?
I not sure I consider it a weakness, but it is what it is. I completely don't have the focus at the table that other people do. I got a lot going on. I got kids crawling all over me and wife yelling at me. The phone is ringing and emails coming in and AIM chats going back and forth. Sometimes I'm sitting out for half an hour while I deal with some pressing issue. So i can not focus at the tables as I should, and that costs you by definition. As for my game, I try to work on it every day. I never perceive that I have a huge weakness that needs to be corrected, but I continue to tweak and learn and learn.
Are you more comfortable with pre flop play or post flop play? In present day tournament poker, which one do you think is most important to master?
Pre flop play is easier, so I'm definitely more comfortable with pre flop play. The good thing about pre flop play is if you do it well, it makes your post flop play easier as well. If your pre flop play is poor, it makes post flop play harder and more important. Nowadays, post flop play is becoming more important online with the longer structures in place. But most hands are taken down pre flop and most important hands are won pre flop. Online it's still a pre flop game.
Your good friend, Cliff 'JohnnyBax' Josephy said about you in a recent interview, "he is an incredible student of the game. He never wants to stop learning. He never wants to stop talking about hands. He’s truly insatiable and that’s why his results have gotten so much better lately. He refuses to let anybody catch up or not stay ahead of the curve. He makes sure he learns more than everyone else and that’s what I love about him." Where do you get your drive and how do you keep your game so sharp as the years go by?
If you're not going to keep improving at something it's kind of dumb to do it. From growing up with an intellectual father, and a competitive family we always wanted to get better at whatever. The same as A-Rod showing up at the field early to practice his swing. The same as Tiger. He wins the Masters by 17 strokes then completely retools his swing because he knew it could be better. It the same thing for anybody to be successful at anything. You are sort of cheating yourself by not constantly be working and improving yourself.
Moving forward, what are your aspirations in the poker world?
Just keep grinding away until I get bored of it. If it loses the intellectual challenge, I don't know why I would play any more. It's not like it's something that makes me a billion dollars. It makes me money, but if I don't keep improving and trying to be the best, I would not continue. As long as it's fun, I'll keep playing. As long as I can convince Mrs. Sheets to keep playing as much as I want, then I'll keep doing it.
Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions, Eric. Before you go, we have several fun questions inspired by Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio.
What is your favorite fun poker phrase/slang/acronym?
There are just so many that are obscene....hmmm... S.M.D (long pause) which stands for Sheets makes decisions...(big chuckle)
If the poker industry disappeared completely, what other career would you most like to attempt?
I'd continue in the hedge fund world.
Yellowtail and jalapeno from Nobu.
When your poker career is over, what would you most like to be remembered for?
Probably for PokerXFactor and helping the community get better.
Read the Poker Curious review of PokerXFactor
Read the interview of good friend Cliff 'JohnnyBax' Josephy
