Chris Wallace believes that live tournament poker's current model is broken. In most other forms of professional competition, sponsorship dollars help pay for the events to take place and players earn winnings from sponsor-provided prize pools. The iNinja Poker Tour owner believes poker. Chris Wallace, known to the poker world simply as 'Fox', is a professional poker player, poker coach, and widely respected theorist and author on the game. Chris would contend that he's known more as a coach than as a player, having served as coach and mentor to several successful players. Christmas is traditionally the time for wishing big things of Santa, and poker players are no exception. INinja Poker co-owner and WSOP bracelet winner Chris Wallace has big poker dreams and really wishes they'd come true. Read on to learn what he wished for and perhaps you'll discover a way to help make his poker dreams come true.
In the world of tournament poker, there are a litany of tours and series that a player can take part in. If you want to go with the 'major leagues,' there is the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. If you want to drop down a bit, there are the Heartland Poker Tour, the WPT DeepStacks, the WSOP Circuit and others. Now, a top professional who has worn several hats during his time in the game is looking to bring about the next great tournament series for the poker playing world.
Chris'Fox'Wallace LAV848 GPID is a unique identification number, assigned to each individual player, that will be used in the future in order to register for most poker tournaments around the world. It links to the player's profile in order to prevent any data errors.
Chris ‘Fox' Wallace has been a poker coach with Real Poker Training, the author of a book (No Limits: The Fundamentals of No Limit Hold'em) and a plethora of magazine and online articles, and a sponsored playing pro with the 'Shark Brigade' from Blue Shark Optics, and found the time to win a WSOP bracelet in 2014. It appears there was one thing that he hadn't done in poker, though…start his own poker series. With the Next Level Poker Series, Wallace is looking to not only check that block on his poker resume but also give back even more to the poker world.
Poker News Daily had the opportunity to catch up with Wallace and learn about his new endeavor and what it holds in store for participants.
PND: When did you first have the idea of starting your own poker tour?
Chris ‘Fox' Wallace: I've toyed with the idea for years. I've been an ambassador or team pro for three different tours now and seen what they do well and the mistakes they make. A lot of tours are using technology that is ten or twenty years old, dragging tables around the country or bringing in entire film crews, and casinos don't want to pay for that stuff. When I got the technology worked out I realized that I should really go ahead and do this thing.
PND: What has your experience in playing different tours taught you? Was there anything that you'll bring from those tournament experiences that you'll implement in the Next Level Poker Series?
CFW: I was lucky to work with a few very different tours. I had a chance to see how they did things differently and was able to take the good and hopefully learn from their mistakes. I watched a tour grow into a powerhouse and I watched two others fail. Much of what we do is unique, but I certainly learned some things from those tours that made Next Level Poker possible.
PND: OK, that seems to be the big question…what will the Next Level Poker Series bring that the other poker tours and series don't?
CFW: We are different in several important ways. As a tournament pro, I know what players want, and as a dealer and tournament director my business partner Brian Soja understands things from the other side of the equation. The technology I've worked out allows me to do a solid broadcast out of what is basically a backpack, and that allows us to charge the house less than many other tours. This means they can charge less rake, spend more on advertising, and have more stops for the same amount of money.
We are also engaging players to help us promote the events rather than spending so much on advertising. We are hoping that a year or two from now we will have a seriously loyal following (that) appreciate we are fighting for them and who will fight for us in return. We know there are a lot of players who don't care and who will play tournaments with twice the normal rake just because everyone else is doing it, but we think that there will be enough players who care about what a tour actually offers that our following will become powerful enough to allow us to negotiate different deals with casinos that work well for everyone.
We also have a charity event at every stop, something that is very important to us. The poker community has a lot of money and we think it is a great place to raise some cash and give back to the communities that help us make a living. We hope other tours don't catch on to most of what we do, but we would be very happy if the charity component spreads to other tours.
The most unique thing we do is the Pocket Fives Invitational. It is an invite-only single table tournament that we broadcast live on the first night of a tour stop. Some seats are given away as sponsor exemptions while others can be won through promotions on social media or by playing live games at the venue. The winner gets a seat into our main event, the Blue Shark Optics Championship, as well as a selection of gear.
We also make that player our featured pro for the week including covering their progress in our events and publishing a bio on our site. Because a player could win a seat on twitter or Facebook when they have never been in a casino, it could really take some someone from a complete beginner to a known player in the blink of an eye.
PND: It seems you've got some good ideas, but what is the most important thing that a poker tour can do to keep its players happy?
CFW: We actually have a poll up on our Facebook page right now. Simple two question poll about priorities when it comes to choosing a tournament. the answers to that poll will help us answer this question better, but I think it's different for everyone. Some people primarily care about structure, while others focus on low rake or on how soft the field will be. Many recreational players only care about having a good time or how much money will be in first place. The chance to play on a broadcast 'feature' table is also important to many players, but we don't think most of them will admit it. I know I sure have more fun when I'm on a broadcast table!
Integrity is also very important. Some tours have had a surprising lack of it, a problem I have experienced firsthand with a couple of tours, and when players get to know us and see that we have a spotless reputation we think they will make it a point to play our events.
PND: The first event will begin November 5. How prepared are you for the tournament schedule?
CFW: We think we are ready, but I will admit that it has been a ton of work. More work than we imagined. There is a tremendous amount of red tape involved in these things as well as so much organizational work that I never had to deal with when I was just wearing patches for a tour and doing commentary on final tables. We have a test run of our broadcast equipment coming up on October 28th that should help make sure that we have things running smoothly. We are donating the broadcast to one of our favorite poker charities, All-In for Africa. Check them out, they do amazing work!
PND: Your choice of venue isn't one of the bigger names in the business. How did you go about picking Diamond Jo as the casino for the inaugural event (writer's note: Diamond Jo Casino is in Northwoods, IA)?
CFW: Diamond Jo was the first venue we approached and we were ecstatic that they said yes. It's always nice to get a hit in your first at bat. We knew that there had not been a big tour there in quite some time and that they are a great card room that a lot of players don't know enough about. They have enough space for us, a great casino, and they are close to Minnesota where Brian lives and where I am from until recently. It gives us a home field advantage and a chance to start on a clean playing field where other tours haven't been recently.
PND: Can you give us some clues as to other stops that will be coming?
CFW: We are talking to venues all over the country and hope to be announcing a couple of big names soon. We are willing to go anywhere in the world and no poker room is too big or too small. We are in talks with venues in South America, Australia, The Caribbean, and all over the United States. If you want us to come to your area, please put your card room manager in touch with us and we will give them a great deal on a great series.
PND: What is your eventual goal for the Next Level Poker Series?
CFW: I want this thing to be huge. I want us to be powerful enough that other tours must adjust to us and offer players and venues more of what they want. Ten years ago, we were getting 5,000 starting chips in events with a $1,000 buy-in. Now we get four or five times that number. This is because tours started offering better structures and players came to expect better structures. We want to do that with everything. We want a happier interaction between players and venues where everyone benefits.
Poker News Daily would like to thank Wallace for his time and encourage interested players to check out the Next Level Poker Series website here, where a full slate of action for the inaugural event from November 5-26 can be found.
Poker News Daily: How did you get started in poker?
Wallace: I needed a distraction in my life. I needed something to focus on. When I learn things, I get very into them. I was working with exotic hardwoods and developed an allergy to them that was going to kill me if I didn't stop, so my career was over. My marriage was over and I needed something to distract me. Poker was a good thing. I had a friend, Adam Stemple, who goes by the name 'Hatfield.' He had been playing semi-pro for 20 years and I had been playing blackjack for 10 years. He said I should try poker and sold me on the idea. He loaned me a couple of books and, a week later, I had 20 books and five notebooks trying to learn the game.
PND: You're an instructor at PokerXFactor. What separates it from other poker training sites like it in the industry?
Wallace: It's a tough industry. It's like the 'Cola Wars' for poker training sites right now. Everybody is starting a poker training site. The tournament roster at PokerXFactor is incredible. The technology that they have available is incredible. When I ran my own site, we were a little two man operation and didn't really put a lot of money into it. While we were good teachers, we didn't have a lot of technology. Now, I use the PokerXFactor Replayer with all of my students. I load their hand histories into the Replayer before we start a lesson. Then, we can look through them and talk about hands.
The constant adding of technology is also big. You can watch a hand in the Replayer, stop it, and then add an audio comment. When someone replays the hand, they can hear your comments. Having Cliff 'JohnnyBax' Josephy commenting on your hand histories – it doesn't get any better than that.
Chris Wallace Poker
PND: Explain how you become involved with PokerXFactor.
Wallace: I ran my own site. I think we were one of the first poker training sites ever. We were tired of being webmasters and wanted to be poker players. We wanted to teach people poker, but we didn't want to run a website. It got to be a real pain. We got tired of trying to deal with the technical problems and all of that hassle. We knew that it was going to be the year when everyone was going to start a poker training site. There have to be 100 of them now, at least. We didn't want to be just another site and we didn't want to spend a lot of money to compete with the big dogs.
We were looking around trying to decide what to do. I met Scott 'Mindwise' Pendergrast from PokerXFactor. He wanted to expand his cash game roster and cash games were what we did. He brought us in and bought our site. We have both primarily done cash game videos. I'm really happy about the way it worked out.
PND: There is a big debate in the poker software industry as to whether PokerTracker or Hold'em Manager is the better program. Which do you prefer and why?
Wallace: I probably hear that question once per day. I even made a video comparing the two on PokerXFactor. They're remarkably similar. They both took a lot of cues from a lot of modern programming. PokerTracker 3 and Hold'em Manager are a quantum leap from what we've had in the past. They're remarkably better. The two are so similar that it's tough to pick one.
What I tell everyone is that they both have a free trial where you can run some hands and see how it works on your computer. They were designed on different systems, so some people have bug problems with the Heads-Up Display in PokerTracker 3. People also have problems importing hands. Some people have problems with Hold'em Manager, which doesn't run on their computer. I tell everyone to download them both because one of them is going to be the most important piece of software that runs on your computer. See which one works better and which one makes the most sense to you.
In the world of tournament poker, there are a litany of tours and series that a player can take part in. If you want to go with the 'major leagues,' there is the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. If you want to drop down a bit, there are the Heartland Poker Tour, the WPT DeepStacks, the WSOP Circuit and others. Now, a top professional who has worn several hats during his time in the game is looking to bring about the next great tournament series for the poker playing world.
Chris'Fox'Wallace LAV848 GPID is a unique identification number, assigned to each individual player, that will be used in the future in order to register for most poker tournaments around the world. It links to the player's profile in order to prevent any data errors.
Chris ‘Fox' Wallace has been a poker coach with Real Poker Training, the author of a book (No Limits: The Fundamentals of No Limit Hold'em) and a plethora of magazine and online articles, and a sponsored playing pro with the 'Shark Brigade' from Blue Shark Optics, and found the time to win a WSOP bracelet in 2014. It appears there was one thing that he hadn't done in poker, though…start his own poker series. With the Next Level Poker Series, Wallace is looking to not only check that block on his poker resume but also give back even more to the poker world.
Poker News Daily had the opportunity to catch up with Wallace and learn about his new endeavor and what it holds in store for participants.
PND: When did you first have the idea of starting your own poker tour?
Chris ‘Fox' Wallace: I've toyed with the idea for years. I've been an ambassador or team pro for three different tours now and seen what they do well and the mistakes they make. A lot of tours are using technology that is ten or twenty years old, dragging tables around the country or bringing in entire film crews, and casinos don't want to pay for that stuff. When I got the technology worked out I realized that I should really go ahead and do this thing.
PND: What has your experience in playing different tours taught you? Was there anything that you'll bring from those tournament experiences that you'll implement in the Next Level Poker Series?
CFW: I was lucky to work with a few very different tours. I had a chance to see how they did things differently and was able to take the good and hopefully learn from their mistakes. I watched a tour grow into a powerhouse and I watched two others fail. Much of what we do is unique, but I certainly learned some things from those tours that made Next Level Poker possible.
In the case of two or more straight flushes, straights, or flushes, the player with the highest card in her straight or flush has the highest hand. If one player has a queen high straight and another has a nine high straight, the player with the queen high straight wins.
PND: OK, that seems to be the big question…what will the Next Level Poker Series bring that the other poker tours and series don't?
CFW: We are different in several important ways. As a tournament pro, I know what players want, and as a dealer and tournament director my business partner Brian Soja understands things from the other side of the equation. The technology I've worked out allows me to do a solid broadcast out of what is basically a backpack, and that allows us to charge the house less than many other tours. This means they can charge less rake, spend more on advertising, and have more stops for the same amount of money.
We are also engaging players to help us promote the events rather than spending so much on advertising. We are hoping that a year or two from now we will have a seriously loyal following (that) appreciate we are fighting for them and who will fight for us in return. We know there are a lot of players who don't care and who will play tournaments with twice the normal rake just because everyone else is doing it, but we think that there will be enough players who care about what a tour actually offers that our following will become powerful enough to allow us to negotiate different deals with casinos that work well for everyone.
We also have a charity event at every stop, something that is very important to us. The poker community has a lot of money and we think it is a great place to raise some cash and give back to the communities that help us make a living. We hope other tours don't catch on to most of what we do, but we would be very happy if the charity component spreads to other tours.
The most unique thing we do is the Pocket Fives Invitational. It is an invite-only single table tournament that we broadcast live on the first night of a tour stop. Some seats are given away as sponsor exemptions while others can be won through promotions on social media or by playing live games at the venue. The winner gets a seat into our main event, the Blue Shark Optics Championship, as well as a selection of gear.
We also make that player our featured pro for the week including covering their progress in our events and publishing a bio on our site. Because a player could win a seat on twitter or Facebook when they have never been in a casino, it could really take some someone from a complete beginner to a known player in the blink of an eye.
PND: It seems you've got some good ideas, but what is the most important thing that a poker tour can do to keep its players happy?
CFW: We actually have a poll up on our Facebook page right now. Simple two question poll about priorities when it comes to choosing a tournament. the answers to that poll will help us answer this question better, but I think it's different for everyone. Some people primarily care about structure, while others focus on low rake or on how soft the field will be. Many recreational players only care about having a good time or how much money will be in first place. The chance to play on a broadcast 'feature' table is also important to many players, but we don't think most of them will admit it. I know I sure have more fun when I'm on a broadcast table!
Integrity is also very important. Some tours have had a surprising lack of it, a problem I have experienced firsthand with a couple of tours, and when players get to know us and see that we have a spotless reputation we think they will make it a point to play our events.
PND: The first event will begin November 5. How prepared are you for the tournament schedule?
CFW: We think we are ready, but I will admit that it has been a ton of work. More work than we imagined. There is a tremendous amount of red tape involved in these things as well as so much organizational work that I never had to deal with when I was just wearing patches for a tour and doing commentary on final tables. We have a test run of our broadcast equipment coming up on October 28th that should help make sure that we have things running smoothly. We are donating the broadcast to one of our favorite poker charities, All-In for Africa. Check them out, they do amazing work!
PND: Your choice of venue isn't one of the bigger names in the business. How did you go about picking Diamond Jo as the casino for the inaugural event (writer's note: Diamond Jo Casino is in Northwoods, IA)?
CFW: Diamond Jo was the first venue we approached and we were ecstatic that they said yes. It's always nice to get a hit in your first at bat. We knew that there had not been a big tour there in quite some time and that they are a great card room that a lot of players don't know enough about. They have enough space for us, a great casino, and they are close to Minnesota where Brian lives and where I am from until recently. It gives us a home field advantage and a chance to start on a clean playing field where other tours haven't been recently.
PND: Can you give us some clues as to other stops that will be coming?
CFW: We are talking to venues all over the country and hope to be announcing a couple of big names soon. We are willing to go anywhere in the world and no poker room is too big or too small. We are in talks with venues in South America, Australia, The Caribbean, and all over the United States. If you want us to come to your area, please put your card room manager in touch with us and we will give them a great deal on a great series.
PND: What is your eventual goal for the Next Level Poker Series?
CFW: I want this thing to be huge. I want us to be powerful enough that other tours must adjust to us and offer players and venues more of what they want. Ten years ago, we were getting 5,000 starting chips in events with a $1,000 buy-in. Now we get four or five times that number. This is because tours started offering better structures and players came to expect better structures. We want to do that with everything. We want a happier interaction between players and venues where everyone benefits.
Poker News Daily would like to thank Wallace for his time and encourage interested players to check out the Next Level Poker Series website here, where a full slate of action for the inaugural event from November 5-26 can be found.
Poker News Daily: How did you get started in poker?
Wallace: I needed a distraction in my life. I needed something to focus on. When I learn things, I get very into them. I was working with exotic hardwoods and developed an allergy to them that was going to kill me if I didn't stop, so my career was over. My marriage was over and I needed something to distract me. Poker was a good thing. I had a friend, Adam Stemple, who goes by the name 'Hatfield.' He had been playing semi-pro for 20 years and I had been playing blackjack for 10 years. He said I should try poker and sold me on the idea. He loaned me a couple of books and, a week later, I had 20 books and five notebooks trying to learn the game.
PND: You're an instructor at PokerXFactor. What separates it from other poker training sites like it in the industry?
Wallace: It's a tough industry. It's like the 'Cola Wars' for poker training sites right now. Everybody is starting a poker training site. The tournament roster at PokerXFactor is incredible. The technology that they have available is incredible. When I ran my own site, we were a little two man operation and didn't really put a lot of money into it. While we were good teachers, we didn't have a lot of technology. Now, I use the PokerXFactor Replayer with all of my students. I load their hand histories into the Replayer before we start a lesson. Then, we can look through them and talk about hands.
The constant adding of technology is also big. You can watch a hand in the Replayer, stop it, and then add an audio comment. When someone replays the hand, they can hear your comments. Having Cliff 'JohnnyBax' Josephy commenting on your hand histories – it doesn't get any better than that.
Chris Wallace Poker
PND: Explain how you become involved with PokerXFactor.
Wallace: I ran my own site. I think we were one of the first poker training sites ever. We were tired of being webmasters and wanted to be poker players. We wanted to teach people poker, but we didn't want to run a website. It got to be a real pain. We got tired of trying to deal with the technical problems and all of that hassle. We knew that it was going to be the year when everyone was going to start a poker training site. There have to be 100 of them now, at least. We didn't want to be just another site and we didn't want to spend a lot of money to compete with the big dogs.
We were looking around trying to decide what to do. I met Scott 'Mindwise' Pendergrast from PokerXFactor. He wanted to expand his cash game roster and cash games were what we did. He brought us in and bought our site. We have both primarily done cash game videos. I'm really happy about the way it worked out.
PND: There is a big debate in the poker software industry as to whether PokerTracker or Hold'em Manager is the better program. Which do you prefer and why?
Wallace: I probably hear that question once per day. I even made a video comparing the two on PokerXFactor. They're remarkably similar. They both took a lot of cues from a lot of modern programming. PokerTracker 3 and Hold'em Manager are a quantum leap from what we've had in the past. They're remarkably better. The two are so similar that it's tough to pick one.
What I tell everyone is that they both have a free trial where you can run some hands and see how it works on your computer. They were designed on different systems, so some people have bug problems with the Heads-Up Display in PokerTracker 3. People also have problems importing hands. Some people have problems with Hold'em Manager, which doesn't run on their computer. I tell everyone to download them both because one of them is going to be the most important piece of software that runs on your computer. See which one works better and which one makes the most sense to you.
PND: What advice do you have for newcomers in the game?
Wallace: Study. There are so many resources available to you now. Originally, there were a couple of books. 'Super System' was the big one. You could talk to your friends and try to learn the game, which was tough. If you didn't have any natural talent, you weren't going to make it. When I got started around 2002, there were a lot of books and I bought them all. I have a huge shelf full of poker books. I studied really hard and, right from the beginning, I was a winning player. The first time I deposited, I was winning. I've never had to re-deposit on a site. I've only deposited when I try out a new site.
Chris Wallace Poker
Now, we have an incredible amount of information. Join a training site and become active. Be active in the TwoPlusTwo forums. Be active on PocketFives. Be active on FlopTurnRiver. Become a member of a poker training site and a part of that site's community. There's a chat room on PokerXFactor where you can drop by at 3:00am and there may be no one else except for me in there. That means you're getting a free one-hour lesson with me. If you want to study, there's so much information out there and the training sites give you such an advantage. I don't know how people survive without being a member of these training sites.
