Even if you are a Texas Hold'em lover, you may not know who MJ Gonzales is, but he is indeed one of the best poker players today. However, you can rest assured that you don't know him not because you are ignorant, but because he is really low-key.

Who is MJ Gonzales
For many years, Gonzales has deliberately kept a low profile. Although some high rollers know who he is, for most people in the poker circle, this name has only recently appeared in their field of vision.

Players who emerge by participating in tournaments can easily attract the attention of the public, and the large prize money and golden championship trophies can help them make the headlines. In contrast, good cash game players are more likely to be ignored by the public, because their results are not always disclosed to the public like tournaments. But this is nothing to Gonzales, because he just wants to keep a low profile.

He walked into the poker room not for fame, but to make money.

However, in the past few years, Gonzales gradually emerged from the "behind the scenes" and began to appear in the public eye. He became active on social media and founded Hybrid Poker, a poker teaching platform, which he plans to launch this fall. For many years, this teaching platform has only been open to a handful of carefully selected professional or wealthy people who are willing to pay high prices to buy Gonzales teaching.

Gonzales admitted that before 2019, he deliberately wanted to keep a low profile. In 2019, he was selected by Daniel Negreanu to be a member of his team and participated in the WSOP that year. That year, he entered the award circle nine times, including two final tables and a $25,000 pot limit Omaha Championship, where he won third place and $700,000 in prize money.

But the tournament environment and grand game, and the attention that , made Gonzales uncomfortable.

Gonzales said: "What I wanted to do was to make as much money as possible by providing guidance to the elite, so many people don't know who I am. This is intentional."

So, who are the top players who are looking for Gonzales to help improve their card skills?

Zeng taught Danniu to play cards
Most of the clients have signed non-disclosure agreements with him, so we have no way of knowing. However, it has recently been revealed that Gonzales and his partner have been coaches of Danniu in the past few years.

Danniu has shown heads-up technical progress in the heads-up with Doug Polk, and Gonzales and his partner are the heroes behind it. Although Danniu eventually lost, Polk admitted that the 46-year-old Danniu made great progress. Polk even said that if Danniu and others heads-up, he bet that Danniu will win (of course, if the opponent is a top player who specializes in heads-up, it's a different matter).

For this heads-up, Gonzales believes that even if you don't look at the card skills, anything can happen in the sample size of 25,000 hands, so it is normal for Danniu to lose.

He explained: "Assuming you and I play 10 million hands, our profit and loss are just balanced. At this time, we can say that our poker skills are similar. Even so, in the process of heads-up against you, I may still lose 80~100 buy-ins. This kind of downside is normal. But if the audience sees me losing 100 buy-ins, they will think that your poker skills are 500 times better than me. It’s time to go home and rest. But the volatility in poker is not calculated this way."

He continued: "So, when people are watching Danniu and Polk heads-up, they should know that 25,000 hands are not a sample. Of course, Polk's heads-up technique is better. This is absolute and beyond doubt. .But when Danniu loses 3 buy-ins in a game, the audience will only look at the numbers, and they will think, “Oh my God, he lost $120,000.” Actually, this is fundamentally in a heads-up. That’s nothing. In other words, it’s not crazy for Danniu to play 25,000 hands in a $200/$400 blind game and lose $1 million."

Have a heads-up appointment with limitless

With the end of Danniu's "One-on-One Challenge of the Century", Gonzales began to participate in high-level competitions on his own. The most eye-catching one should be the heads-up against Wiktor "Limitless" Malinowski, the online high-stakes god from Poland. The two will play a knockout round in Las Vegas with a blind level of $1,000/$2,000. Whoever loses $3 million first is the loser.

In addition, Gonzales also made appointments with Isaac Haxton and Dan Smith to play heads-up. The details of the game are still under discussion.

Gonzales thinks live poker is more interesting, so he insists on face-to-face heads-up. He believes that it is necessary to play high stakes poker well, and the players must "inject their souls", and he himself has an advantage over most people in this regard.

When talking about why Gonzales wanted to play live instead of online, he said: “Playing online does not feel the same as playing live. When playing online, the chips are not in front of you, all you have to do is click the mouse button. .But at the scene, you don’t have a random number generator (RNG), no starting hand table, no frequency chart, none of these things, only you and me. This is a purely skillful discussion between me and you, excellent Only one can win."

Gonzales also believes that heads-up is not the form of the game that Malinowski is best at: "I did not know Malinowski based on a large sample, but I think he is better at six-handed than heads-up. Of course, I am not denying him. I still think he is very good at his heads-up technique, but I think he is best at the six-handed table so far."

Dream of playing cards with Phil Ivey

There is a legend, Gonzales especially wants to play cards with him, it is Phil Ivey.

"I'm willing to put everything down and play heads-up with Phil Ivey right away," Gonzales said: "I can resign immediately and stop everything at my hand immediately. I can even set up a tent and play cards directly with Phil Ivey. He It’s okay to play as much as you want."

Although there is still no match between Ivey and Gonzales, we believe that as the popularity of Gonzales gradually rises, a heads-up match between the two is very likely to happen.

Gonzales also said: "I am still an unknown little person in the poker circle, but I intend to change this, partly because I want Phil Ivey to notice me."

Private games and social skills

Celebrities from all walks of life often host some nosebleed private poker games (private games). Many professional players want to participate, but they are turned away. But Gonzales has a way to become a member of these private games. He believes that the main reason for the refusal of professional cards to participate in these private games is that they are too focused on maximizing the expected value (EV) of each decision in the game, while ignoring one point-live poker is a very social occasion.

He said: "Social skills can't help you become the world's top poker player, but it can help you make a lot of money. For example, Ike Haxton, no one cares whether he is a gentle person or not. He is considered the best card in the world. One of the hands. But I can participate in those nosebleed private games, but he can’t. The rich people in those private games will say, “Why should I play cards with Ike Haxton?” He didn’t become friends with these celebrities. But this is his choice."

Of course, this doesn't mean to look down on Ike Haxton, it's just that the two have different perspectives on poker. Gonzales said that between "fame" and "money", he chose the latter because he didn't want his daughter to experience the poverty he experienced when he was a child.

Gonzales said that in these private games, he had to "disguise" his poker talent a little bit, because he wanted to make sure that those who played with him could enjoy the fun of playing with him whether they win or lose.

Of course, this does not mean that professional cards cannot profit from these private games. The point is that you have to use different techniques to please these celebrities and make them feel the fun they want. In addition to this, if you can make a profit, of course it is very powerful.

Gonzales believes that the key is that in addition to understanding the opponent's playing style, you also need to understand the opponent's mood when playing cards: "Do they think the joke just now is funny? Do they like to listen to the joke? Or they just want to sit there. Playing cards? Do they want to watch the flop? Did they hesitate when they scratched their heads? Everyone's personality is unique, so these issues are worthy of our study."

For Gonzales, there is more to study. He believes that one thing is particularly important-you have to make the celebrities in these private games treat you as a respectable peer. This is another way to make big money in high-stakes private games.

Gonzales gave an example: "I have a friend who is also a professional card. Once he played cards with a comedian. He said to the comedian:'If I win the pot, you take a picture with me.' The comedian agreed. My friend won the pot, so they took a photo with a Polaroid. After my friend got the photo, he took a look and said, "You don’t look good in this picture, I don’t I’ll show this picture to others.’ Then, my friend burned this picture on the spot. This step is really genius. He did it for a comedian to show him that he didn’t care. His celebrity status, the two of them are equal."

The goal is the highest level game
Although Gonzales's "resume" is not particularly good-looking, he has no record of millions of tournament prizes, and no gold bracelet, but he represents a lifestyle that most people don't even understand.

Now, he has decided to come out from the "behind the scenes" and he wants to accomplish some things. After launching Hybrid Poker, he has to challenge high-level games. His plan is that after successfully challenging the highest level of games in history, he will retire quietly and then seriously invest in investment.

As for the high level of the game, Gonzales said: "In Macau and Malaysia, they play $10,000/$25,000, or even $25,000/$50,000. I don’t know how often these games appear, but I know they play each game. It can make a profit between $75 million and $100 million."