The charm indiscreet of poker for the chess player.
Following Magnus Carlsen’s move to EPT Monte Carlo, considered by many to be his strongest of all time, Alexandre Vuilleumier surprised everyone yesterday by winning the High Roller WSOP bracelet 6 hands $25,000 buy in.
Virtually unknown to Texas Hold’Em enthusiasts, the Swiss is an “International Champion” at chess and has reached an ELO rating of above 2,400.
Be victory in one of the toughest tournaments of all the World Series of Poker where he contested that fourth bracelet There’s even more to a certain Chance Kornuth in the final heads-up sensational considering the Swiss has started to get serious about the two cards a early 2022neither nor a year one and a half ago.
What Vuilleumier said
Despite being the first to raise a coin worth over a million dollars, the new bracelet winner showed in the post-win interview that he was aware of his limitations at the green table.
“Of course the World Series Of Poker is a great thing, winning a bracelet is definitely the seal of a poker career […] I’m really happy with what’s happening. I’m not a top player: like chess, you have to stay in shape for years to be one in poker. I’m definitely growing up and looking forward to playing these tournaments. I started playing MTT in January 2020 to avoid lofty statements.”
Prior to 2020, Vuilleumier had accumulated 12 cash wins in low buy-in tournaments. The WSOP win is the culmination of an incredible climb over the past year that has led to his second place finish in July 2022 at the $1,100 Wynn Summer Classic for $160,000 and the EPT London Main Event in the October’s third place finisher for $334,784 was followed by a $237,700 win in February’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Event 69, $10,150 6-handed.
Decades of experience with chess
Born in 1982, the Swiss made his debut in the chess world in 1982 2001surpassing ELO 2200 already in the following year. The climax reached him when he died 2,400 shares in July 2006.
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According to the database “ChessGames” on a sample of 270 Matches, Vuilleumier used the Sicilian opening 44 times, the French Defense 14 times and the Queen’s Gambit 11 times, as well as the Sicilian Najdorf. With Black, the Swiss has taken over the Sicilian Defense 28 times, the Nimzo-Indian 12 times and the English 9 times.
Having virtually ground to a halt since 2019, the International Chess Federation website assigns it an ELO of 2366 in standard chess and 2,266 in rapid and blitz.
Analogies between chess and poker
The new 25k High Roller World Series Of Poker champion doesn’t hide the fact that his background has made life easier for him at the green table, in two particular ways. The first is related to concentration.
“One of the first tricks you learn in chess is to be able to focus on the long term. So I think after nine hours of concentration I’m always at 90% of my ability while the others maybe drop to 60%. It’s definitely a big thing for me.”
The other concerns are a matter of “mental gymnastics‘.
“In chess we learn to think abstractly in the air and to reconstruct the game. It’s also important to come by in poker “Okay, what did he do preflop and what did he do on the turn and what does that mean?” This type of mental gymnastics is similar to that of chess.”
Given his form and the fact that the Swiss has experience in both of these aspects of the game, it’s not certain that we won’t be hearing from him again before the end of this edition of the World Series.
