Adam Nattress has been playing poker since he was 19 years old, but it wasn’t until he got sober that he was able to really support his family and dedicate himself to the game. Nattress recently won nearly $140,000 in South Lake Tahoe at the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event. The $1,700 buy-in tournament drew over 400 players from around the U.S. We talk to Nattress about why he loves poker, addiction and what the tournament circuit is like.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Adam Nattress is 43 years old, and he’s been playing poker for more than half his life. The friendly, unassuming “Crusher from Portland” – as he was described recently by the site poker.org – got the biggest win of his career not long ago. Nattras took home close to $140,000 after winning the main event in Lake Tahoe as part of the World Series of Poker circuit. Adam Nattress joins us now. Congratulations and welcome to Think Out Loud.
Adam Nattress:Thank you, Dave, and thanks for having me.
Miller: When did you first get into poker?
Nattress: I first started playing poker when I was about 19, just playing little friendly home games with my friends, just little $5 and $10 dollar stuff in the evening just to pass time.
Miller: When you started, when you were 19 and just learning the game, were you already good?
Nattress: I was good early on, I guess, yeah. I’ve always enjoyed math and there’s definitely a math component, and it just interested me and I started watching it on TV, on ESPN and all that, and I just took to it right away.
Miller: Was there a specific moment when you realized that you could actually make real money playing poker?
Nattress: Not one specific moment, but I was playing kind of casually and I worked for a poker free league called Go All In Oregon, like a bar league, and then I was also dealing at one of the local clubs; and there was just a period of time where I was making more money playing than I was working in the industry. And I thought, it’s more fun to play anyway, so I’m gonna try to go that route.
Miller: And you became a professional poker player.
Nattress: That’s right.
Miller: How do you become a professional poker player? I mean, is it as simple as just showing up for a tournament and not showing up to another job?
Nattress: Yeah, I mean, there are bankroll requirements. You have to have the financial discipline to have the money set aside and then you just have to put in the time to study and travel, in my case, because I’m a tournament poker player. You gotta go to where they hold the bigger tournaments. It’s just about discipline and staying in what you know how to do.
Miller: How would you describe your playing style?
Nattress: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I like to feel out the other players and kind of base what I’m going to do on what they’re doing, so I have a more reactive approach. So rather than just having a set style when I go in, I like to see… because every table is gonna have a different makeup, depending on the personalities and the chip stacks at your table. So I try to take what the table gives me.
Miller: I wanna get back to that, the people side of this, but you mentioned math earlier. Poker is a game of probabilities, of math and of reading people. But to start with the math stuff. When you’re looking at the table, at the face-up cards that everybody can use and then the ones in your hand, what kinds of calculations are you making?
Nattress: A lot of the math side of it comes really away from the table, like when I’m studying away from the table and getting my base game plan down. I’m not doing a lot of intense math at the table, in the moment. I kind of know the general probabilities of my odds of making a flush if I have a flush draw, or making a straight if I have a straight draw. So a lot of that is work that I put in before I’m at the table, so I’m not outside of like, pot odds, like the price that I’m getting in the moment… I don’t have to do that much intense math.
Miller: You mean in other words, and the things about odds for a flush or straight or whatever, those are baked in at this point. You’re not thinking about it, you just look at the table and you basically know those things just as part of the job.
Nattress: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, some of it, you just need, like, general odds. You don’t need, if I’m like roughly one out of three, I don’t need to know if it’s 31% or 34%, I’m getting a rough estimation in the moment, and then the rest of it is, like I said, based on the people and what’s going on around me.
Miller: So what are you paying attention to in terms of your opponents?
Nattress: A lot of it starts on just a very general level, like, what are peoples’ motivation there? Are they also a professional? Are they just playing for fun because their wife’s out doing something else that day?
Miller: Can you tell, if you know nothing about the person, could you tell if they’re a professional? I mean, you haven’t played with them before, you don’t know their name, but they’re in front of you. Can you tell if they’re a professional or if they’re there because they had nowhere else to be and they thought they would just give it a try?
Nattress: I mean, sometimes you have some clues just on like, generally how someone dresses. If someone’s like wearing sunglasses and they have the headphones on and they have the backpack and they’re not talking to anyone at the table, they probably take it more seriously than the guy that’s in his Hawaiian shirt and has a beer in his hand, so you have some immediate clues right away.
And then also I like to talk to people at the table. I don’t wear headphones myself. I try to be social. A lot of people there are just to have fun and so I use those conversation and context clues to pick up on that other stuff.
Miller: In movies and TV shows, poker players are always talking about reading tells in their opponents – tiny ticks or habits that give away something in a nonverbal way. How accurate is that? I mean, are you looking for people’s tells?
Nattress: First off, I will say that typically the poker scenes in movies and TV are sort of awful. They’re not really very accurate to the actual real life poker scenes. That being said, there are sometimes some physical tells or tiny things that you can pick up in the moment, and you definitely use those when they’re available, but they may not always be available, especially if you’re playing someone else that’s aware of guarding those kinds of tells.
Miller: Are you aware of guarding your own tells?
Nattress: I am. I mean, you try to be pretty stoic in the moment, not give off a lot. You try to do the same sort of physical motions at the table of when you’re strong or when you’re weak, and also similar to your best sizing.
Miller: Is that something that you practice? To get a poker face, in a sense, or a poker body, it seems like you’re talking about. Is that something you have to work on?
Nattress: Yeah, I think you just develop it over time. You know, I’ve spent a lot of time at the poker table, but yeah, you’re right, it’s not just the poker face, it is the poker body. It’s what are you doing with your hands, your posture, all of those things combined.
Miller: You mentioned how professional players sometimes have a look of hats and sunglasses and a backpack. Do you have the equivalent of some kind of uniform? Do you wear the same stuff when you play?
Nattress: I try to just dress in whatever’s casual and comfortable. I’m typically always rocking my Blazers and Ducks and Seahawks gear when I’m on the road just to represent the Northwest… and then, yeah, I just have a small bag, mostly just to keep snacks and stuff to keep me going throughout the day.
Miller: You’ve said before that some years ago you got out of the game because of substance use, because of a drinking problem. What brought you back to the game?
Nattress: I’ve battled with alcohol issues my entire adult life. I had stepped away from the game. I actually was on about a five-year hiatus and going through the ups and downs of drinking and not drinking through that period, and then once I stopped drinking…
When I was still drinking, I’d really self-isolated a lot and lost contact with a lot of friends. And then once I stopped drinking, my dad actually encouraged me to come out and play poker because he knew it was something I used to enjoy. I played a couple of times and it was fun and then I just started reconnecting with these people that I hadn’t seen in a long time. And it was really, really valuable for me to get that social context, that social group back again. It was really helpful to me in my recovery.
And then I started playing for money a little bit and was doing well financially, right at the beginning, and I thought, you know, I never really gave a run at playing poker full time, sober, and I talked to my partner Alicia and I said, “What do you think about me getting back into this and playing full time again,” and she said, “Yeah, I’m on board if you want to give it a shot,” and here we are. I haven’t had a drink in three and a half years, and poker’s been going really well the last couple of years.
Miller: Do you think that you’re a different player sober than you were when you were drinking?
Nattress: Definitely. I don’t think at the table my skill level varied all that much. I’m sure if you get later in the night and you’re drinking a lot, it diminishes, but I really feel like it more impacted me away from the table, or even just my drive to be at the table or to put in the study time. It really impacted me in so many other ways in my life that I was just never going to be successful at the table while alcohol was still a part of my life.
Miller: It’s interesting that the way you’re describing it, it seems that returning to poker has made it easier for you to stay sober, but I can imagine some people saying the opposite. That the risk taking of poker, that the adrenaline of gambling – obviously gambling is an addiction for some people, but in your case it seems like what could potentially be an addictive behavior helps you not do what had been a different addictive behavior.
Nattress: Yeah, I definitely do feel like it was a huge help for me. It’s really something that I can focus my mind on. When I’m at the table and I’m playing, I’m able to just tune everything out and focus on that, which is huge for me. And sure, yes, you are around alcohol. You know, often I’m in casino settings where other people might be drinking, but that’s not like a huge temptation factor for me at this point.
And as far as the gambling addiction, yes, I do realize that’s an issue for some people. But for me, the actual gambling aspect of it isn’t that appealing. I like the strategy side of it and I don’t really do the other gambling as far as slot machines and blackjack and playing in the pit and all that. So I feel like I’m able to get through without that affecting me as well.
Miller: Let’s turn to your recent big win. These tournaments go for a couple of days. They can go for hours and hours. Does any one hand stand out to you right now?
Nattress: Yeah, this particular one was a three-day tournament, obviously the biggest one right at the end when we’re down to three players. There was an all-in confrontation where the other player had all their end chips, all their chips in with a pair of kings, and I had a pair of nines. And my only way to win the hand was going to be to hit a nine, so I was about a four-to-one dog to win that, and I hit a nine, and that was the biggest pot of the tournament at that stage and set me up for the win.
Miller: What does a moment like that feel like? So the nine was turned over and your bet paid off. What does a moment like that feel like?
Nattress: It was pretty huge in the moment, because it was one of those situations where I knew if I won that hand, I was gonna win the tournament. So it was a huge swing in the game, and a buddy of mine, his name’s Ryo, they call him the Mad German, was standing right behind me in that moment, and I don’t usually stand up, but I was standing up at the moment and I didn’t know that the Mad German was standing right behind me. So when the hand played out, he came and bear-hugged me from behind and lifted me up off the ground and let out a huge yell. And it wasn’t the end of the tournament but it was almost like a celebration at the end of the tournament. So that was pretty fun.
Miller: Do you have a nickname? If he’s the Mad German, are you the Gentle Portlander?
Nattress: I had a nickname in the scene that I went by for a while, it was Hippie Adam. There was me and I had another friend Adam, and we would pal around a lot. This was back when I was drinking quite a bit, and he unfortunately went by Drunk Adam and I was Hippie Adam. And I have long hair and whatnot, so that kind of stuck.
Miller: We just have about 45 seconds left, but what is next for you, poker-wise? What are your goals now?
Nattress: So the main World Series of Poker series coming up in the summer in Las Vegas is about to start at the end of May, so I’ll just be here in town with family doing Mother’s Day and that kind of stuff, and then we’ll be off to the summer and hopefully have more continued success.
Miller: Adam, congratulations. Thanks again.
Nattress: All right, thanks a lot, Dave.
Miller: That’s Adam Nattress. He is a professional poker player from Portland who recently took home close to $140,000 after winning the main event in Lake Tahoe, that was part of the World Series of Poker circuit.
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