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The UK's No. 1 poker player gets featured in a three-part documentary video created by partypoker, and in these videos, we get to learn more about the most successful British poker player Sam Trickett as he reveals the juicy secrets to his success.

Born in the UK, Sam missed out on what looked like a very bright future in football after he suffered a severe knee injury, but Lady Luck may be watching his back because a promising career began to unfold in 2005, in the form of poker. Right now, Sam is ranked no. 1 in the England all-time money list and his name is in the top 10 live tourney earners of all time. In 2012 at the inaugural Big One for One Drop, he remarkably finished runner-up to Antonio Esfandiari for over $10 million!

That humongous win actually is just scratching the surface of his overall live cashes - his live tourney wins is listed over $20 million (and counting). In 2013, his victories were recognized at the UK's popular Dusk Till Dawn poker club, honoring him with the introduction of the Trickett Room, a special high-stakes Nottingham venue reserved only for high rollers.

Oddly, in spite of all of his achievements and wins, Sam has never read a poker strategy book ever, which proves that there is simply no substitute for true-blue natural talent.

Let's take a look at some of Sam Trickett's escapades and what are his thoughts about poker.

A trip to Crown Casino in Melbourne
He talked about one time he and a friend visited Melbourne's Crown Casino. Even if he's used to high-stakes bets, he admits Crown Casino's posh gambling suite left his eyes rolling. He said, "My friend went in there and he plays huge, huge games. $500,000 a box on blackjack and backgammon. He is playing half a million dollars a box and there are butlers everywhere, people coming in and out and it is just him one-on-one with the dealer. It's him on his own against the casino, a bit like a James Bond villain scene. I just sat there watching and it is pretty surreal at times, watching that amount of money change hands. But that's just the sort of things that you see when you are playing in these high stakes rooms."

The idea of having half a million dollars gone or doubled in just a matter of seconds can cause either a heart attack or sheer joy for an average gambler. However, on the poker table, the risks are much higher. In Macau, the world's biggest gambling hub (and where Tom Dwan frequents to), it is common to find millionaires and billionaires who wager ‘life-changing' money in each and every game.

Sam recalls, "I have seen a pot of $20million in Macau. A friend of mine bluffed it all off to a businessman, which is pretty stupid. You probably shouldn't be bluffing billionaires too often because they've got so much money they are going to call! But my friends that I talk about are playing bigger all the time. They are playing like $50million pots if the game gets really big. I used to play in it when it was a smaller game but it has just got too big for me now; it is absolutely massive."

Those are some pretty extreme friends of yours, Sam.

Winning millions of pounds every time can get...boring
Just like in the highly popular Japanese superhero webcomic One-Punch Man whose main character Saitama has grown quite bored as he became so powerful that all of his battles end in a single punch, Sam Trickett in real life has gotten so used to winning millions every year for the past 10 years of his poker career that he no longer feels the same thrill now when winning big.

He said, "If you go on a rollercoaster for the first time it is amazing, but if you go on it 50 times, it is not going to be as fun. It is a bit like that with winning big pots after a while, you lose the adrenaline rush and feeling unless you keep climbing stakes and play beyond your means - then you get the rush back. But that is not something that I do"

The word we're looking for here is desensitized, people.

Despite the lackluster feeling he gets on his wins, Trickett is still deemed as one of the fortunate poker pros who carry a super-sized win record. Thanks to his cashes, he's been able to afford some of life's most expensive possessions, such as a luxurious home in Ibiza and a custom-made Ferrari.

Oh, in 2015 he made headlines too when he crashed his Ferrari F458 Spider worth £275,000 that he bought. The car was just 18 months old when he swerved to avoid a fox, bounced through a hedgerow and hit a gate, causing approx. £60,000 worth of damage.

Of course, Trickett was no stranger to a rollercoaster of bad emotions in his early poker career. He tells about the sadness he felt when he lost huge sums of money at poker rooms, "You see people taking shots in bigger games than they should be and you can tell when they lose a pot it has affected them. It is not nice living that way. I would never play in a game where it was going to affect my emotion too much if I lose. It's never going to get me down, anyway. I used to when I first started playing. I used to be one of those guys and I used to be the guy taking shots in big games. If I lost I felt down and if I won I was on cloud nine. It was not a healthy lifestyle when the result of the game was affecting your emotion and dictating your mood. You have to acknowledge that early otherwise it will take control of you."

With great wins come great danger
As mentioned earlier, Sam Trickett's biggest tournament score ever was when he finished 2nd place at a 2012 charity event in Las Vegas. He was able to win $10.1 million (£6.5 million).

The most remarkable score of his poker career by far should have naturally called for celebration and merrymaking, but instead, it caused the bad guys to target him. Upon leaving the casino, a group of six thugs assaulted him in the streets, leaving him with nasty facial injuries.

He admits that was not the only incident he experienced. He recalled, "Our house got burgled in Retford, where I am from. Three men raided the house. They waited for us to go out and they ransacked the whole house. They didn't find anything because I don't store money in the house. They were all in the same uniform, they never spoke as they were trying to get in because they did not want to give their accent away. It was professionals who targeted my house. So yes, you do feel a bit at risk. Your information is all over the bloody internet and there are numbers next to the profiles of what you have won. Even now in Ibiza, I have to leave my wife alone there and people see the cars and the amount of money that I have won. They think that you have cash because it says poker ‘cash games' and Sam won this in ‘cash games' and assume that you have cash, but it is not really the case."

The Game Plan - Small Talk, Longer Play Time, and Clean Diet
Every poker player has their own ways in playing the game. Some will rely on the math involved in the game, some will over-analyze every bet made, while some will lean more on bluffs and hope Lady Luck comes to the rescue.

For Trickett, however, he prefers the mind games and psychological factor brought on by the game as he sits at a poker table and get to know his opponents a little bit better. For someone like Trickett, a simple chit-chat could give him a killer advantage. He says, "People give a lot away when they are at the tables. I always ask people how they have been doing when I am at a poker table. If someone says they have been flying and they are full of confidence, you are going to know that they are going to be more active, more creative and probably harder to play against. They don't really know why you are asking them, they just think you are being polite. But with someone who is running bad, they are going to be down in confidence and they are not going to be as aggressive. If you think they might be trying a really tricky bluff, it probably is not - they are not going to be bluffing because they are not full of confidence. I factor in loads of stuff, but that is just one of the things I do."

Trickett can grind for over 24 hours at a poker table, and he believes that he has a greater advantage the longer he is there. He said, "I play sometimes five or six hours and on other times 30 plus hours at a time. I actually prefer the longer sessions because that is when people make the most mistakes. I have been playing long sessions for 10 years now and I feel like I have an advantage when people are tired. When you play a poker tournament and you go on lunch break and someone has a big red steak and a load of chips, when they come back their body is working harder to digest the food and more often than not, it affects their focus. It is true and you can target these people. This is why I value my nutrition now because if you can eat clean, in theory I should be able to focus more. For me personally, when I eat badly, my energy levels are terrible so when you are sat at a poker table and have to focus for so long, I find myself getting slumped in my chair and it does affect my decision making."

Below is Sam's latest picture (taken from Twitter) at the partypokerlive MILLIONS UK event (October 9)

Sam Trickett is currently at 32 years of age (born July 2, 1986).

Watch the three-part documentary videos below made by partypoker featuring their ambassador Sam Trickett:

The World of Sam Trickett: Part 1 - The Start of the Journey

The World of Sam Trickett: Part 2 - The Return to the Poker Scene

The World of Sam Trickett: Part 3 - The Game and Beyond

Source:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other-sports/inside-life-high-stakes-poker-13515378