Bryan Paris was one of the first online players to hit the $10M mark in tournament winnings, but has also clocked up a respectable live tournament resume with almost a million dollars won live.
Unveiled today as the newest member of the ACR Poker Stormers, Paris' 40K+ followers on Twitch can expect to see the player, author and coach stream more play at his new online home.
PokerOrg caught up with Paris to find out a little more about the newest face on ACR Poker's Stormers roster.
Congratulations on becoming the newest member of the ACR Poker Stormers. How and when did you first start playing poker?
I started playing in home games with my high school friends way back in 2002. Once I got to college the next year I got on PokerStars, playing things like $1/$2 limit hold’em cash and $11 rebuy MTTs.
My first 'big' score was for $8K in an $11 tournament in early 2004. After that I never looked back.
How long had you been playing online before you started streaming your play? Did it have an effect on your game?
I started streaming in mid-2016 as a way to sell action. The stream took off pretty quickly and evolved into much more than that. I was always a big volume guy before, it took me some time to get used to the extra effort that streaming requires and to cut my table count accordingly.
Paris chats with Stephen Chidwick at EPT Monte Carlo, 2023.Can you point to any ‘A-ha!’ or breakthrough moments in your poker education?
I had some very early breakthroughs around push/fold ranges and bubble pressure in SNGs. After I mastered these things, I began late-regging MTTs and learning short stack play there. It took me a lot longer to develop the postflop game.
In early 2011, I went on an incredible heater after spending some time in PokerStove working out re-shove ranges against opens. This was ground-breaking stuff at the time. Nowadays we have charts for everything.
Speaking of charts and tools, is there anything in particular you find useful for working on your game today?
I put in 50-100 hands on DTO Poker daily. I have three kids now and the app is very useful for studying during the little downtimes you get throughout the day. For more intensive studying I use GTOwizard and Hold'em Resource Calculator.
Are there any other games you especially enjoy playing, or watching?
I play Magic: The Gathering some amount. That was my first game, my intro to probabilistic card-based strategy games, and I've been playing since age 8. Sadly, I didn't keep all the old valuable cards but I still enjoy playing it online during my downtime (which is not much these days).
You’ve been playing and streaming poker a long time - what excites or surprises you when playing these days?
I still love the thrill of having a deep run in a tournament, it never gets old. Regardless of how much money I'm playing for, the strategic adjustments you make when deep are what separates the greats from the merely good, and every tournament is an adventure.
You've had great success online but you’re no slouch on the live circuit either. What are the biggest tips you’d give an online player transitioning to live poker, and vice versa?
It took me a while to get used to live. Daniel Negreanu used to poke fun at me whenever we played in the 2000s because I was always fumbling around with my chips. Nowadays I think I have a very solid live presence, although I haven't been able to play the WSOP in ages. That changes this summer.
My advice is to pay a lot of attention, especially during hands, you can pick up tremendous amounts of extra info from inexperienced players. Even many pros, especially in earlier day 1 scenarios, will often let their guard down and give a lot away.
Try to keep your own movements somewhat steady and don't react to things any more than you need to. Finally, make sure you get a lot of reps; there's no substitute for experience.
Follow Bryan Paris on X and his Twitch channel, and check out the ACR Poker Stormers at the ACR Poker Twitch channel.
Images courtesy of Danny Maxwell Photography/Manuel Kovsca/Rational Intellectual Holdings, Ltd
