Heads-up With Mohsin ‘chicagocards1’ Charania

Continuing our heads up series on distinguished Asian players, this edition we bring you Mohsin “chicagocards1”Charania (cover image), who is among the few to make a successful transition from online games to live tournaments. Ironically, Charania’s first foray at Las Vegas ended with him losing $200,000 within three months, just after he had turned 21. Mohsin was introduced to small cash games, while he was a junior at University of Illinois. After graduation, he enrolled to study law at Northwestern University, but with his poker career flourishing, he put it on hold.

This Chicago poker pro has a live best cash of $1,782,343 and his all time money stands at $3,331,464. He has nine WSOP cashes and six WPT significant scores, besides notable finishes at the EPT. In 2012, cheered by his close friends Faraz Jaka and Chris Moorman, Mohsin made history at the EPT €10K Main Event, making a win of €1,350,000, after defeating a player field of 665. In 2013, he again took the title at the WPT Grand Prix de Paris Main Event pocketing €328,750.

Mohsin is also good friends with WSOP 2014 Champion Martin Jacobson and Marvin Rettenmaier and spends a lot of time with them discussing poker strategy.

This year, Mohsin has been very active on the live circuit with appearances at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, WPT Seminole, EPT Grand Final and WSOP, besides many other events, making cashes in all of them.

PokerGuru caught Mohsin in transit and he shared some exclusive experiences, including how his mother is now an avid poker follower, his Indian player friends, how he keeps up at the game and his advice for budding Indian players.

Hi Mohsin, since you had a very eventful and illustrious poker career in such a short span of time would you like to share your journey with us. When and how did you get started?

I started playing poker towards the end of my college days. Just playing online small stakes and live cash, until I started to do really well. I was making enough money that having a career in finance didn’t really make much sense.

I had some absurd cash game sessions, where I would run about money-playing 5-10 to 10-20k and then lose it playing higher stakes. This was in 2007 I believe. 2006-2007 it was so long ago, it’s all blurry now.

Everyone identifies you in poker world by your nickname “Chicagocards1”. Is there an interesting story hidden in the name?

No actually it was just completely random. I am from Chicago and play cards and the name Chicagocards was taken.

Do you think your Finance Degree and solid educational background has helped your poker skills in any way?

I think the degree has made me more comfortable and allowed me to take more risks because I had something to fall back on. I think that dealing in business allows you to better interact with people. That certainly helps in poker.

Coming from a conservative Shia Muslim community, how did your parents react when you started playing poker full time, considering the fact that Indian parents are very conservative?

Well I’m Shia Ismaili Muslim; most of my family is from Gujarat so I speak Guajarati. I learned it from my grandma and speak the language fluently.

It is a very liberal community and growing up in America my whole life, I think my mom understands that being conservative isn’t really an option. Also I generally did really well in school so for her, it’s just a matter of trusting that I’ll be fine doing whatever I choose.

I think she found out I was playing full time because someone saw me on ESPN and I told her I was doing well financially and she was good with it.

Now she actually loves following my tournaments on blogs and poker sites. She even follows live tournaments and watches when my friends are on TV. A lot of my poker friends have met her and she’s always telling me when they are deep in tournaments, even when I don’t know.

Poker is steadily flourishing in countries like India and is definitely catching on with the younger lot. Are you aware of the poker scene here and are there any players from India you in touch with or follow?

I am aware of the poker scene in India. I’ve known Aditya (Agarwal) for a long time, he was one of the early legends of internet poker and I always thought he was one of the best.

I’ve also recently become friends with Nipun (Java) who moved from India he’s a really good player and often tells me about the growth back in India.

What do you think of the poker scene in India, any advice? Are you backed or would you like to back any players in the future? Being from the Asian community, what kind of advice would you like to pass on to the numerous Indian online regs who are either constantly looking to take shots at higher buy-in tournaments/cash games or are looking for a long haul in poker.

I think Poker in India is getting really big and anytime something starts off there’s room for a lot of money to be made before people catch on and get really good at it. So my advice to the players in India is to study the game and get good because there’s a lot of money to be made right now when people still aren’t that good, kind of like poker in America after 2003.

It was getting popular but people weren’t good at it. Study the game, I believe you guys can play on PokerStars, so put in the hours. As far as backing goes, I buy action for people at WSOP events and stuff. If you know people that are good and selling, I’m always interested, have them contact me.

You left your job as a financial analyst with J P Morgan, when you realized that it was cutting into your time online and instead decided to join law school to balance poker. Would you consider it as one of the turning point in your career? What convinced you to make this move?

To be honest I just didn’t like waking up early in the morning and putting on a suit. I still can’t wake up early, I barely show up on time for noon tournaments, but yah it gave me a lot of time to focus on online poker, meet some great players, learn the game with them and from them.

It was definitely a huge turning point!

A lot of Indian players especially budding poker players, who want to make it big in poker are often faced with the same dilemma, when making such career changing choices. What would you advise such players who are looking to move out of conventional 9-6 jobs and turn pro?

I’d advise them that if poker in India is just getting booming, there’s money to be made. If it’s not and you’re playing on PokerStars vs the rest of the world, it’s a lot tougher now than it ever was before. I’d make sure you’re ready to put in the hard work, or you won’t beat the high stakes online.

You are undoubtedly one of the more feared names on the felt, do share with us some players you look up to or fall back upon for advice.

Umm I spend a lot of time with Marvin Retteinmaier, Chris Moorman, and Martin Jacobson who’s now at the November 9 final table and of course Faraz Jaka. I try to talk a lot of poker with them to get my game on point. I respect how Jaka is always calm and cool now matter how much he is up or down in a given time period.

What kind of tournament format do you enjoy the most? Do you enjoy deepstack tournaments, turbo`s, six-handed events or any other format? What are your thoughts on re-entry tournaments?

I think re entries are a mixed bag, they aren’t the best for the poker economy, but for me I like them because they give me an even bigger edge in the tournament vs fish and allow for the prize pool to be juiced up. The format just depends on the field, against bad players I wanna play 6max and deep stacked.

I obviously have a bigger edge playing turbos, because of my online poker experience. I like it all except 9 or 10 handed NL Holdem.

As you have said in a couple of interviews that you decided to quit the game on a number of occasions, what kept you going?

I think every poker player says that when they are on a downswing. I’ve grown and matured and now I say I need to spend more time improving my game instead of quitting lol. Now fortunately I have the some of the financial freedom to quit if I want or play less poker.

We all know that live and online poker and both different animals. Do you think it`s easy for a solid player in one format to be good in the other? What in your opinion are the key differences between both formats?

Live poker takes a lot of patience, it took me a while to adjust after playing online because I was so used to 10-15 tabling online tournaments. It’s a whole different animal. Online poker is much tougher, involves a lot more math and game theory. Live poker you need experience, patience, table presence and a lot of luck, because it’s such a small sample size.

As you said in an interview recently that the difference between professional sports and poker is that the former has systems in place to educate their young stars about money management, while in the latter you are all by yourself. Do share your thoughts on bankroll management, especially after a life changing bing!

To be honest when you get a big bink, you gotta save that money. There aren’t that many million-dollar scores anymore, unless you’re playing all the 100ks and even than you need a million dollar score every few months to break even. You get a big score and you’re tempted to play higher, but that’s not the way to do it, you should still sell action if you need to because tournament variance is a bitch.

When you look back at your poker journey, what would you advise budding professional players who wish to take up poker full time?

Umm I would tell them to work on their game and don’t fall behind to enjoy the poker trips they take, because most people don’t get the opportunity to travel to amazing places. And to make friends that are good at poker, they will help on your downswings and be awesome on your upswings.