Fish Is a Shark – WCOOP Title Winner Also Cashed Six Times at the WSOP

Twenty-three-year-old Las Vegas resident Darryll Fish fell just short of a WSOP bracelet this year when he finished eighth in the $10,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Hold’em event, but found some solace in his recent WCOOP bracelet win. Fish captured the PokerStars WCOOP Event 33, the $1,050 no-limit hold’em event, and $207,142 – the largest score of his career. This wasn’t his first big win, though – Fish has also taken down the Super Tuesday on PokerStars along with the Full Tilt $1k, and his online ashes now total well over half a million dollars. He also has 16 live cashes, including six at this year’s WSOP.

His screen names are Full Tilt Poker – Dfish; PokerStars – df1986; UltimateBet – DFISH.

He shares his journey with Online Poker Pro readers.

I had been playing Magic: The Gathering semi-professionally for a couple years when a buddy of mine made me watch Rounders, which I found very interesting. Right after Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event in 2003, myself and a group of my friends from Magic started playing in our local hobby shop, and I started playing as much poker as possible.

What has helped you get better at the game?

Experience is numero uno. Talking to other good players, as well as reading poker forums online, are both very important.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you?

To never be afraid to follow my instincts.

What do you do to decompress from poker?

I really love going to nice restaurants with friends. I also enjoy watching TV shows (True Blood, Dexter, Entourage, HIMYM, South Park, Family Guy, etc.), I also love going to the beach, although that’s kind of difficult in Vegas!

How do you feel your game has progressed? Has it been gradual or was it something that just clicked?

Pretty gradual, although living with a top player (Matt Graham) certainly sped up the learning process quite a bit.

What events do you play live and online?

Live, I play as much as I can. I really, really enjoy big buy-in live tournaments, as well as the entire WSOP, but I enjoy smaller live tournaments as well. I’ll play anything from $300 to $10,000 and enjoy what I’m doing. Online I played pretty much everything from $10 rebuys to the $1ks and higher for almost a year straight, but I’m getting pretty burned out with online poker and trying to focus more on travelling and playing live events.

How many of the WCOOPS did you play this year?

I don’t have an exact count but I’d guess like 20 or so.

Tell us about the win.

Well, I was flying home from Biloxi, where I had gone to play a $5k event, and my flight got delayed, so I wasn’t going to be home in time to register for the $1k WCOOP event, so I called my roommate and had him sign me up. Little did I know our flight would get delayed even more, and I ended up getting home over two hours after the tournament started. When I sat in, I had been blinded down to 21 big blinds, and was obviously somewhat frustrated that I even bothered to have my roommate register. About 30 minutes later I had tripled up and I was starting to feel like it was worth playing after all. Matt went to bed and around 4am I woke him up to let him know I was at the final table, so he should wake up (he was backing me at the time.) He thought I was joking at first, but then realised I wouldn’t be up that late if I had busted, so he got up and watched, and the final table just went smooth as butter. Having him up to watch was definitely helpful just because I was so tired at the time and having someone keep me motivated was pretty big.

Why did you decide to chop?

Well, when I was three-handed, the other two guys were both good players, we were all very tired and at the time I had been on a big downswing for a number of months, so locking up a big score just felt like the best thing to do.

What is most important, title or money?

Well, at the time, like I said, I was on a huge downswing and I really needed the money, so in this case the money mattered quite a bit more, but once we had made the deal, I was very focused on winning and really wanted the title – the extra $$ definitely meant less than the bracelet at that point.

If you could change something about poker, what would it be?

Well, I would repeal the UIGEA in the States and make it easy for a random Joe to deposit and play online, which would not only be huge for online poker, but would also help the live poker economy recover as well.

What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses in the game and how are you working on the weaknesses?

I believe my biggest strengths are that I am able to separate my emotions from the game. I try not to let bad luck affect my play, and always keep in mind that poker is a long-term game, and eventually good play will pay off. I also think I am very good at adjusting in live play to different situations and player types. A lot of online kids have trouble with this and I am very confident in this part of my game.

As far as weaknesses, my biggest weakness would definitely be money management. I’ve built a bankroll and busted it more times than I’d care to remember, and I’m working on preventing that in the future by using strict bankroll management and hardcore game selection; that is, playing only in games I feel like I have a big edge in and avoiding close situations/gambling.