Diego Ponce
His radiant participation in this event, considered one of the most important worldwide and which in its 56ᵃ edition registered 9.735 entries and generated a prize pool of US$90.535.500, was accompanied by a considerable Aztec squad that included Tomás Szwarcberg
Currently, Ponce has maintained constant participation in the main series in our country, although he also extended his international reach with a great appearance within the framework of WPT Australia, where he captured attention as an active member of the Los Jefes team, led by Ángel Guillén
Recently he participated in the WSOP Circuit at the Casino Playground in Montreal, Canada, where we saw in this previous post, that he was in the company of Rodrigo Noceda
Diego Ponce answers five poker questions asked by his followers
On the social network Instagram, Ponce gave his followers the freedom to ask him some questions, among which he himself would choose which ones to answer publicly. So whoever wanted to joined in and here are the five most relevant answers in general terms:
-How is the level over there in Canada, is there much difference compared to live tournaments in Mexico?
-Diego: The truth is no, if you compare the full field, it is even softer. The variance is harder because you face a larger number of players, more than 2.000 or 3.000 people, and in Mexico the fields are smaller. If you make the comparison, many Canadian players are completely recreational and only look to go and have fun for a while. Obviously there are very good regulars but in general it is much softer.
-How do you deal with downswings?
-Diego: It’s not something I’ve had to face seriously yet, as I’ve been dedicated professionally to poker for a relatively short time, less than a year, so I haven’t really hit a strong downswing. Before turning professional, I spent about a year without being able to win anything. The way to face them is simply to try harder and put in volume so that it passes.
-How do you mentally face bad results in a series?
-Diego: You have to arrive at a series unexpectedly, we will never know when we are going to win or lose, really what you have to do is play well, make good decisions and eventually the results will come whether they are positive or negative, it doesn’t depend on us. But what does depend is how we arrive at those moments, psychologically, how strong we are and that is based on how we have been working, physical exercise, mental coach, diet, sleep, etc. The better we prepare away from the table, the better we face bad streaks.
-What is the next adventure?
-Diego: I’m actually looking into that with my team, they want to go to Australia to play the Aussie Millions which takes place from April 24 to May 10, just a few weeks away and I’m looking at all the logistics and the plan, it’s very likely that I’ll go but I’m still not 100% sure, I need to confirm the plan well with Ángel and Bernie who would be the ones participating there. After that comes Las Vegas so it’s very likely that I’ll take a couple of weeks off after Australia to then refocus.
-What do you recommend for me to start playing poker?
-Diego: If you are completely new, obviously learn the rules, the positions at the table, differences between tournaments and cash. Once you have the basics, I would recommend learning pre-flop play to understand how each position at the table has different opening ranges. More hands or fewer hands are played, depending. Watching some videos I think could help a lot to understand that the game is about strategy and that decisions are made with an objective, to grasp the logic of the game and get a little bit into the subject.
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