JC Alvarado
In this episode of Locura Podcast, hosted by Karim Nakid
On the other hand, his most notable result during his active career at the tables came from finishing in second place in the event €50.000 No Limit Hold´em – Super High Roller at EPT Barcelona in August 2012, facing Dan Smith
Alvarado addressed key topics in modern poker: professionalization and the thin line that crosses into gambling addiction
-Karim: I would like to understand the thin line between gambling addiction and not developing it, because we would need to find the exact definition and how a professional player fits into it, or not.
JC: It’s very difficult; I think many people sell you the idea that it’s very controlled, analytical, professional, and many things like that. Of course, those types of people exist, although I’m not a big fan of that approach, and there are also professionals who do things very well. However, I believe most of us have a little bit of gambling addiction and many confuse it with passion for the game.
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-Karim: What is a gambling addict to you, and in any scenario, could you consider yourself one?
JC: There is a spectrum regarding the subject and different levels of gambling addiction: from the player who, despite losing constantly, cannot stop playing and looks for other options to bet and recover, losing more and more along the way. I consider that I can go to a casino and not play anything; lately, I got hooked on a little online game and at the beginning, I had a streak where I won quite a bit, only to then, as expected, start losing it. Obviously, I told myself: I can’t keep playing this, it’s very addictive. I could go six weeks without playing poker and nothing happens; however, I do consider that I have impulsivity issues, like many of us.
-Karim: How much did poker lead you into themes of excessive partying, drugs, alcohol, and everything related to that aspect?
JC: Since I was a kid, I was very impulsive, and it took me 40 years to realize, with the help of a psychologist, that I had created systems within my life that helped me manage it. On one hand, I can be very disciplined—training constantly, eating well—but the moment I step out of that, I don’t think about it anymore until it’s time to pay the consequences. I was lucky to discover poker as such in my early days and was able to channel the betting aspect and the discipline necessary to be a winner. I could have discovered blackjack, and then I would have a serious problem, right?
-Karim: And moving on to another topic, can you cheat in poker?
JC: Of course, it has always been possible to cheat; as technology improves, this issue becomes a more real and harder-to-solve problem. I am sure I have been cheated. There was a very famous case of a televised table in a casino where they started to notice that a particular player was doing crazy things with total precision, always winning, which began to raise suspicions. It turned out there was someone transmitting information to him. There have also been scandalous cases online, like seeing cards illegitimately, the use of bots, etc. You have to be very careful.
