We chat to the PokerStars Pro who has reinvented himself as the biggest poker streamer on Twitch this year.

Lex on Twitch

You’ve been around poker for a long time but since you have been on Twitch you’ve come across so enthusiastically, it's like you have just discovered poker for the first time.

Lex Veldhuis: Twitch has definitely rejuvenated that, because it’s such a different thing and I feel like I am learning tournaments for the first time the way I should have learned them, which brings a lot of eagerness.

What do you mean by ‘learning tournaments the way you should have learned them'?

Lex Veldhuis: It’s a combination of people watching me and also just maturing as a person. When I played the EPTs a lot I was really good at deepstack poker and I had no clue about short stack poker. I had no clue about keeping track of the antes, opening ranges being different, that there actually was still play with 20 big blinds. I just thought if you got below 30 big blinds you were pretty much fucked and that was the end of it, which is a very immature way to look at something.

Also I don’t want to be spewing nonsense on Twitch, I don’t want to shove 25 big blinds with nothing like it’s ok. I’m proud of the way I approach poker and I wanted to do this properly, to learn short stack poker, the intricacies, the math, so at least I can tell my viewers the right thing.

"Twitch has increased my MTT skill"

I spoke to Parker Talbot who said Twitch has hurt his game but it was a worthy trade off. With your results recently it feels the opposite.

Lex Veldhuis: For me and Parker it will be different because he was one of the sickest SNG players, in his field he was on the top. If he concentrates on his stream when he played at that level, his game could see a drop down. For me I was at the bottom of things so it gigantically increased my skill in tournaments. I have a responsibility towards my crowd and too much pride to suck in front of an audience, so I’m doing everything I can to learn while I’m playing. If I spent more time learning instead of Twitch for sure I would get better, but it’s not just turning a camera on and off. I spend about 20 hours a week doing stuff around Twitch, thinking of new things, talking to moderators and the community, which I love doing. That could have been time diving into studies, but then again I wouldn’t have the motivation, Twitch drives me to get better.

I get people telling me I’m getting better and that’s really cool. Some people have trouble showing weakness and vulnerability, but if you are honest from the start nothing can go wrong. Just say “I suck at short stacking guys, let’s learn this.”

All the streamers and YouTubers I speak to enjoy the aspect of giving something back to people, as poker on its own is inherently a selfish activity, is that why it's such a big motivation?

Lex Veldhuis: When I win a tournament I say “we did it guys” because it really does feel like that, I know I click the buttons but it feels like that. It’s a big part of why it motivates you, people don’t always respect Twitch chat, they think it’s like YouTube comments. YouTube comments are the nut low, but there are so many bright people on Twitch, there are insanely funny jokes, they call you out on something you did a year ago. If you have contact with these guys all day long you want the product to be good, you want it to improve, the viewers deserve something new. If you have a good back and forth with your following, the people notice.

"Gamers could learn a game like PLO"

Lex at TwitchCon

You managed a staggering 15,000 consecutive views for a PLO stream. I think gamers are more willing to take some complexity in their entertainment, more than a casual TV audience. Do you have any idea what percentage of your audience don’t play poker?

Lex Veldhuis: It’s really important to not just look at the percentage of gamers who don’t play poker, but also look at how many are poker players who like playing video games as well. These guys are used to starting a game like Skyrim or DOTA and sitting down and hardcore learning the game. If a game has a lot of technicalities like PLO and you are one-tabling and talking about it, it’s pretty much free advertisement for the game. It’s definitely the gamer online aspect that plays a huge part in that.

You are currently the biggest streamer on Twitch, do you have any ambitions to try and ‘break into the mainstream’ off the back of that?

Lex Veldhuis: What I really like is when I play video games [after a poker stream] and people stay around anyway. That means they like the community and interaction, so it doesn’t matter what you are doing. I have strong ties with Team Liquid and there are going to be some projects there next year. There is definitely a lot of mainstream things in the pipeline. I just want to get more involved in the community and meet more Twitch streamers. When I was at TwitchCon there was a H1Z1 tournament which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Poker will always be the strongest component and I’ll grind it non-stop, but I will always have side projects.

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