048 Christian Soto on Embracing Variance and Avoiding "Paper Champion" Status

Christian Soto is a professional poker player from New Jersey. He got his start in live, low-stakes, cash games, but now focuses on $5/$10+ cash games and mid-stakes live MTTs.

Feeling that the slow grind of cash games wouldn’t allow him to achieve his goals fast enough, he embraced variance and Jumped into MTTs for the shot to get a big score early to boost his bankroll.

It worked out, as after getting his feet wet in New Jersey online MTTs he final tabled 2 of the first 4 $1,000+ live tournaments he played.

Christian is a Co-founder of Red Chip Poker, a site designed to provide low-stakes live cash game players a friendly environment to improve their game.

He’s also a coach for the Solve for Why Academy, who run boot camps for players looking to quickly improve their game.

• How brain training compares to physical exercise when it comes to improving mental performance
• Why Christian chose variance over stability when deciding to focus more on MTTs
• Why self-knowledge and understanding your bias is one of the most important factors of the mental game
• What it means to be a “Paper Champion” poker player
• How being excited and passionate can help take your game to the next level