In today’s high-stakes tournament scene, most of the world’s top players are in their 30s. However, just eight years ago, things looked very different. Many of the best players were in their 20s, with names like Fedor Holz, Adrian Mateos, and Mikita Bodyakovskiy leading the way. The shift in the age demographic of poker pros has sparked discussions about why there are fewer young players now and what unique challenges they face competing against seasoned veterans.
How long have you been playing professionally?
Michael Jozoff: I guess since 2022 is when I’ve been playing—like, I’ve not had anything else going. At some point in college, I realized I was somewhat talented at the game. I've been good at games in general my whole life—I grew up playing chess. I played certain esports competitively—like Call of Duty competitively—and then Fortnite. I've just always had a background in games. Poker is meritocratic in that sense—you’re more or less responsible for your results. Obviously, variance is huge—especially in live poker—but specifically with online poker: if you get a bunch of volume in—say 10,000 tournaments—and you’re losing? That’s probably your own fault.
Leon Sturm: Five years now. To me, it was kind of a no-brainer to play poker professionally because I was playing while in school and noticed how my motivation for anything else wasn’t very high if it wasn’t something I was passionate about.
Casimir Seire: I guess I could say we started at 16 or 17 when we were playing home games with my friends, and that’s when I first got introduced to poker.
Clemen Deng: I started playing professionally in 2021—so three years. I was going to try to make it a year at Microsoft—for the stock vesting and all that—and just so that you know, I could say I’d been there a year. But at a certain point, I felt like I was just wasting time. I wanted to spend more time on poker, so yeah—I made the leap.
Connor Rash: I started playing sort of semi-professionally in college, but I would say professionally once I graduated in 2022. During college, I was doing some jobs in finance, and I realized I loved poker way more. I really enjoyed the freedom and lifestyle it gave me.
Was there anyone’s Twitch stream in particular that hooked you early on—or just a bunch of people?
Leon Sturm: I think most of the online people were who I followed early on—I was more into online poker than anything else. C Darwin is a name that stood out early on; back in 2017 or 2018—or at least from my perspective—he was just known as the guy.
Casimir Seire: Yeah—it was...I remember Spraggy’s streams. He was doing a bankroll challenge back then—playing sometimes the Bounty $30 or $4 tournaments—and yeah—it was just fun to enjoy the journey and see how he got from lower stakes to satelliting into bigger buy-ins.
Clemen Deng: Someone I definitely look up to is Jason Koon—it just seems like he’s doing everything right. He’s always at the top of his game and performs well, so yeah—he’s up there for me.
What has been more difficult than you’d have guessed about playing professionally?
Michael Jozoff: It’s probably been the swings—just because we’re humans—we have emotions—and losing large amounts of money in short periods of time is tough. There’s a desensitization process to that—but still—the swings can be hard even after you’ve gone through them.
Casimir Seire: The emotional swings are definitely tough—more than anything—I think that’s the hardest part people don’t understand if they don’t play poker. It’s probably the only negative thing about the game, like sometimes you can do everything right and still not get the result you feel like you deserve. And sometimes you can think you’re doing things right, but you’re actually not. There’s a lot of battling with your mind.
Connor Rash: I think one of the most difficult things is scheduling—it’s not like a normal job where you have fixed dates to work and fixed dates off. You have to balance that on your own—and one of the hardest things for me is deciding whether to play when there’s a conflict or not.
How do you think about the question of balance—improving and progressing in other areas of your life while pushing forward with your goals in poker?
Michael Jozoff: I’ve been struggling with balancing other aspects of my life for sure because poker is such a cutthroat game. It almost feels like the time I’m not working, the time I’m not studying—somebody else is. So it really makes you want to just be all in on poker, all in on studying, and really just prioritize that. But you know, you have to remember you have a family, you have friends, you have needs like non-poker needs—life’s not all about making money.
Casimir Seire: I try to be very liberal with myself—to let myself enjoy my youth as well because this is time that you will never get back. So let’s say I would just grind for 10 years—then I would be what, 33? I mean, I would still be young, but there’s 33 young and then there’s 23 young. And I really want to try to do the things that a normal guy my age does, even though I’m not studying.
Clemen Deng: I don’t find myself itching to play poker all the time. If I’ve been playing for a long time, I usually get a little tired of it. I want to switch it up and try some new activities.
Connor Rash: I’m pretty much either in 100% poker mode or in 100% relax-and-hang-out-with-friends-and-family mode.
Why do you think we have so few elite young players?
Michael Jozoff: There are lots of ways to make money with the internet—lots of non-traditional ways to make money. So I think poker is probably not one of the first things that people look to nowadays.
Leon Sturm: I was very confused coming up as to why there aren’t many more people who had the same path as I did because I thought it was so convenient to get into poker. The internet was just growing exponentially, right? It’s very easy to get into poker. At one point, I think a lot of people pick it up. I guess it’s just a discipline thing that people drop out because they lack bankroll management and they are just very immature on how they manage money.
Casimir Seire: Poker is very stigmatized in the social realm—it’s not considered a cool profession or a well-respected profession. Even these days, I have people who say to me, "Uh, yeah, you shouldn’t really do that poker stuff” – but a lot less than there was before.
Clemen Deng: In my generation, there hasn’t really been a huge outburst of poker popularity. I guess people in my generation kind of just have to find it randomly. I feel like I kind of stumbled upon poker and got really lucky with that because it ended up being something that I really enjoy. But I could have easily just not been aware of this as a game.
What’s the most challenging area to play catch-up in when you’re playing against guys who’ve been playing high stakes for the past 10 years plus?
Michael Jozoff: For sure, the most challenging area to play catch-up in is just population reads and stuff like that. I think the young guys I work with and study with are all pretty sharp—we’re all pretty good with ICM and stuff like that. So I think most solver-based stuff—we’re not really too far behind at all. I think mostly it’s just guys who have been playing against each other for 10 years, and you know that X player is going to be stationing on the river way too much.
Leon Sturm: I think a very clear answer for me is having good routines and maintaining a healthy lifestyle or being motivated in that way. Be very aware that anything outside the table, or outside poker really, affects how focused you are at the table.
Clemen Deng: I would just say it’s experience—the guys who have been playing for 10 to 20 years have been studying and putting in work for 10 to 20 years. So just to catch up to that, you just have to put in the work. I think it’ll happen eventually, or I’ll be able to get closer and closer to them. But it’s just a difference in time and experience—that’s the way I see it.
Connor Rash: Well, for me, it’s ICM. I think in other areas you can catch up quickly because it’s a lot of pattern recognition. You can see a spot and then you know—if you’re good at recognizing patterns—you can apply what you’ve learned to a brand new spot. But in ICM, you just get these completely new spots so often that it just comes down to who’s looked at 5,000 final tables in their lifetime. It’s going to be the guy who’s played for 10 years.
If anywhere, do you see an edge as a younger player who hasn’t maybe gone through whatever the players you’ve been playing against for 15 years have gone through? Is there any kind of unique lens that helps the younger guys, or any edge that you think being younger gives you?
Michael Jozoff: I think the biggest edge from being a younger player and not having as much experience is probably just that you know we didn’t really play in the pre-solver era. And we probably haven’t built up bad habits over the course of that time—like a lot of guys who were old-school legends or really good players 10 to 15 years ago and are trying to adapt their style today. There’s going to be a lot of stuff that they have to tear down that a younger player probably wouldn’t.
Leon Sturm: I think I might have an edge in having a good intuition about population tendencies or specifically modern population tendencies because I came up when people were starting to study with solvers. And then I guess my mind was very sensitive to how people make mistakes during that era. It’s going to be different when you compare that to how people made mistakes 10 years ago because it’s just a different way that people learn poker.
Casimir Seire: I would say I’ve probably played quite a lot more than they have recently because they also play live poker, they also have families and other stuff. So I think staying true to the poker meta—I think it evolves constantly. Like every few months, there’s always new stuff coming out.
Do you have any specific short-term or long-term goals in poker?
Michael Jozoff: My biggest long-term goal is to just be the best player in the world. I mean, that’s always what’s driven me because I’m a pretty competitive person. I think you have to be to be playing high stakes. Short-term goals? I don’t really have too many short-term goals. I guess I’m just trying to make incremental improvements to my game every week, month, etc. And I think all of those incremental improvements will lend themselves to being one of the top players eventually.
Casimir Seire: I would say like at this moment—although it quite doesn’t feel like that—I would say I’m almost there. But my goal is to be able to really get the most out of myself and really still get to the next level. There’s always a next level that you can reach. And I would say to just stay true to my work ethic and really continue putting in the hours. And like, don’t get too comfortable with the situation because if you get comfortable, then you’re never going to get the most out of yourself. So I would say put in the hours and really try.
Clemen Deng: I’m not really a goal-oriented sort of person. I would say my overall goal right now is just to become the best player I can. And eventually be able to compete at Triton, play with the best, and yeah—go to all the Triton stops.
