Streaming His Way to Spring Festival Success

Known as ‘Mike604’ to his Twitch followers, the 38-year-old who lives in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada put up an impressive list of festival accomplishments while playing poker in Canada.

What did he win during the Spring Festival?

• Event 101  - $55 Daily Jackpot PKO - for $2010.44
• Event 158 - $33 Early NLHE PKO - for $1742.59
• Event 196 - $55 Daily Jackpot PKO - for $1651.17
• Event 279 - $220 NLHE PKO Turbo -  for $3791.73
• Event 312 - $11 6 Max - for $636.  

He received a bonus of $1,100 in tournament tickets because he won the $55 Daily Jackpot PKO twice in a 14-day period. 

Add to that bonus his $5,000 in tournament tickets and $500 cash for finishing in 5th place overall of the Spring Festival Leaderboard - and an additional $1,125 for min-cashing in the post-series Gold Freeroll - and the Festival was quite the successful venture.

“I still have about $3,200 in tournament tickets to play through.”

“She Told Me to Go for it”

Being much more of a cash-game player than a tournament one, he did not initially plan to play much during the Spring Festival.

“But then I saw the promotions, wow!” he said. “I immediately talked to my wife and asked how she felt about me going after the leaderboard prizes. She told me to go for it.” 

He set a goal of reaching the top-five on the festival-long leaderboard, and accomplished that task.

“The leaderboard prize would make up for any losses I would endure playing as many of the events as I could, " he noted. “I also decided to give streaming some effort, and people tend to much prefer tournaments over cash games.” 

Setting his alarm for before 2 am on opening day of the festival, his long days of grinding was set to go into action.

“I did well enough at the start and basically took it day-by-day watching the leaderboard and playing as much as I could. I streamed the entire series live on Twitch,” he said. “I was really unsure of how many players would be playing a lot to go after the prizes, but I knew that if I didn't start at the beginning, I would have no chance.”

Building a Following

On Twitch as Mike604, he said he gives away part of his tournament winnings any time he does well while streaming. The WPT Global Spring Festival provided many of those opportunities - to the tune of more than $1,000 to his followers during the 22-day-long festival.

“It was all my money that I gave away to reward those who are actually watching and participating in the stream,” he said.

He gave followers a chance to ‘buy’ Spring Festival raffle tickets with channel-points (not real dollars), “so the viewers who were there day in and day out had the best chance to win some prizes. And when I won an event, I had them type something they liked about the stream in chat, so anyone who had it muted - or wasn't really watching - didn't know the giveaway was going on so they missed the entry window.”

Great Games, Great Service

The Canadian player has been in the game of poker since his teens, advancing from small home games to traveling to Winnipeg at age 18 to experience live-game play in a casino for the very first time. Poker trips for live play have taken him to Las Vegas during summer months and to last year’s WPT World Championship Festival at Wynn Las Vegas.

While the live-game play did not interest him much then - or now - online poker is where he finds more fun and more success.

Starting with the now-defunct Full Tilt Poker just before turning 20, he took a shot at playing for a living, but soon stepped away from that move.

“Due to mostly being bad, and sort of living the pro poker player lifestyle before I could afford it. I quit and retired for a while but got back into it during Covid out of boredom, and sort of haven't looked back since then.”

“I don't know if I would consider myself a pro poker player,’ he said, “but I haven't had an income outside of poker for (quite some time),” he added.

WPT Global is where the vast majority of his online poker play takes place these days.

“I love cash games on WPTG. It feels like the perfect bridge between live and online. The games are very similar to what you find live,” he said.

“My favorite part about WPTG is the customer service. They are very quick and resolve any issues that I have had much faster than any other site. It feels like they actually listen to your issues and find a solution that is in the best interest of the player. Even if it costs them money,” he added.

Some Live Play This Summer

Online is his preferred poker choice, but the draw of all the summer live-game play in Las Vegas has him on the move very soon. His WPTG Spring Festival success did not prompt his decision, but it did make it easier to convince his wife.

“The results have made my wife less stressed about me going to the WSOP and playing a bunch of bigger tournaments and cash games,” he said.  

A poor showing last year in Las Vegas - going 1-for-17 in MTT’s with only a mincash in his smallest summer buy-in made for a rough trip - he said both he and his wife understand ALL about variance in this game.

“I couldn't do any of this without my wife, I am incredibly grateful to have such an amazing partner in life, “ he said. “She picks up all my responsibilities at home with our child and dog whenever I go on these crazy poker adventures.”