For the love of poker with PokerStars Pro Fintan Hand
Fintan Hand started his love of poker early on playing with friends for fun and sometimes just for small sums of money.
And it was during that time his love of the game grew, even becoming a poker dealer at 18 to help fund his passion, essentially going all in on the sport.
“I was playing poker every day with my friends from 16 at school,” he said.
“We just played for €1 per game and when I turned 18, started playing online and I was just playing freerolls I wasn’t spending any money.
“There used to be two freerolls a day, one at 6pm and one at 8pm. And if you won, you could win like 3 or 4$. I just played them all the time trying to spin it up.
“Eventually, I had like a little bit of a lucky break after about six months and then when the option came to drop out of college, I just decided to support it with being a poker dealer to make sure that I could pay my bills because I wasn’t living at home, and it went well and I went full-time.
“I think for the vast majority of people poker should only ever be fun. The way I always say to my friends who want to play is treat it like going to the cinema, like maybe on a Friday night you spend 10 quid you get a bit of entertainment, the only difference is with poker maybe you’ve got a few quid back, but expect to lose it!”
When you put your all into something, especially when you do it full-time and in your spare time that it becomes your craft and ability really grows.
And for Hand he’s certainly grown into the pro many know and love, from the humble beginnings playing for a euro to playing in the PokerStars European Poker Tour including in EPT Paris this year.
Eventually though, it became a full-time gig and Hand was able to get much more money holding the cards rather than dealing them.
“I was a poker player first and then I started streaming whereas some people stream and then they start playing poker,” he said. “But I was professional for years before that and it’s definitely afforded me opportunities that might have otherwise been tricky, like being sponsored by PokerStars I get the opportunity to be brought to these events.”
His rise to this level he says can be attributed to the help and coaching from friend Parker Talbot.
Going full-time Poker pro allowed him to get creative and eventually set up his Twitch account by the handle EasyWithAces – and his flair there saw him gain a tremendous following which all has to do with him, his personality and entertaining persona – which has accumulated a total of over 132,000 followers.
The Irish pro says that poker can be a great resource for people looking to get into a community, make new friends and find an environment that suits them.
Hand explains that poker is accessible for hours and hours every week but so are the players which is rare to find in sport these days. He said: “The one thing about poker these days is that a lot of the people who are better known in the space are quite open on socials, be that Twitch, YouTube or Twitter.
“I feel like you really get to know the people so if there’s someone that you support, be it myself or Ben Spragg or Lex Veldhuis, or any of the people, you can watch a lot of them stream especially during the series for maybe like 40- 50 hours a week.
“If you follow a sports teams – I’m not trying to compare two sports teams – but like you don’t really ever get to talk with the players that are on your team, but if you follow poker you can get involved in our communities.
“You can ask questions on our discords, you can send us messages on Twitter and you can learn directly or just like form kind of like online friendships with people like this.
“There’s plenty of people that started just by watching my stream and over the years have become genuine friends so I think the communities that we have are super strong and you know not every community will be for you but there’s so many different characters and poker that if you keep bouncing around for them and pokers a keen interest of yours like you’ll find the community that you fit into really well.”
Hand was recently at EPT Paris where we caught up with him to see how the tournament is from a poker pro’s perspective.
After all, it’s an event that’s a must-see and a dream for many to play in, with its prominence in poker.
EPT Paris was held at Les Palais des Congres, an exhibition centre in the midst of Paris, France, with the capacity to have over 134 poker tables.
Hand explains how this year’s venue is full of surprises: “I love it, I know it’s absolutely massive but I feel like I’m always amazed by it, I keep finding new things, like there’s a cinema in between the poker room and the hotel.
“I’ve been here for a week and only yesterday I found that there’s this massive supermarket down at the bottom.
“I think for the spot we are in, in Paris there’s lots of amazing restaurants and bars around us you can walk to like all the main attractions within about 30 minutes so I really, really like it, it’s my first time here.”
Hand has a fondness to the European Poker Tour, outlining what makes it so special he said: “I think there’s a lot that goes into the EPT’s to make them what they are. There’s definitely a lot of prestige because it’s a legacy event. It’s been around for quite a long time, for many, many years.
“Nobody won more than one main event. I think it’s only happened twice now, Victoria Coren-Mitchell from London was the first person to ever do it after so many years, so it’s not something that people can win very easily.
“It attracts the best players in the world and on top of that what you’ll hear there is everyone saying the staff is amazing like every poker dealer is just like the top of their game, the floor staff are incredible I think it’s run impeccably. So I think it’s the prestige, the difficulty, the fact that you know you’re competing against the best and then the staff.”
Remember to gamble responsibly
A responsible gambler is someone who:
- Establishes time and monetary limits before playing
- Only gambles with money they can afford to lose
- Never chase their losses
- Doesn’t gamble if they’re upset, angry, or depressed
- Gamcare – www.gamcare.org.uk
- Gamble Aware – www.begambleaware.org
Find our detailed guide on responsible gambling practices here.
For help with a gambling problem, call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 or go to www.gamstop.co.uk to be excluded from all UK-regulated gambling websites.