Life as a Grinder with Michael Mizrachi
Life as a Grinder with Michael Mizrachi
A quietly dominant presence, Michael Mizrachi has quickly become one of the hottest players on the tour. Known as "The Grinder" for a rock-solid style that consistently gets him to the final table, 25-year-old Mizrachi won the WPT event at the Borgata (and more than $1 million), took second at the WPT Tunica event and second at an L.A. Poker Classic $2,500 tourney, not bad for the first few months of 2006!
Question: How did you get into poker?
Answer: I used to play for baseball cards and actually won a lot of cards. I started playing for money when I was about 15 years old and never stopped. I just kept going and going.
Question: What kept you interested in the game?
Answer: Making money kept me interested. Before, I used to love the game, but now I love it a lot more for the money. There is some thrill to it. I like tournaments better than cash games, but cash games keep the money flowing.
Question: What is your greatest poker accomplishment?
Answer: My greatest accomplishment was winning the World Poker Tour even in February 2006 at the Borgata in Atlantic City.
Question: Where do you live?
Answer: I live in Hollywood, Florida, and I actually just purchased a house in Vegas. On and off I like to go back and forth. I like Vegas better for poker, and for family I like Florida better.
Question: What is your favorite city to travel to for a tournament?
Answer: I guess right now it's still Los Angeles, because that's where I made the most money, in both cash games and tournaments.
Question: How many tournaments do you play a year?
Answer: I play almost every main event, every championship event. I play some of those preliminary ones, but I would say at least 50 or 60 tournaments a year, maybe more.
Question: How does playing poker and playing 50 tournaments a year affect your personal life?
Answer: It affects my personal life because I travel a lot and I don't get to spend as much time with my family as I used to. We have tournaments all the time; I was just in a tournament in Florida. I don't mind traveling, I like it, but it's really hard. You get tired after awhile.
Question: What do you do for fun?
Answer: I play poker online, and I like to go to the movies to get my mind off things. Sometimes I go to the beach when I am in Florida. I used to live on the beach, and I never went! Now that I am away from the beach, I always have to go. I would say going to the movies, though, is my favorite thing to do. Right now, my favorite movie is probably "Rounders". Every time I watch it, I have to play poker right afterward. I like a lot of fighting movies as well.
Question: Can watching a movie about poker, and watching poker on TV, affect your game at all?
Answer: Not at all, I look at it as a movie. Nothing will affect my game. I play my game the way I want to play it.
Question; What about watching other players play? Would you change your strategy against them after seeing them play?
Answer: It depends, you know. It depends on the situation I'm in: where I'm at in the tournament, how many chips I have, how deep I'm in the tournament. It all depends on the situation. I might sometimes look for tells on TV, but that's about it.
Question: How much does stamina affect you while you are traveling to different tournaments?
Answer: I don't think it affects me. I have so much stamina. I can last at a poker table a long time. My longest session was probably four days straight. That was years ago. I could do it, but I won't do it anymore, that's for sure.
Mizrachi has won almost $5 million on tour, including $1.9 million for a huge win at 2005's LAPC. He has one son and is married to "Mrs. Grinder," Aidelay, who also plays, as does his brother Robert, when they're not cheering him on. Many poker pundits expect Michael to be a force on tour for years to come.