Heads-Up: Health Issues, WSOP Grind & More – Akash Malik Bares It All

Akash Malik
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  • PG News August 4, 2017
  • 4 Minutes Read

On the poker table, he’s dynamic and has recorded plenty of notable scores while off the table; he is straight up, no bullshit. We are talking about Akash Malik (cover image) who made his fifth consecutive WSOP trip to Las Vegas this year.

In what is one of the most dreaded situations for a poker player playing a high value tournament (it doesn’t get any better than the WSOP Main Event), serious health issues resulted in the 35-year-old Malik being hospitalized with severe abdominal pain on the day he was playing the WSOP Main Event. Investigations revealed that Malik had kidney stones but it was impossible to deter Malik from missing the most prestigious poker tournament in the world. The pro forcefully got himself discharged against medical advice. Pumped up on strong pain killers, Malik unfortunately crashed out of the Main Event but immediately jumped into the Little One for One Drop. Malik managed to cash in the event, pocketing $5,500 for his 77th place finish in the event.

Canvassing Malik’s past, the pro discovered the sport while he was in the US in 2005 and unlike many who got to learn the skill through Facebook, videos or books, Malik is one of those who learnt poker by first hand experience. Yes he actually dived straight into playing live.

The high stakes cash game player has studied undergrad Business Administration, with marketing as his major and economics as his minor at St. Mary’s, Texas. The easygoing, extensive traveler, transited from cash games to tournaments, for the glory and high that these provide.

An entrepreneur, he certainly makes sure to give enough time to the felts and regularly makes domestic and international trips including his annual pilgrimage to the WSOP.

He also spread his wings to online tournaments, playing under his moniker “proFISHnal” and credits his parents for their unflinching support for anything he dabbles in, including poker.

An extremely candid Akash Malik, talks about his summer grind which is what he loves doing, his sudden health issue at the series and how certain instances can make you realize the importance of a healthy life.

Here, we reproduce our tete-a-tete with him.

 

Congratulations on your deep run at the WSOP Little One for One Drop. Are you satisfied with your performance?

Thank you, well it’s never a good feeling to bust out of the Main Event, because I look forward to the Main Event of the WSOP all year long, so yeah busting the main is always disappointing. This year I busted on day 2 and right after that I jumped into the Little One for One Drop. Knowing that that this was most likely going to be the last tournament of the summer for me, I wanted to give it my best. I finished 77th in the One Drop on day 3 of the tournament which had over 4000 entries so I guess you can call it a deep run but it’s one of those so close yet so far kind of deals, but nonetheless the One Drop this year was a special experience.

 

Tell about the medical issue that you faced while at WSOP.

Randomly I experienced shooting pain in my abdomen and it didn’t feel like your regular tummy pain. Anyways I tried to rest and take it easy hoping it would get better but after two days the pain got unbearable. The pain didn’t go away so I just got into a taxi in the middle of the night and told the driver to take me to the nearest hospital. After conducting some tests at the hospital, the doctors informed me that I had kidney stones, but thankfully they would dissolve themselves with medicine and that I didn’t need surgery. The timing sucked but I wasn’t going to miss the Main Event for nothing so I insisted that they discharge me, and they did after giving me some painkillers and I registered for the Main a few hours late.

 

Tell us more about your journey in the Little One for One Drop. Why did you mention this event was special?

The Little One for One Drop this year was really special as I mentioned earlier because every day was an enthralling experience. I busted the main on day 2 of the event and straightaway got in line to register for the One Drop. Right in front of me in line was Martin Jacobson who had busted from the Main Event at the same time as me. I am a big fan of his after watching him school everyone at the final table of the Main Event in 2014 where he was short stacked for the most part and ended up winning the most prestigious prize in poker along with a cool $10 million. Anyways not only did he happen to be on my table but he was also sitting right next to me. I started talking to him and he turned out to be super cool and I ended up picking his brain for hours as he busted just before the end of the day. So that was the highlight of day 1. Also, I made day 2 with a decent stack.

I had a great start on day 2 as I chipped up really fast because the table was a little weak so I could open a lot and people were hardly playing back and that’s always a good situation to be in deep in a tournament. Anyways half way through day 2 my table got changed and by this time I already had a decent stack. On the new table on my right was Pierre Nuevill, 2015 November Niner and also some other notable players who I didn’t know much about. One guy had a monster stack on my table who later once day 2 ended, I found out was Matt Burkey, but at this point I had never heard of him. For anyone who doesn’t know who Matt Burkey is like I didn’t, I would really recommend you watch this documentary called Dead Money on Poker Go. It is not only one of the most well made poker documentaries ever; it’s also a very inspiring story. It’s a must watch. Anyways Matt was playing hyper aggressive and I was really intrigued by everything he was doing on the table. I have never seen somebody play such unorthodox poker. He was limping a lot of hands with a monster stack, which is unusual, also 3-betting and 4-betting an absurd amount and almost every time putting all his opponents to the test in every hand he got involved in. Since I had no idea who he was to begin with so for a moment I thought he could be a fish but soon I realized he is anything but a fish. I got involved in a lot of pots with him as well because we both had big stacks so it couldn’t be avoided and it was definitely not easy to play against him but at the same time it was also a lot of fun because till this point in the tournament I didn’t have to face such a challenging opponent. Anyways I made day 3 and later on I found out who he was and then saw the absolutely brilliant documentary and then it all made sense to me. So that was the highlight of day 2.

Akash Malik
Akash Malik

After grinding hard for 2 days I made day 3 with an average stack, chipped up nicely early on day 3 without any showdowns in the first few levels. Then I lost a huge pot pre-flop all in where the button opened and I raised with QQ in the big blind, he shoved and I called, he showed 55 and window card was 5, lost 85% of my stack in that hand and eventually busted shortly thereafter at 77th place. So yes, it was a fun experience but also at the same time it was extremely frustrating as I was really focused and barely made a mistake during the entire 3 days but couldn’t win when I had my opponent crushed. I would have been cruising if I won that crucial pot but it wasn’t meant to be. Yes, tournament poker is not easy.

 

What are your views on the huge Indian contingent that went to WSOP this year headlined obviously by our two bracelet winners Nipun Java & Aditya Sushant?

Aditya Sushant and Nipun Java won us our first ever bracelet in the NLH Teams event and that I think was the highlight of the summer for the entire Indian Contingent. We finally got the monkey off our back and India got its first bracelet, as it was long overdue. I am super happy for both of them, and I also want to thank them for making us all proud. Sadly, I wasn’t in Vegas at the time they won, so I missed the celebrations. Watching the presentation ceremony sitting in India courtesy Vikram Kumar’s awesome video literally gave me goose bumps, especially when they played the Indian national anthem in the Amazon Room, now that was surreal. And we didn’t have to wait for our second bracelet for too long as well as Nipun won the online NLH event, which was just the icing on the cake. I wasn’t surprised at all to see the large Indian contingent this year and I’m very confident that every year the number of people representing India at WSOP is going to increase for sure and hopefully we can bring multiple bracelets back home in the following years as well.

Aditya Sushant and Nipun Java
India’s first WSOP bracelet winners Aditya Sushant and Nipun Java

What are your plans for the rest of the year??

I am currently working on few startups so hopefully it’s going to be an exciting year. I want to do ACOP Macau in October so hopefully I can take some time off and make it happen.

 

How have you been able to bring improvement to your game in the recent past, any tips you would like to share with aspiring poker players??

I’ve actually got a mind coach, Elliot Roe who is next level awesome. For people who don’t know him, he is also the mind coach of Fedor Holz, Brian Rast, Matt Burkey and many other top poker players and also lots of very successful athletes and businessmen. I think he’s also the mind coach of Scott Blumstein, the guy who won the WSOP Main Event this year. Him and Fedor recently came out with an application called primed mind, which I still haven’t checked out, but I would recommend Elliot to everybody, even people who don’t play poker can gain so much from just talking to him. Also, the game is constantly evolving so we need to evolve as poker players as well, so specially people who play poker for a living have to keep making minor adjustments and working hard on improving their game, as there is no substitute for hard work and you never stop learning.

 

Any parting words or anything you would like to add?

Even though I had a really disappointing summer, things were put in perspective for me this year because of the visit to the hospital on the day of the Main Event. While I was lying down in the emergency room of a Vegas hospital waiting for the doctor to attend to me, and this is when I started thinking deeply about how the most important thing in life is to be healthy. We take these things for granted a lot, especially us poker players; we all neglect our health more often than not without even realizing how much we are harming ourselves slowly but surely.

Also, I realized not only how lucky and fortunate I was to just have the opportunity to even take part in this prestigious event for the fifth consecutive year and also to spend the entire summer doing what I love doing the most. Normally at the end of a long summer I would usually dwell over how the summer could have been better, instead I was just happy for the opportunities that I’ve had in my life in the past.

I also thought a lot about some of the other really important things in life rather than just thinking about what had happened on the felt during the summer. So, I would want to suggest all the poker players not to neglect their health especially if they play poker full time and to appreciate the other good things in their life. Sometimes when we are playing a lot of poker, we tend to completely forget about some other really important aspects of our lives, which are way more meaningful then winning or losing in poker.

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