Rui Cao in Conversation with Paul Phua: Being Aggressive is My Biggest Strength

Tips from the top in bite-sized chunks is the order of the day from Paul Phua’s ‘In Conversation with…’ series of interviews, and the latest sees the Macau-based supremo discussing all things poker with one of the brightest talents of the game, Rui Cao.

The French-Chinese high-stakes pro has been a regular in the biggest PLO games online for several years now under his pseudonym ‘PepperoniF’, and in today’s video as part of Phua’s Poker School series, Cao recalls among other things a huge swingy session ‘back in the day’ against Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom.

With previous ‘In Conversation with…’ guests including the likes of Phil Ivey, Dan Colman and the often-elusive Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan, it’s great to see some faces who we might recognize from the name, but get less airtime than most – and Cao fits this bill perfectly.

After moving to Paris at the age of just 7, Rui Cao was introduced to poker by friends back in the mid-noughties and within just three years had built up his bankroll from an initial $50 deposit to where he could take on the world’s very best, PLO being his game of choice after building up a No Limit background.

Chatting to Phua, he recalls his best moment in the game, saying:

“I think it was online against Viktor Blom. I think it was in PLO, in 2009 or something, and we were four-tabling and maybe at one point I was down 30 buy-ins or something, and two hours later I was up like 30 buy-ins, and it was a pretty crazy upswing. We were, like, playing crazy, and it was a really, really fun session to play in.”

With a degree in finance, aggression might not be the obvious traits someone of that persuasion might bring to poker, but Cao tells us that it’s perhaps his main weapon – or at least how he’s perceived by other players and poker fans.

Although a cash game specialist, he does enjoy tournament play – although he is yet to reach the heights that Phua himself has in that format – the Malay-born businessman turned poker specialist accruing a hefty $4.5million+ in just 8 cashes, although admittedly they were all super-high roller events, not unusual for a billionaire.

Cao likes tournaments too, he says, explaining that he’s good in the early stages but confessing to Phua that:

“I tend not to be very good later on,” explaining that he likes “early-stage tournaments because I can play quite loose and it’s generally softer than tough cash games. So I like to play deep against weaker competition than cash games.”

Phua tries to cover as much ground as possible without getting bogged down in too much detail, and hearing that Cau finds poker stressful likely strikes a chord with most players for whom the game provides a living or lifestyle – “it’s kind of stressful, but it’s exciting at the same time,” says Cau.

“I just sleep for 15 hours and try to forget,” says Cau – and if you want know what he’s trying to forget, you’ll have to watch the rest of the interview yourself!

 Short, sweet and very much to the point – and with subscription to all the content being free there’s no reason not to find out how the world’s leading players think about the game, courtesy of Phua and his interviews.