Playtika
Jason Alexander is an actor who needs no introduction. He’s a living legend on Broadway, in Hollywood, and across the show business industry. He is also an avid poker player who has cashed in two World Series of Poker events (2 of 8) and has crushed it for years in celebrity poker tournaments.
In my interview with Jason Alexander below, we talk about his favorite aspects of the game, who he goes to for poker advice, challenges of making the jump from live to online poker and vice versa, and much more.
What brought us together to discuss poker is Jason Alexander’s willingness to share his love of the game in a series of new TV spots for Playtika’s World Series of Poker app. He’ll be appearing in three 30-second spots for the WSOP app (the “world’s #1 free-to-play poker game”) where he shares his poker tips. Below my interview with Jason Alexander I’ve included his full list of poker tips and the three new WSOP video spots go live on 12/26. Now for the Jason Alexander interview where we discuss all things poker…
How Jason Alexander Approaches The Social Dynamics Of Poker
Cass Anderson: “You’ve had a pretty successful past cashing in two WSOP events, doing well in the Celebrity Poker Showdown, Poker After Dark, and the Heads Up Poker Championship… have you found in the past that, as a public figure, your opponents at the table ever make assumptions about you based on that public persona and if so, are you able to use that to your advantage at the table?”
Jason Alexander: “Well, here’s an erudite answer: I don’t know… You know, I’ve never inquired at the table like ‘hey, does anyone have assumptions about me?’ Y’know? I don’t know what they think. Also, I follow poker but there are so many “professional” or “recognizable” or “highly successful” poker players out there that I don’t know that I would recognize all of them.”
“So I never know when I’m up against a pro. Who I assume, would think they got me covered. Or if I’m up against someone who is assessing me and my game based on the George character, or some other thing they’ve seen me do or say or be a part of. So I never assume.”
Jason Alexander: “I kind of go in creating some sort of a persona or creating an image of some kind… That I can, and I don’t mean, I don’t mean to imply that I created and it’s a false persona… I generally go in the way I would want to be received: friendly, open, and available.”
“To me, poker is a social game and I’m happy to be social when I’m at the table. It is a game of of wits and skill, I’m happy to say to people, ‘I have a certain level of wits and skill.’ And I very openly say ‘I have no idea if (the wits) will hold up at this table.'”
“I think what people experience, hopefully, with me at a poker table is I enjoyed playing with them. Win or lose, I had a good time playing with them. And that is really the reason I play poker. I’m not a pro. It’s not my living. It’s not my livelihood. And I don’t wear a banner that says ‘hey, I’m Mr. Poker’… So I think the reception to me at the table generally is this is going to make (for) a much more fun experience win, lose, or draw.”
Jason Alexander On Superstitions In Poker And Life
Cass Anderson: “So in live poker… Are you superstitious at all at the table? Because I find that poker players are often a very superstitious lot.”
Jason Alexander: “Oh I know they are, yeah… No, I don’t carry any of those (superstitions). You know I also work in a business that has (a lot of superstitions), especially in the theater.”
“A friend of mine wrote a book called ‘The Stage Actor’s Handbook‘ and large sections are all the multitudinous superstitions that people have. And when they interviewed me, they said, ‘Do you have any?’ and I said ‘I don’t.’ And I don’t say every one of them because somebody else does… believe in them. I don’t have any of them, and you know, I don’t tend to believe in that kind of stuff anyway.”
Cass Anderson: “So you wouldn’t get concerned if you were sitting at a stacked table and you were dealt pocket jacks or pocket 10s? Because those are my nightmare starting hands that I never play well pre-flop and it always ends poorly for me.”
Jason Alexander: “Yeah (I would) but that has nothing to do with superstition it just has to do with they’re really dicey cards. In my eight times at the World Series of Poker, when I busted out, 4 of (the times) I had pocket aces and four (of the times) I had pocket jacks.”
“And pocket 10s and pocket jacks and hands like that they’re just easily overplayed, especially when you’re in desperate circumstances or you’ve been card dead for so long that you go ‘I’m gonna make a move’ and we tend to over play them, but I don’t think that’s superstition. So.. I don’t tend to believe in the superstition side of it.”
Interview: Jason Alexander’s Favorite Poker Hands
Cass Anderson: “Do you have any hands that you just love to play? Hands that you look down and see those cards and feel like things are suddenly going well.”
Jason Alexander: “I tend to overplay two hands all the time. Suited 10-J and suite 9-J. For some reason… I think it’s coming every time. And despite how many times I’ve had to take it in the shorts with those cards, I just, I keep coming back for more.”
Mentalism And Story Telling At The Poker Table
Cass Anderson: “Have your past skills as a mentalist (type of magician) ever come in handy at the poker table?”
Jason Alexander: “(laughs) None of my skills ever come in handy at the poker table. So, mentalism as you know, is all tricks. So if I use a deck that I provide my mentalism will be great.”
“I don’t even think my people skills or my acting skills are that huge of an advantage. So I can see, when someone’s in a hand, I can see them having a reaction. I don’t know if it’s a reaction because they’re bluffing or they got it. I know they’re having a reaction, I just don’t know which one it is.”
“So my skills do not tell me which one it is, unless I played with them for a very long time, which is almost never the situation. So the only ‘skills’ that I might have that could be used to an advantage is I’m very aware that in good poker, everybody in the table is telling a story. They’re telling a long game story about who they are and how they’re going to be and what they do. And they’re telling a hand by hand story.”
“And because I am, for better or worse, a professional storyteller, I think I have some skills in manipulating and controlling my story, to create impressions. But I think that if that’s an edge, that’s probably the only one I have, and I don’t know that it’s profound.”
Jason Alexander On Getting Poker Lessons From The Pros
Cass Anderson: “Over the years, have you had anyone in the poker world that you’ve gone to for advice or lessons?”
Jason Alexander: “Oh, yeah. Constantly. So the first person who ever really gave me like the ‘new game of poker’ update was… And I see my publicist Ron is here (on video with us)… Years and years ago when the televised Celebrity Poker started to happen. I got invited and Ron said to me, ‘do you want a lesson?’ and I, you know, very huffily said, ‘I know how that game works, I’ve played poker.'”
“And I said.. ‘well, who do you mean? Like, from who?’ And he said ‘well, I represent this guy, Phil Hellmuth.’ And I went ‘ohhh, The Poker Brat? I’ll sit with him.’ (laughing) So Phil (Hellmuth) was the first guy who sort of gave me a two hour tutorial when I went, ‘oh my, there’s so much… This game has gotten way beyond me.'”
“Joe Hachem actually is a friend and I’ve sat with Joe many times. And he’s he’s been wonderfully helpful. You know, I run into Annie Duke and Danny Negreanu and Phil Ivey and Phil Laak. And, you know, these are the people I see at friendly games. And you know, I can easily say to them, ‘tell me two things I don’t know that might help my game.’ And they’re usually very lovely about it. They’ll throw you a couple ideas.”
Cass Anderson: “You just named a lot of familiar names, is there anyone in the poker world, or of those people you just named that you would never want to find sitting on your left when you sit down at the table?”
Jason Alexander: “You know, and not to name names, the guys that always intimidate me are the math guys. Because that’s my worst skill. Always has been. The minute that letters started coming into math equations I said, ‘bye bye.'”
“So I have shown sort of the ‘advanced algorithm for poker math’ to my older son who’s really wonderful at mathematics. And I go ‘do you understand what this says?’ And he goes ‘Yeah. Oh, yeah, I get that.’ And I go, ‘could you just… can I put you in my ear?’ So I know what to do.’ But you know, Howard (Lederer) is a (math) guy, you know, it’s those guys. To some degree, Annie (Duke) as well Annie’s a math and number cruncher.”
“It’s like he’s looking through my eyes” — Jason Alexander talking about playing poker with Daniel Negreanu
“The guys like Danny Negreanu… What’s scary about Danny is in 30 minutes of play, he suddenly… It’s like he’s looking through my eyes. I’ll make a bet and he’ll go ‘Oh, you like the ace-queen off?’ And I go ‘I have ace-queen off, how do you know that??’ So, he’s scary in that he just has a feel for what.. and instinct for what players are comfortable doing or will try to do that’s a little uncanny.”
“The other guys… It’s not that I’m afraid of them. I know they have skills I don’t have. But I as I said to.. Who was I playing one time…It might have been Phil Gordon. And we were, we were in a heads up match and he probably had me, but I was making a move.”
“And he was sitting with it going… ‘hmm, what do I do?’ And I said, as he was considering it I said ‘you know, Phil, if I lose to you, there’s no honor lost. But if you lose this bet to me, it’s a story. So think very carefully about what you do.’ And he lays down his hand and he probably had me beat.”
“But you know, it’s that kind of thing… that in many ways levels the table for me. Because the pros are all known quantities to some degree. I’m a relatively unknown quantity.”
Interview Continues: Jason Alexander On Playing With The WSOP App
Cass Anderson: “How often are you able to live play poker and play using the WSOP app?”
Jason Alexander: “Daily. I’ll play for 15 or 20 minutes every day just to stay mentally sharp. Because my live games are less and less at the moment, when my career is slower I have time to go and play… but I’m not playing a whole bunch of sit down games at the moment so it’s mostly on the app.”
Cass Anderson: “Have you noticed any unique challenges from having played poker much of your life in live games and then moving to the app, challenges of moving from live poker to online?”
Jason Alexander: “The only difference that I find on the app, honestly, is that people play a little more wildly and recklessly than they would at a live game, whether it be cash or tournament.”
“There’s something about not holding your chips, not seeing your stack, that they become esoteric, and people just throw them around like crazy people, in a way they don’t do when it’s visceral and in front of you. That’s the big difference.”
“So what I find (is) making moves in an app version of the game, bears less and less fruit because people are going ‘$100,000 pre-flop? Oh, sure. I’ll call that! I’ve got a jack six suited!’ You know, and it’s just a mad call. But they’ll do it because the chips are meaningless to them more often than not. And unfortunately, one of the things I’m aware of, by making the majority of my play on the app, is I try to remember these are app habits and not live game habits.”
Discussing Jason Alexander’s Poker Tips For Mastering The WSOP App
Cass Anderson: “So your tip about keeping cadence and timing… and how in poker everything is about timing and never giving away tells by staying smooth. I was literally I was reading that while walking around my kitchen and trying to imagine myself trying to keep perfect timing, counting to 10 between every step of making my coffee and I’m imagining it driving my wife absolutely nuts… Are there any ways in your life that you can think of to practice keeping steady timing away from the poker table without driving people nuts?”
Jason Alexander: “So here’s all that tip is really about is: what do you do when you have the nuts? What do you do when you’re full of it? What do you do when you’re just trying to consider your move? Whatever it is you’re doing, if the presentation of it is as close to identical in each scenario, then they never know.”
“So for me, I’ve actually created something where I do almost the exact same thing no matter what I’ve got. I wait until it’s my turn to to make a move before I even look at my cards. I look at my cards for a count of three. I put them down. I breathe. I look at anybody who’s made a bet first. I look at their stack. I look at anybody else that’s made a call. I look at my cards again. And then I make my move.”
“If I’m ever heads up, and I make a move… You know, the guys that try to hide, they wear the sunglasses, they put their hands up. I look directly at the guy, I let them look at me and I go,’ I don’t know. I don’t know, I got cards, I don’t know. You may win. I don’t know.'”
“That’s my thing, win lose or draw. So if you want to practice that. Pick a mundane task that has three or four steps and practice doing them exactly the same way. Videotape yourself. It’s like a dance move. It’s like a dance. You know? What’s my choreography? Here’s my choreography. So number one, number two. Number three. Number four. Number five. Speak… It’s not hard. Anybody can do it.”
Cass Anderson: “Is there anything about the WSOP app that you think live poker players might be really excited to discover about it if they’re not using it yet?”
Jason Alexander: “You know, what I love about the WSOP app is for me, it’s as close to actual gameplay as you can get without being in an actual game. The players are live, the fact that there you know there are winnings to be had, there is something you can earn, sort of separates it from the rest.”
“What I like about it is it is a completely affordable, in fact, free way to play the game. And I think what happens to a lot of people.. and not so much the pros or the people who play regularly…. I like the app and I like representing the app because again, I think of poker as a really social game.”
“I’ve met people who have, you know, no physical abilities, maybe they’re a little socially awkward, but they can come and they can participate in this game. And everybody for the most part, I know there are people with more skills but if you got the nuts, you got the nuts, and it’s it’s an equalizer.”
“So I like that the app invites people in to experience the game, learn the game, at a very low risk. And that’s what keeps most people away (from poker). Even if they go to a casino and they’re on a $1-$2 table. It’s still a $200-$300 buy-in and in any given hand you’re all in and people are wiping you out. So this is a this is a nice way to introduce yourself to the game and to work on specific skills that you want to that are going to, you know, crash and burn along the way as you learn at very low risk. That’s that’s the beauty of this WSOP app.”
Jason Alexander’s 6 Tips For WSOP App Poker
As part of Jason Alexander’s campaign as the face of Playtika’s WSOP app, he also provided his six main poker tips for seeing success on the WSOP app and when playing on the felt. I mentioned once above in our interview when discussing timing, but here are Jason’s six poker tips:
1. It’s All About Timing
“I love poker because similar to comedy, it’s all about timing. In the game of poker, making the right calls at the right time is the key to success. If you’re able to master the rhythm of the game, keeping a consistent pace can help disguise the strength or weakness of your hand. Timing is not just about the speed of your play, but about using it strategically to keep your opponent’s off balance and enhance your overall game.”
2. Keep Your Ego in Check
“Poker is a game of skill, strategy, and probabilities. Your ego can cloud your judgment, leading to emotional decisions and unnecessary risks. Don’t be attached to being ‘right’ or proving a point. Stay focused on making sound, logical decisions based on the information at hand. Accept that losses are part of the game, and learning from them will make you a better player in the long run.”
3. Master the Art of Nonverbal Communication
“Never let your opponents see what you are about to play, whether that means hiding your cards, developing a poker face, or refining your knowledge of body language. Our body language can reveal a lot to observant opponents, so strive for consistency in your actions. Keep your facial expressions, posture, and gestures consistent, whether you’re holding strong cards or bluffing. Conversely, pay attention to your opponent’s body language for potential tells. Be aware of subtle changes in their behavior and use that information to make informed decisions. By presenting a stoic and unreadable ‘poker face,’ you not only protect your own strategy but gain valuable insights into the intentions of others.”
4. Speak the Language of Poker
“Understanding basic poker lingo is essential for effective communication at the table and can contribute to making better-informed decisions. Knowing the difference between a ‘bluff’ and a ‘value bet,’ understanding what ‘pot odds’ and ‘outs’ mean, and being able to identify various hands like a ‘straight’ or a ‘flush’ will enhance your decision-making process. It not only helps you comprehend discussions at the table but also allows you to communicate your strategies more effectively.”
5. Know When To Throw in The Towel
“Embrace the power of folding. Recognize that folding is a strategic move, not a sign of weakness. Don’t let pride or attachment to a hand cloud your judgment. If the odds are against you, and the potential risks outweigh the rewards, be willing to fold. Knowing when to throw in the towel and fold is a skill that can save you chips for more favorable situations”
6. Practice Against Real People (not just bots) Using the WSOP App.
“The nuances and unpredictability of human opponents make playing against real people an essential component of becoming a well-rounded and successful poker player. Each human opponent is unique, bringing their own set of skills, quirks, and strategies to the table. Playing against a variety of real people provides a continuous learning experience, helping you improve your overall poker skills over time. Playtika’s free-to-play World Series of Poker app, is the perfect way to practice your skills against other players live!”
The World Series of Poker app can be found wherever you get your app downloads, whether that be in the Apple App Store on on Google Play.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)