Matt Hawrilenko Bio AKA HOSS_TBF

A name that many people have not heard of in the poker world is Matt Hawrilenko, also known as Hoss_TBF. Hawrilenko is not a household name like many pros due to the fact that Hawrilenko’s game of choice is Limit Holdem. He started playing poker back in 2003 while working an internship in Washington D.C. By 2005, Hawrilenko had become a full time poker professional. Since then, Hawrilenko has moved up the ranks to become a high stakes Limit Holdem specialist that is regularly seen playing on the internet as high as $1,000 – $2,000.

HOSS_TBF

In an interview conducted last year, he was asked why he played Limit over No-Limit Holdem. Hawrilenko stated that he would love to learn the game, but there is so much opportunity to make money at Limit Holdem that he feels he is losing money every time he is not playing Limit Holdem.

He attributes most of his success to the fact that his approach to the game is very math based. He stated that many of the top poker players, especially some of the old school pros, mainly attack the weaknesses in their player’s games. He says that his math based approach makes his game somewhat un-exploitable.

Hawrilenko is a short-handed and heads-up specialist. He says that this is due to the fact that he is very impatient. Poker is all about making decisions and the more times you can make your opponent make a decision, the more of an opportunity you give them to make a mistake. As a result, he feels that the more decisions he makes, the more of an advantage that he gains at the table. He finds 10 handed poker boring.

He is also convinced that poker will eventually take a downswing and the games will not be as good in the future as they are now. One source of money in Limit Holdem games are those that do well in other games, such as No-Limit. These players do not want to drop down and play lower, so they hop into the Limit Holdem games. This is the point that strong Limit Holdem specialists swoop in and take the cash.

Hawrilenko is primarily a cash game player, but does have eight World Series of Poker cashes. He also has two WSOP final tables, one in both Limit Holdem and 7 Card Stud. Most of his success in cash games has come via careful bankroll management. He believes in shot taking in a controlled way. He gave an example in an interview where he took a shot at $1,000 – $2,000. He figured out how much money he needed to stay funded at $500 – $1000 and then took the excess to make his shot.

Hawrilenko can be seen regularly playing online and is a consistent winner. Recently, he gave Phil Hellmuth one of the worst beatings of his life in Limit Holdem. All of this in a days work for the man that Patrik Antonius called one of the “best Limit Holdem players in the world.”