Victor Ramdin: Making the Play

By Jason Kirk Jul 10, 2008 | 1 year ago

Annand "Victor" Ramdin playing in Day 1b of the PokerStars EPT Season 4 Grand Final

Rags-to-riches stories in poker aren't entirely uncommon, but Victor Ramdin's has been short and sweet. In six years he's gone from having no poker resume to being the winner of over $2,400,000, which has helped him to do a lot a badly-needed charity work.

I caught up with Ramdin on the dinner break of Main Event Day 3 and chatted with Ramdin about his journey and what he thinks of this year's big show.

I first met you at Foxwoods back in 2006. You'd just gotten your American citizenship right before that, and then you won the tournament. It must have been a pretty wild ride, from everything leading up to that point up all the way through today. Tell me about where you were when you first got to the United States, and where you are now.

Oh my God, what a difference! I worked my first job here in a mortuary for a day - I saw one dead body and never went back to collect my salary. Then I went to working in a freezer with fish - it gets into your pores for about four years. Then I went on to a grocery store, and on to the little businesses I still have today, which are small dollar stores in New York. A little bit of real estate, too, but mostly I'm in retail.

Ramdin's ride hasn't always been a smooth one.

And obviously poker has helped a lot.

It's great, it's helped me with a lot of bills, and it's helped me to satisfy some of the stuff I wanted to do in life, which is a lot of charity work with kids. For me to actually do something like that to the magnitude that I want to do it, I have to be making other income, because my business doesn't produce the money to give as big and as generously as I would like to give. So with poker I can satisfy a lot of the personal things I want to do.

On more to the poker side of things here at the WSOP Main Event, you've been on a pretty big stack for a while now. One of the things a lot of the pros have been telling us is that the structure is so much better than it has been in past years. I'd have to think that a guy like you, with such an aggressive style, would love it when you've got a big stack.


Pros like Victor love the 2008 Main Event.

It's unbelievable. This is the best structure ever! It's the ultimate, a dream come true for pros. It can't get any better than this. Not only that, but what a well-run championship these people have here. They've done a great job, everything runs like clockwork.

Tell me about some of the strategic opportunities that the combination of a big stack and such a great structure gives you when you've got that big stack, especially against the weaker players and satellite winners and such.

Let me put it this way. I pretty much gamble on any given hand about 30% of my stack. It doesn't matter what I have. I may push it sometimes to 40% or even 50% of my stack. But I'm proud of myself when I make a play. Even if it doesn't work out, or I get called and I miss, I'm proud of myself when I make big plays. It's okay to make a big play.

I like to make the big play. Something about the Victor Ramdin game is that sometimes I make big calls, but 90% of the time I'm the one making the play. That's my game.

Do you think that your own fearlessness strikes fear into your opponents?


This man will strike fear into your puny mortal heart.

Oh, absolutely. I was involved in three very big pots today - one for $800,000, one for $600,000, and one for $400,000, probably some of the biggest pots in the tournament. I was on the losing end of all three, and guess what? I'm still friggin' in!

I've still got $286,000. Something tells me that the end of the day, or the end of tomorrow, I'm going to have a big stack. I'm so confident, because I've great table. With the great structure, everything is to my advantage. I'm not in a rush. I'm just going to take it one hand at a time. I'm going to get there.

Well Victor, I hope that big stack becomes a reality. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

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One of Doyle Brunson's nuggets of wisdom in the original Super System was that you have to give action to get action. Keep that in mind if you ever wonder how Victor Ramdin goes deep in so many big tournaments.

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