When we approached Terrence Chan on Day 1 of the ACOP Main Event he was engrossed in watching a hand that had played a couple of minutes into the break.
The remainder of his tablemates had made their way out of the tournament area, but not Chan.
He desired to watch the hand play out and gain any little piece of additional details about his opponents that he could get.
Chan won't play poker full time any more, but his focus seems just as sharp as ever.
It was actually somewhat surprising to look Chan on the tables.
Not only has Chan been busy doing other such things as co-hosting the preferred 'Two Plus Two Pokercast' podcast, but he has also "retired" from the sport.
"Even though I've officially retired, I still need to pop out for a very good event like this," Chan tells us. "IT IS A nice prize pool and it is often well run events here."
"It was an excellent excuse to look friends too."
One of these friends Chan will certainly be catching up with here in Macau is Adam Schwartz. He's the host of the Pokercast and surely he and Chan can be getting together this week to record a podcast or two.
That's not the one podcast Chan is a part of though. He also has his own show called 'Life After Poker'. It is just a few episodes in, but was well received. The idea that of the show, just like the name suggests, basically has Chan chatting with fellow ex poker professionals.
So, taking that into account, we asked him the most obvious question:
How is life after poker going for Mr. Terrence Chan?
"Life after poker is sweet. I HAVE BEEN researching a large number of various things I WOULD LIKE to do. It's fun. I'm really all for the business world. I'm just really enjoying that poker is a component time thing, a 'for fun' thing."
It's well documented that something Chan loves doing outside of poker is blended Martial Arts and now he's out of poker he can focus more attention on that.
"I train and love MMA. I WOULD LIKE to come back into that during a significant way."
An interesting little anecdote involving Chan and MMA is that the person sitting next me at the media desk here on the ACOP is PokerStars LIVE Macau's official photographer Kenneth Lim and never only has Lim taken Chan's photo on the poker table numerous times, he also captured that photo of Chan you will see that above.
It's clear that Chan has a number of interests keeping him busy outside of poker and while he tells us that stepping clear of the tables has made him enjoying playing more, he does think it should have affected his game a little bit.
"I do think it's tougher to come back right into a groove. I always feel like I'm somewhat rusty initially. I WILL BE ABLE TO play some hands where I DID NOT really analyze it deeply and never know if I made the appropriate decision, so I CAN perform a little little bit of second guessing. I still feel like my ability to consider the sport is good, but I sometimes still feel like within the moment I DO NOT do the fitting thing."
"When you're playing poker full time you more or less have this identity of creating the fitting decisions always and it feels an overly different to be a wreck like that."
Despite this, Chan does note that taking a break from poker could be helping is game in addition.
"I certainly will never punt anymore and that i think that's nice. While you play an entire schedule full time there may be always the danger of punting. Because there may be always the following day, so I ASSUME that's a bonus not to playing so much."
When asked if he thinks poker will ever return to being an entire time thing in the future someday he's quite quick to reply to.
"I don't believe so. I just don't benefit from the lifestyle as much."
"I also think there are lots of people younger than me who're willing to study, study, study and play, play, play and that i never like doing something and never being the most efficient I WILL be. And it is usually tough to compete against the folk who really are true full time. I USED TO BE a kind of kids and that i know I used to eat up the folks who didn't take it seriously."
Chan may not be "true full time" himself, but that hasn't stopped him from still eating up chips early within the ACOP Main Event. He was one of the vital chip leaders a short time into the day and continues to be travelling steadily as we head into the last level of the day.
Keep up-to-the-minute with Chan's progress and learn how the remainder of Day 1 plays out within the live reports section on the top of the 2014 ACOP page.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Asia Pacific Poker Tour]
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