High-stakes pro John Woods keeps low profile in Barcelona deep run
The photos you see above and throughout this article are strangely important to Scotland’s John Woods. Not because he wants to boost his public profile—far from it. He just wants to shut his friends up.
“They laugh at me because I don’t have a photo on Hendon Mob,” Woods says with a wry smile. “But I guess I can’t expect a photo when I don’t play many events.”
Indeed, the three small cashes on his live-results list don’t tell the whole story. Woods is far more comfortable in the cash game rooms on the live ciruit, where TV cameras and photographers rarely roam. High-stakes online cash is his bread and butter, and $2,000 buy-in games ($10/$20) are his most common playground.
“I mess about in tournaments sometimes, though,” he says, and the most recent example is going rather well. At the time of writing, he’s deep in the EPT Barcelona Main Event—the third largest tournament in the tour’s history—and he’s already locked up his biggest tournament score.
The Hendon Mob just got another score longer.
DEEP STACKS, DEEP RUNS
John Woods started playing recreationally around 20 years ago, but it was in 2015 when he began taking the game seriously and studying. “I’ve not looked back since,” he says. “I’ve been a pro player for around eight years.”
Throughout that time, he’s worked his way up the stakes to some of the biggest regular games running. “I’m pretty well known online, but nobody knows me here,” he says, surveying the Casino Barcelona tournament floor as players head off on their dinner break.
Can he use his anonymity to his advantage? “Yeah, I feel like people probably look me up and think I’m a fish because I’ve not got much of a Hendon Mob,” he says, smiling. “But when we’re deep stacked, I feel I can run over people because I’m well-versed in deep-stack cash games.”
Woods likes people thinking he’s a fish
Woods picked some strategy from the brains of his tournament-playing friends before play began, but says he usually just goes by feel. “You can just run good and win, right?”
WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?
When he’s not travelling for cash games, John Woods is battling online at his home in Coatbridge, a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, 8.5 miles east of Glasgow.
There, he’s just a regular guy. “I like going out with the boys, getting a few beers,” he says.
But as much as he tries to keep a low profile, his unusual career path makes him stand out. “I have some friends who are recreational poker players and they think my life is exciting,” he says. “I want to tell them I spend most of my time inside and not on a beach!”
He’s just a stone’s throw from Barcelona beach right now, but there’s an EPT Main Event to be played. A nice score here wouldn’t change his poker plans too much, but a win just might.
“If I win this for €1.4 million, then I’m just behind my friend who has €1.7 million in cashes for his career. I can’t overtake him by winning, but I’d definitely push a bit more and play more tournaments to beat him just for fun.”
They won’t be laughing when they see that score on his Hendon Mob—complete with a winner’s photo—that’s for sure.
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