Among those who will compete on G4’s new online poker show “2 Months, $2 Million” is Emil “Whitelime” Patel, who will join forces with three other players to earn $2 million collectively in just two months. Poker News Daily caught up with Patel in the days leading up to the premiere on Sunday, August 16th at 9:00pm ET.
Poker News Daily: Talk about the challenges of putting up your own money in order to earn $2 million in two months.
Patel: The first thing is bankroll management when you play. Depending on how much money you have online, you can only play up to certain stakes or there is too big of a chance of going broke. That was a challenge for us. Outside of that, it was trying to sit down and scope out as many games as possible that we could play. One of the problems we had was that we are so well-known. I would estimate that 15 people would be sitting alone at heads-up tables online and only one of them would want to play us. It was definitely tough given how well-known we are. The higher stakes games that ran often over the past few summers didn’t run this summer, so we were even more limited.
PND: How did you get started in poker?
Patel: I didn’t start playing until sophomore year of college. That was in the middle of the poker boom. I played in a casual $10 live game, but I was still better than everyone else. One day, I was talking to one of my friends and found out that one of his friends was making $450 per hour playing online, so I downloaded all of the sites. I wasn’t yet 21 years-old and my parents wouldn’t have been too happy, so I had to get creative in finding accounts. Golden Palace had $0.10 giveaways. You’d buy into a tournament for free and there were $0.10 prizes. After a month, I had $200 online. I’ve never made a deposit.
PND: What’s been the reaction from your friends and family when you tell them you’ll be on G4’s “2 Months, $2 Million”? Have they been supportive?
Patel: All of my friends and family have been incredibly supportive. The biggest thing for my parents was when I took a year off from school after three years. They wanted me to stay and graduate college. I took a year off, played poker, and then went back and got my degree, so they were happy with that.
PND: What game(s) do you consider to be your specialty online?
Patel: I am very good at Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, but my best game has to be Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em. Since Full Tilt opened up Seven Game Mixed tables and PokerStars opened up Eight Game Mixed tables, the softest action has been in those. The players in those games are HORSE specialists. [“2 Months, $2 Million” contestant] Brian Roberts knows all of the games and is proficient in them. That might be where the future of poker action is.
