Alex Santiago
Title: Agent, Keller Williams
Age: 29
Experience: Two years in real estate, five as professional poker player
Lots of agents come into real estate from other professions, but maybe not so many straight from the casino table. But that’s the case for Alex Santiago, a former professional poker player.
Q: So tell me a little bit about the poker. How did you get started with that?
A: Typical $5 game with friends when we were 17 years old. I went to college, games got a little bigger, I was successful, had a little more spending money than most college kids. Then the online boom of happened, and a $5 game turned into a $20 game, turned into a $100 game. After college, I got into it full-time, which my parents weren’t too happy with. Eventually they came around. But I would play online a lot, probably three or four times a week, and I would travel, from Vegas, to Florida, to the Bahamas, to Atlantic City, or the Connecticut casinos. And I had some success, so it was really fun for me. But there comes a time when you have to settle down a little bit. Though if online was around I’d probably still be doing it. It’s easy when you can make a lot of money from your couch. But not if you have to travel for hours, get a hotel.
Q: Did you play in tournaments, or were you just traveling to play?
A: Mostly tournaments.
Q: What’s the biggest tournament you ever played in?
A: The Main Event. That’s a $10,000 buy-in. And I’ve played a few other $10,000 events here and in the Bahamas … first place in those events is between $7 to $10 million, every year.
Q: That’s a lot of money.
A: Yes! I haven’t won it! Usually I played more in the $500 to $1,500 range. I mean, [with the big tournaments] I was willing to take the risks because the reward was so high. I’m gambling, but it’s a smart gamble, in my opinion. It’s not just throwing money and hoping it sticks. If there’s a tournament with $10,000 [buy-in] and 50 people, I’m not going to play. But if it’s a tournament with [a] $10,000 [buy-in] and 5,000 people, and I’m pretty sure I’m better than 98 percent of them, then that’s a good opportunity.
Q: When did you first realize how good you were, that you could do this for a living?
A: Well, I realized when I was playing with my friends that I was ahead of the curve a little bit. We’d have our Sunday $50 game, and I won 10 times in a row. Not much – at most maybe $100, $150. But when I got to college, they were so far behind, it was unbelievable. They banned my friend and me from the game. It was a $20 game, and they said we couldn’t come anymore. Eventually they invited us back again. At that point I wasn’t making that much money. It was spending money for me in college. I took myself to Italy for spring break with a couple friends. It was when online came in that I started doing really well. My friend and I, we’d play small-six cash games, and then we started playing Sunday tournaments. In a single day you could play 30 tournaments, and we started doing really well. I had a really good week in 2010, online, and I became very well-known in the poker community after that … it was great. I was very fortunate. I got to play cards and make a lot of money doing it. I still play a few games here and there. I’ll play a few tournaments this summer.
Q: So how did you get into real estate?
A: Two years ago in April, my brother and I bought a commercial building in our hometown. My brother owns an IT company. The building was a little decrepit, so we renovated it. We just finished those renovations a few months ago, and he moved into the second floor, and we’re now renting out the first and third floors. We started an LLC called Mercedes Properties. [When online poker] got shut down about three years ago, I was kind of in limbo. I had been doing a bit of traveling, but at the time I had just bought a condo and gotten engaged. I didn’t want to be traveling all the time, hitting the circuit. So I used this with my brother as an opportunity [to learn the real estate business.
I was helping supervise construction, helping with finances. He wanted to do this together, because he’s a little more risk averse, and I, with my poker background, I’m a little more willing to gamble.
Q: Real estate must seem a little slow to you now. Are you worried that nothing will be as exciting as your old job?
A: Well, one of the things I liked about real estate is it’s not a desk job. I like being on the run, being on the move; that’s part of what I like about poker, being able to travel, see new things. So maybe there’s not the same kind of rush as winning $100,000, but there’s a smaller rush in the real estate world. Maybe not as much excitement, but there’s still a little bit.
Alex’s Top Five Tips For Playing Poker:
- Bankroll management.
- Keep your emotions in check: Don’t get too high or too low.
- Know your opponent better than you know yourself; you should change your strategy to match theirs.
- Know when to gamble wisely.
- Watch for patterns in your opponent’s bets. Good players have a long memory.
