In this episode of Chats with Tats, poker pro Terrence Chan tells CalvinAyre.com’s Tatjana Pasalic why he prefers going into fights—in the ring, of course—whenever he’s away from the felt tables.
Poker pro Terrence Chan prefers to fight people and win whenever he’s away from the felt tables.
The fights, however, happen inside the ring because Chan—a former online high-stakes poker regular—is a trained fighter.
“I’ve had five MMA [mixed-martial arts] fights. I don’t think I’m like a serious title fighter, but I enjoy it,” Chan told CalvinAyre.com. “People enjoy watching my fights, so that’s really nice, but I love the sports so I continue to do it.”
The man said he started getting into mixed martial arts because of his friends who were into jujitsu and Muay Thai.
“It was fun to do it and I just continue along the path I guess about as obsessive a bit now as I was about poker when I was starting to get into poker,” Chan said.
Many poker players do not really have an active lifestyle, preferring to sit down and play video games during their off days. Chan believes that trend is changing already.
“It’s getting a bit better now. I think poker players are getting a little more fit,” he explained. “Poker is a great cerebral game and it’s great to challenge yourself intellectually, but I think it’s really important to challenge yourself physically also.”
Chan doesn’t believe in setting goals—in his MMA fights or poker career—saying his motivation is to become the best version of himself.
“I don’t want to set artificial expectations, but as long as I’m getting better every day and I’m the best me, the best Terrence Chan that I could be, then I think that’s good enough,” the poker pro said. “I would like to win the main event, but really, I just want to play the next hour really well. I just want to play it today, tomorrow, the day after really well, and just like the same with MMA, I want to take this practice really seriously, do this right, do the next practice right and I can only be as good as I can be.”
