Player Focus: Andy McLeod

It's harder and harder these days to maintain a low profile whether you’re playing poker online or offline, but one player who's managed to achieve exactly that while becoming a serious winner is Andy McLeod.

At least, that's what we'll call him. We're pretty sure that it's not his real name – but then again, who knows? The Adelaide-based player, put simply the best online poker player in Australia, remains virtually anonymous – except when he’s pulling down major online wins, of course.

McLeod is one of the most proficient online players in the world today. This year he's won prizes of $20,000 or more five times on PokerStars alone. His overall winnings tally on thepokerdb.com come in at more than $500,000. Pocket Fives' and Card Player’s rankings consistently place him among the world's top 10 players (he's fifth and fourth respectively).

What makes McLeod so special? By his own admission he's a naturally aggressive player who's learned to curb his enthusiasm to become a more complete player. In a rare interview with Card Player – where he spoke only about poker strategy – he said: "I've always been naturally aggressive and, in the beginning, I would just think I could run over every table that I played on, and pretty much spew chips all over the place. People would call me down so light that I would be so angry, just thinking to myself, "How can you call me down with that?," when, in reality, the only player making a mistake was me.

"It's all about adapting to your table image, and once I realised that, I started playing 10 times better."

The 10-times better version of Andy McLeod is what online opponents have to contend with now. He plays under different names - "McDonk" on PartyPoker and "Brad JOHNSON" on UltimateBet - but this master of disguises is no nearer revealing much more about himself. All we do know is the most important fact of all - he's a genius at the table.


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