Image courtesy of the PokerGO Tour
High rollers are no longer few and far between in the world of Pot Limit Omaha, and one of the most recent beneficiaries of this period of growth is the Englishman Robert Cowen. A regular at the PokerGO tables, Robert has won two World Series of Poker bracelets in the discipline in 2021 and 2022.
Last summer, Robert led the final three players in the $50,000 PLO High Roller event only to fall short as Joao Simao won his fourth WSOP title. We spoke to him about putting that result behind him and traced his origins in the game to his status today as one of the best poker players in the world, especially in PLO.
The Early Days
Robert is often credited with Welsh roots, but this is a myth, with the Alcester-born player leaving Shakespeare County to study at University in Wales. The reason behind his falsely assumed nationality is a story he enjoys retelling to this day.
I went to University in Swansea there, and when I started going up to Dusk Till Dawn they put me down as Welsh on The Hendon Mob ‘cause I was going up with all the Welsh guys, he says. I was just a student who loved poker more than anything else at that point, maybe still do. I played a lot.
Robert put in the volume and looked up the results of a certain Roberto Romanello, one of his companions on those trips.
In about 2009, I’d just started playing live tours the year before, and I remember looking at his Hendon Mob with a housemate and seeing him have $700,000 in cashes. It felt completely unobtainable.
My biggest influence back then was Paul Jackson. I give him a lot of credit. I was part of [Jackson’s stable] BRS (Bankroll Supply), and he showed me that my PLO results were far superior to Hold’em. I had a graph, and when I cut out Hold’em, it was just straight up.
Managing the Roll
While ‘Action Jackson’ helped Robert out, it would take years for the bankroll management lessons that BRS gave their players to take hold. Robert admits that in those early years, he struggled with maintaining his roll at the level he wanted to and says it was an early leak in his game.
I had a $100,000 win very early in my poker career while I was at University and was broke within three months! Robert laughs. Bankroll management has been a significant part of why success has taken me so long; it’s hard to keep putting in big volume if you keep going broke!
Robert’s success looks like it all came at once, but he credits a series of “incremental improvements” and good habits compounding to boost his status in the game.
I started focusing a lot more on playing my A-Game and executing well. All those improvements, it sounds cliché, but meditating, yoga, eating well, and respecting the fact that everything goes into it rather than hammering out volume is why I had some big breakthroughs.
Robert has made the most of several methods of self-improvement over the years, and these days, credits a lot to poker’s leading mindset and performance coach for poker players, Elliot Roe.
Elliot Roe’s A-Game Poker has also been very beneficial, and I’d highly recommend it. I’ve gifted it to several people. It’s lifestyle choices.
Mixing Cash and Tournaments
Robert came up playing deep-stacked cash games but in recent years has become known more as a high stakes tournament player. Despite this, he says it was never a conscious decision to move into tournament poker, and he still goes between the two poker formats.
I’ve always played both. I find it breaks up the monotony, especially if you’re having a downswing, to play a different form of poker. It’s not nice if you’re sitting down and getting hammered, so I would always switch back from live cash to online tournaments, or to online cash.
Robert credits playing on apps where he walked into high-standard aggressive players as improving his game immensely.
My growth was exponential, says Robert. I was fortunate enough to be staked during that period, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to play those stakes or learn as quickly. If you took Robert Cowen of 2013 and a year later, put me back against the same people, there’d be a very big difference in skillset.
The increase in PLO events around the world over the last few years has dictated Robert’s more permanent switch from cash games to live tournaments.
It’s difficult to find time to play anything else if that’s my focus. Last year I played the first five months of the year on apps with the very occasional live spot. Since Triton and Diamond have come out, I’ve been focused on tournaments again.
Keeping Pace with Poker
This year has taken Robert from a big win in Jeju to deep runs at Montenegro on the Triton tour as well as the WSOP in Las Vegas. Recently, Robert starred in the PGT PLO Series too, where he bagged several big scores. Pacing himself across a busy year of poker tournaments is a full-time job in itself.
The schedule is pretty crazy these days, Robert agrees. I work backwards, prioritizing Vegas and the World Series. I love the consistency, with tournaments every day, big volume, big fields, big prize pools. It’s just a fun experience.
Then Triton events take precedence, then the Diamond PLO tour. That’s something that’s only come about in the last couple of years. I love what those guys have done with PLO; they’ve been instrumental in the EPT spreading big games this year, having seen the success those guys have had.
As well as those huge festivals, Robert spends a great deal of time in Las Vegas playing PokerGO Tour events. By the time his diary is locked in, there’s not always time for him to play other events he loves.
I love the Goliath in Coventry. It’s just a fun series, and you can win decent money at low stakes. It’s a £200 tournament with £300,000 up top against a fun field.
Nowadays, I don’t really get to play a lot of the things I’d like to play because I have to prioritize the best and most profitable tournaments. You have to do things which give you more energy and don’t consume your energy if you want to go and play all these stops.
Having an Edge in PLO
With two WSOP bracelets to his name, both in Pot Limit Omaha, four-card poker obviously suits Robert’s style and temperament. I wanted to dig into exactly what he considers his edge in PLO events compared to less-experienced players.
I have a good understanding of the game compared to the field, and having a multi-skillset of cash and tournament poker puts me in good stead to play deep with the cash guys, then end game with the tournament guys.
This flexibility of style is Robert’s greatest advantage over others, who often come to PLO because they love the fast action but can’t slow down when it’s necessary to do so. That said, Robert enjoys the pace of PLO too.
PLO is fast action; there’s rarely tank-folding pre-flop like there is in Hold’em. If there’s a hand that’s been three-bet, people just fold or call quicker, and you get to VPIP more than in Hold’em. It suits my style; I like to be in pots and play aggressively. I find it a much more entertaining and fun format than Hold’em.”
A Positive Mindset
There are far more high-stakes PLO tournaments now than when Robert broke through onto the scene, but this also means the general quality of PLO players has improved. Robert sees that as a good thing, both for him and the wider game, whoever might be at his table.
Poker’s a hard game, especially to keep a positive mindset, so that’s something I pulled myself up on a few years ago. I said to myself: ‘You’re playing high stakes, you’re gonna have bad tables, get on with it.’
There’s so much hidden luck; you can have an amazing table or a terrible table. I think the high stakes tournaments are attracting a lot of good players, but they’re attracting a lot of recreationals as well, so I don’t personally think they’re getting harder.
Robert’s opinion on PLO players in general is that as a collective, they’re improving all the time.
That’s making it tougher, but there’s nothing to compare it to a few years ago. There weren’t these bigger tournaments around, and if there were, people wouldn’t travel for one PLO tournament. Now we’re having them catered towards us, so everyone’s a lot keener.
Such is the level that Robert is at; he doesn’t tend to play much whenever he steps away from the high stakes games he frequents.
I don’t play any poker for fun anymore; it’s quite sad!, he says. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going home and playing a house game with friends. Some of my mates ask, and I say no.
I play so much that I don’t want to do it in my downtime. I play some Friday games for fun, but that’s with guys who I’ve played with for 20 years so it’s a good laugh… and it’s still big enough to be interesting.
Close But No Bracelet
The summer came with a huge opportunity to win gold for a third time in Las Vegas, as Robert reached the final table of the $50,000-entry PLO High Roller event. Down to three players, he held the chip lead but unfortunately was busted in third place. Several months later, the exit feels pretty raw.
That one stings. The main takeaway I have from that final is just disappointment, even now. I won a huge pot three-handed, and I’m so used to just closing out from that position. I didn’t play well enough and made some mistakes; that’s what hurt. If I got unlucky, so be it, but I felt like I left a lot of money on the table and could have won another bracelet.
The World Series of Poker made plenty of changes in 2026, including to the presenting team and set, with legends like David Williams and Joe Stapleton joining new anchor Jeff Platt and seasoned WSOP legend Norman Chad on a brand-new ‘Thunderdome’ stage. Robert was a fan.
As far as the atmosphere goes, I like the new setup; it was cool. It wasn’t that rowdy, as a lot of my friends were at the World Cup or not in Las Vegas this year. It’s obviously a great experience and a super fun tournament to go deep in. I loved playing for that much money.
While he has regrets about the podium places and the final showdown, his enjoyment of the event until three-handed play was huge, and as Robert himself admits, until his exit, he played very well.
I made a very small mistake that potentially cost me a lot of money. It was nice to have a result because I bubbled a lot of tournaments coming up to that one. It was nice to cash and get a stack to have a run.
Over the coming years, one of poker’s nicest guys is going to become one of its most successful sons, especially in Pot Limit Omaha, the game that suits him so well.
