Interview with Thorsten77
Published on 03 Jun 08 13:50 by TribunCaesar
Two days ago, Thorsten77, our hand judge, moderator and high stakes player, finished in third place in the Main Event of the ECOOP, earning $120,000. Now we have an interview with him.
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After his sensational
third place finish in the Main Event of the ECOOP II, where he won the
staggering sum of $120,000, 
Thorsten77, PokerStrategy's hand judge and moderator, joined us for a very interesting interview:
PokerStrategy: First of all, congratulations! Please tell us, and the rest of the community, a bit about yourself and how you got involved with poker.
Thorsten77: Hi. I'm Thorsten, a 30-year old guy from
playing poker for about 2 years now. I started by watching the WSOP during
an internship in the
PokerStrategy: How has your progress been during these 2 years?
Thorsten77: I had hoped you wouldn't ask this question. ;) Well, I
started with Fixed Limit at PartyPoker and moved up to $2/$4.
However, I
always focused on playing and didn't post any hands, didn't review my hands,
didn't even read strategy articles beyond the basic ones. Then, the downswing
came, I didn't move down and I went broke... I played a few $3 SnGs on Stars
for fun and then the Party shop was discontinued which enabled me to convert
all my collected PartyPoints to cash. This became my starting bankroll for
NL25 BSS. I played a lot of hands there and started to read a lot of books and
articles, and analyzed my game.
Then I quickly moved up and now play NL1000
and NL2000 FR. In April, I took a shot at NL5000, but I think the competition
there is very hard and I don't see a big edge; but I'll try to improve and I'm
sure I'll move up in the future. ;)
PokerStrategy: You're also a moderator and a hand judge at PokerStrategy. How did this come about? What motivated you to do that?
Thorsten77: Well, I recognized that discussing difficult hands is very
important for your progress in poker. So I started to write down my opinions
about the correct way to play certain hands in the German forums and after some
time I was asked whether I wanted to become a hand judge. Some months later, I
was also asked if I wanted to be a judge for the English forum and I agreed.
| Hand judges |
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hand judges ensure that you get detailed and constructive responses to
your posted sample hands in order to help you improving your game.
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If
I were to start with poker all over again, I think I'd be an active member in the
community from day one. It really helps to discuss spots and to understand why
you play a hand a certain way, which factors to consider, etc.
By the way: this
was around the time when I also learned how to play MTTs. I started playing the
Sunday majors with only cash game knowledge, but I always played with 2-3 other
PokerStrategy members via a Skype conference session. This way I quickly
learned the differences between playing cash games and MTTs.
PokerStrategy: Have you had any big cash wins in previous tournaments?
Thorsten77: No, I've only had one final table in a 180-man low limit SnG
before (a long time ago). I think I cashed in 3 other ECOOP events, but busted
as one of the last 30 or 40 players. I think you need to win some of the
important coin flips to win a MTT, but at least it worked well once...
PokerStrategy: Do you have any tips for aspiring poker players?
Thorsten77: Well, first of all, you should identify your own goal. Do
you want to play for fun, do you want to make some money every month, or do you
want to become the best player in the world? It may sound weird, but I actually
don't care too much about the money. Well, I want to play for a living soon so
I have to make some money, but at the higher stakes you typically earn more
than you would earn with a "regular" job. Personally, I always want
to win - in any game. It's ok to lose, but I want to play as good a game as I
can and I hate to see another player who's better than me.
To be a better
player, I try to understand how successful players play and why they make
certain plays. Therefore, I'm using a lot of tools (StoxEV, Equliator,
calculator, my brain), but I also discuss hands with buddies or ask for advice
in some communities. If my goal is to have fun (for instance, in a home game),
I basically play every hand and don't worry about strategy too much. ;)
PokerStrategy: Can you tell us a little bit about the ECOOP tournament itself? Any interesting hands or situations you got into?
First of all, the ECOOP tournament series has an awful
structure. At iPoker, there is no ante, which means that the blinds increase
quickly at the end of the tournament which in turn favours luck more than skill. The
main event, however, was pretty nice as you started with a big stack and the
blind levels were 30 minutes. I think there were a lot of interesting hands,
but actually I haven't reviewed the tournament yet. I think I played my
best game when ~30 players were left as I increased my stack significantly
without getting good cards, just by playing the situations, i.e. stealing and
re-stealing from players that looked scared to me. I made a video of the final
table; maybe I'll make a session review about it, even though I'm not an expert
and made one big mistake there (of course, I'd cut it out - otherwise I may
look stupid. ;)).
PokerStrategy: Is there anything else that you want to tell our members?
Thorsten77: First, I want to flame the guys who sucked out on me in the
recent NL and PLO tournaments of this community - unfortunately, I forgot your
names. *g*
Second, I want to thank you all for the congratulations.
And third, I wish all of you good luck and hopefully we'll
see each other at the final table of another big MTT. If so, don't steal my
blinds... ;)
PokerStrategy: Thank you very much for your time, and we're looking forward to hear about your future victories!
If you are a Gold member and play NL Hold'em you can get your sample hands evaluated by Thorsten77 in the following forum:
Cash Game - Sample Hands BSS - from NL100If you want to congratulate Thorsten77, take a look here:
Thorsten wins $120,000 in ECOOP II Main Event
