Timukasr: Sunbathing in Spain and Unicycles

Published on 11 Oct 08 09:48 by vhallee

Cardbender420 once again takes aside last weeks BOTD winner for an interview. This week it's Timukasr who is no stranger to tournament successes.

Many of you might know Timukasr from his blog "One player story..." which dates back to his beginnings on NL10 to his ascension to Diamond status up to today. Last week, he was the last man standing in the Battle of the Donkeys when he led his team to victory. Cardbender420 took him aside from some questions.

The interview was conducted by Cardbender420

Cardbender420: Hello Timuksar, congratulations on your 41st place tournament finish and your 1st place BOTD finish this week.

Timukasr: Thank you!

Cardbender420: Can you tell our readers a little about yourself?

Timukasr: I’m a young, ordinary student from Estonia. I love sports and spending time on the computer and with friends.

Cardbender420: That was a long grind to reach 41st. Of all the hands you played, which was the most memorable?

Timukasr: Well there are two hands which I remember: one was where I had a really small stack and I pushed my A6 and got called by the BB who had AQs. I hit the 6 on the flop and managed to double up. The next memorable hand was the last one: the villain raised from MP+3 and I went all-in with AJs (14BB, in a previous hand I did the exact same thing against his raise with A9o) he had JJ, even though I had the flush draw on the turn, I didn’t manage to double up. In general, it was a fun tourney and I think I haven’t ever played one single tournament for such long amount of time before.

Cardbender420: When did you start playing poker?

Timukasr: I first heard about Texas Hold’em two and a half years ago. Then we played for pennies with some friends (and with the wrong rules), but I got more serious last year in January, when I started to play online poker on some free online game site (with flash games and stuff like that). I noticed that I was beating most of the opponents (I was playing really badly though). In May, last year, I found out about pokerstrategy.com and registered an account.

Cardbender420: Which game types do you prefer and where do you normally play?

Timukasr: I play cash game and tournaments at PokerStars.com. Lately, I have started to love cash games again since it seems like I can now beat NL25. Of course, I prefer to play tournaments because they can be really profitable and I somehow manage to do pretty well in them. Unfortunately, they can last for many hours and the best of them are held too late for me since I have my school schedule (but you can find good tournaments at any time on Pokerstars thanks to the huge player field). Sometimes I also play HU SNGs and normal SNGs.

Cardbender420: Where do you see your poker career heading? Do you have any short/long term goals?

Timukasr: Being filthy rich and sunbathing in Spain when I bust from EPT Barcelona is a cool career I guess. Actually I hope that my hobby gets more serious and profitable in the future because a poker player’s life seems so good for me. Traveling, meeting new people, partying, who wouldn’t like that? Of course, I might give up poker for some reason but at the moment it’s going the opposite way. My short term goal is to have a big enough bankroll for at least $33 MTTs and in the summer I'll play a lot of tournaments and try to increase my skill and bankroll to $10,000.

Cardbender420: Do you have any pre-tourney rituals or superstitions?

Timukasr: Not really, sacrificing a goat will do just fine by me.

Cardbender420: Some people have certain hands they like to play regardless of their strength. Do you have such a hand?

Timukasr: AA from UTG+1 ;). Actually I don’t have these hands yet but I’m sure they will arise in the future.

Cardbender420: What has been your biggest cash to date? Was there a tourney where you had 1st place in your grasp and it slipped away?

Timukasr: My biggest tourney win was some $2000 in the $44 6-max NL Hold’em event. There were about 300 registered players and I managed to get 2nd place which I was satisfied with. I actually don’t consider myself having the first place win in my grasp before the final table, there is still so much that can happen but the final table is the only one which I dominate. I’m always confident when I make it to the top 10 or 9; so far in my poker career, there have been 5 final tables I've reached (MTTs with 300+ players) and the worst place which I got was 3rd, then I got one 2nd place and I have won on the other tables (last tournament which I won was a week ago with 700 players).

Cardbender420: Of all the current pro poker players, who would you want to sit down and drink a bottle of whiskey with? Is there one whose head you would want to smash with the bottle?

Timukasr: I think the coolest poker player has to be Daniel Negreanu; also Sammy Fahra is great fun and let’s not forget Gus Hansen. Usually I like all pro poker players. Each of them are great except for Tony-G (he talks too much).

Cardbender420: You won 43.26$ this week in BOTD. If you had to spend you winnings which one of the following items would you purchase?

Timukasr: Wow. Umm… well it’s definitely not the little pony and I would just eat the oysters (not an +EV decision) so considering ROI and the additional skill which I might gain, I would choose the unicycle.

An unicycle	My Little Pony	A plate of prairie oysters

Cardbender420: Thanks very much for taking the time to participate in this interview and the best of luck in the future.

Timukasr: Thank you for this lovely interview and thanks guys for cheering me on in the irc channel ^^