The Inside Straight

London EPT Gets £1 Million First-Prize Guarantee

The London leg of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour is set to be one of the largest tournaments ever played in the UK.
PokerStars.com is expecting to send more than 150 online qualifiers, and is guaranteeing a top prize of £1 million - almost double that of last year's event, which saw Joseph Mouawad from Lebanon finish first for £611,520.

The event will run from Oct. 1 to 5 in the Victoria Casino and has capacity for up to 500 players.

Founder of the EPT, John Duthie says, "The PokerStars.com London EPT is like no other event in the sporting calendar. It brings together world champions, the best British and European professionals, as well as talented amateurs and online qualifiers to compete for one of poker's biggest prizes."

Players can qualify for as little as $2.22 at www.pokerstars.com.

In other PokerStars related news, marketing news website ClickZ, reports that the top 10 stickiest brands at home and work in June 2008 include PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, and PartyPoker.com. Sticky websites are sites that successfully hold their customers' attention, and sites on which people want to spend a lot of time. They are also then among those that have the most return customers.

Topping the entire poll was PokerStars.com, with 958,000 unique visits and a massive average of 10 hours and 37 minutes spent per person. Although Full Tilt Poker had 1,429,000 unique visitors, it took fifth place, with the average time spent of 7 hours and 19 minutes. PartyPoker was sixth, with 563,000 visitors and 4 hours 29 minutes.

PartyPoker.com Irish Poker Championship Returns

PartyPoker.com has announced the return of the Irish Poker Championship, taking place in Galway from Jan. 1 to 5, 2009. The three-day €2,000 buy-in main event (9 percent withheld) will take place from Thursday, Jan. 2 to 4 in the Radisson SAS hotel in the west of Ireland city.

The event will again be filmed for broadcast on RTE television and distributed worldwide by PartyPoker.com.

The IPC is the first major tournament on the world poker circuit each year, and last year it attracted 298 runners on producing a final prize pool of €542,500. Among the familiar faces at the tables were "Ambassador of Poker" Mike Sexton, Noel Furlong, "Flying Dutchman" Marcel Luske, Ciaran O'Leary, Michael Keiner, Robert Williamson III, Padraig Parkinson, Jon Kalmar, Scott Gray, Bruno Fitoussi, Jan Sørensen, Roy Brindley, Mad Marty Wilson, Marty Smith, Neil Channing, Tony Cascarino. The eventual winner was local man Jude Ainsworth.

The supporting events at the 2009 IPC include a €750 + €75 freezeout, a €500 + €50 freezeout, and the ever popular Simon Poker Day charity event to raise money for the homeless. A super satellite will also run at the venue on New Year's Day.

The full schedule and information on satellites and registration can be found at PartyPokerIPC.com.

Danes World's Most Successful Tournament Players

Card Player's global tournament tracking system has revealed that, per capita, Denmark has the most successful poker tournament players in the world. Gus Hansen is a shining example of the nation's talents, with winnings of more than $5.7 million.

In true Olympic style, Card Player awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals to any country whose players came first, second, or third in major international tournaments, such as the World Series of Poker and the European Poker Tour.

This full table is published on the inside back page of this issue of Card Player.

Currently, the top five countries in the poker tournament world are:

November Nine Head to WSOPE Single Venue

The 2008 World Series of Poker Europe will take place at one venue this year. The Casino at the Empire, London Clubs International's (LCI) latest addition, will play host to the prestigious Series from Sept. 19 to Oct. 2.

The event, which features four bracelet tournaments, will kick-start with a new addition, a £1,500 no-limit hold'em event. Subject to agreement, another first will be the premiere of the WSOPE on U.S. station ESPN, marking the first time a European poker tournament has received television coverage in America.

Ty Stewart, WSOP director of marketing, said, "We have enhanced the schedule to provide more variety and gameplay, greatly broadened the worldwide television exposure, and have brought the event under one roof to better the player experience for this prestigious and premiere event."

Last year the event came under criticism for being spread over three venues, but players and media alike will delight in the single venue for the 2008 event.

Ivan Demidov, Peter Eastgate, and David Rheem are among pros already registered for the event. The fearsome trio make up one-third of the November Nine from the WSOP main event in Las Vegas and are set to take their seats in London in the hope of achieving the ultimate feat - two main-event bracelets in one year.

IronDuke.com Commits 'Jennicide'

Poker pro Jennifer Leigh has been signed to become the first professional poker player to join IronDuke.com.

Leigh, otherwise known as "Jennicide," can often be found at both low- and high-stakes no-limit hold'em tables, as well as tournaments on the site. Her signing will spark regular Jennicide bounty tournaments that will have buy-ins of $15 + $1.50, with $150 added and a $60 bounty.

Leigh said that she is proud and excited to be part of the fast-growing IronDukePoker, and her main focus away from the cash tables will be to spend many hours interacting with IronDuke players, assisting them with any poker-related questions, and helping amateurs to become better poker players.

CEO of IronDuke.com said the introduction of Leigh to IronDukePoker and the Merge Gaming network is the first in many new and exciting things happening within the company.

BetFred Ladies Poker Tour's First Dual Winner

Pub chef Sue Adams beat 52 opponents on the fourth leg of the Betfred Ladies Poker Tour to claim the top prize of £1,890, and, most importantly, a seat in the final on Nov. 22. This victory, on top of last year's in Stoke, made her the event's first dual winner.

Adams will take a seat next to Michelle Bennett, Karen Dennett, and Gina Short at the final, where a £20,000 sponsorship package for 2009 provided by Betfred will be on offer. Betfred is adding £1,000 to each regional event and £5,000 to the final.

The Tour stops on Sept. 20 at the Circus Casino, Stoke before continuing on:

Oct. 11 - Broadway Casino, Birmingham
Nov. 1 - The Western Club, Acton, London
Nov. 22 - Grand Final (Venue TBC)

Full details of this and all other legs are available at BetFredLPT.com.

CircusCasino.com Launches Poker Tournament With a Twist

Genting Stanley's latest online offering, CircusCasino.com, has launched a no-limit hold'em tournament that is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK.

The £100,000-guaranteed Second Chance tournament will see players who do not qualify in live tournaments get a second shot at the final in an online qualifier. Likewise, those who buy into an online event and do not win will get another chance in a future online tournament.

This gives players two shots at the final, which will take place in the Circus Casino at Star City, Birmingham from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2. If all else fails, players can buy in to the event directly for £550.

Through this format, CircusCasino.com will engage with players from 40 participating land-based casinos under its national Circus, Mint, and Maxims brands.

Sex and Poker Collide at SwankPoker

SwankPoker.com, a new "adult" online poker room is offering players something akin to a match made in heaven - a heady cocktail of poker and sex.

Rewards at the site are enticing and include packages to the world's best brothels, strip clubs, and swing clubs; all expenses paid visits to escort services in some of the world's hottest destinations; trips to clothing-optional resorts; and backstage access to adult movies with the opportunity to film an adult scene with the Swank Girls.

A spokesperson for the site says, "There is no guarantee, even though we'll try, that we'll send you to EPT, WPT, WSOP, and all other PTs and SOPs. But, if along with all the online tables you are playing to get there, you play at least one Swank Poker table, we'll make sure that you'll get laid or will come as close to it as legally possible, whether you go to that poker event or not!"

Trickett Just the Ticket at GUKPT

Twenty-two year-old Sam Trickett won the BlueSquarePoker.com Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in early August, topping a field of 376 runners to take home the £106,000 first-place prize.

Trickett, who also won a £3,000 seat to the tour's grand final in November, faced a tough final table with Martin Green, Stuart Rutter, and darts star Wayne Mardel, but he managed to overcome David La Ronde's dominance and won the event in the first hand of heads-up play.

The players were all in preflop, with Trickett holding A-Q and La Ronde A-7. The flop threw up A-Q, and Trickett stayed ahead to become the youngest ever winner of a GUKPT event.

Trickett, who won $245,000 at this year's World Series of Poker for his fourth-place finish in the $5,000 hold'em event, said he would use the prize money to further his career as a professional.

The next GUKPT event takes place from Sept. 1 to 7 at the Grosvenor Casino, Bolton and players can qualify online at BlueSquarePoker.com.

Elsewhere, the $500 no-limit hold'em main event of the GUKPT Online Festival was won by "RiffMan117," also known as Curtis Ledger. Ledger qualified for the event via a $25 feeder tournament that he won earlier in the day. The event, which had a collected prize pool of $58,500 plus an added $10,000 from BlueSquare, took more than eight hours to play out.

Desire, Focus, and Clarity
By David Apostolico

There is a long-standing connection between poker and golf. Many of the best poker players in the world also do battle on the golf course for high stakes. And while there is nothing in poker to compare to the physicality of golf, I do believe that both require similar skills in many respects. In fact, the mental aspects are extremely similar. More than most endeavors, both poker and golf require tremendous mental discipline. In this column, I'd like to focus on a few of those mental aspects.

First, let's look at desire. Without desire, it is impossible to have success. Both golf and poker seem simple on the surface but are incredibly complex and almost impossible to master. In order to be good at either, you really have to want it. Really wanting it means making the sacrifices necessary to reach your potential. In golf, it is endless practice and countless time spent on the range and course. In poker, it means not only putting in the hours, but reading quality books and articles, and discussing the game as much as possible with other players. Above all, however, for both golf and poker, desire means an unwavering commitment to excellence and an incredibly strong mental constitution to withstand the ups and downs.

Both golf and poker can be very humbling. If you get complacent or allow any success to go to your head, you are sure to be slapped back to reality. A good round of golf can be followed by a bad one. A great tee shot can be followed by a horrific approach shot. Likewise, a winning poker session can be followed by a losing one. A great flop can turn to a loser on the turn or river. You have to really want to hit a great shot every time in golf and make the right decision every time it is your turn to act in poker.

Of course, desire is not enough. Poker, like golf, requires intense focus. Think of that first shot off the tee on a busy Saturday at a municipal course. With a long queue of foursomes looking on, wondering who will be the one to slow down play, that initial shot requires you to shut everything out and focus on yourself, the club, and the ball. You have to be relaxed, yet strong and forceful. If there's the slightest deviation in that focus, that ball is heading left, right, or fat instead of far and down the middle.

Poker requires that same equilibrium of calm and intensity. You must be clearheaded but constantly on the ready to do damage. You have to be focused on your opponents, the pot odds, the cards, position, how your opponents are perceiving you, past history, and every other potentially relevant factor. The slightest letdown will cost you chips.

The end result of a maniacal desire to succeed and a steely-eyed focus is clarity, and there isn't a better feeling in the world. It's that feeling you get when you feel perfectly right on the tee box and, just as you expected, the ball goes straight down the middle of the fairway. It's knowing exactly what your opponent has and manipulating him for your gain. It's a feeling of invincibility built not on false bravado, but rather the culmination of countless time spent cultivating a craft. Depending on our varying degrees of desire and focus, we've all enjoyed glimpses of this kind of clarity.

The demands of both poker and golf are so great that it is impossible for anyone to achieve anything resembling perfect clarity all of the time. However, with consistent desire and focus, those moments of clarity come more frequently.

David Apostolico is the author of numerous poker strategy books with a philosophical focus, including Tournament Poker and The Art of War and Machiavellian Poker Strategy.

'Assassinato' Sets Up a River Bluff From a Spewy Opponent
By Craig Tapscott

Want to study real poker hands with the Internet's most successful players? In this series, Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent.

Event: Online six-max no-limit hold'em cash game at CakePoker
Players: 6
Blinds: $2-$4
Stacks: Assassinato - $550; Villain - $466

Craig Tapscott: We've done a lot of hands at the nosebleed stakes, but most players don't ever venture that high. So, let's talk about a mid-stakes cash-game hand you played, Alex.

Alex "Assassinato" Fitzgerald: OK. I'm on the button and the hijack-position player limps in for $4. I've pegged him to be a weaker player who limps and calls quite a bit, and someone I'm looking to exploit while in position. He tends to make spewy plays when he gets caught in a big pot with a small holding. This knowledge will influence my play later on in the hand.

Villain limps in for $4. Assassinato raises to $18 with the Q 9 on the button. Villain calls.

CT: What's your plan with this size of preflop raise in position?

AF: My plan is essentially to isolate the limper with a playable hand. Q-9 suited will hit enough boards, and I will be able to control the size of the pot effectively with my position. This will enable me to make this mediocre hand profitable. If I were to make it just $12 or $14, I'd be more likely to get one caller out of the blinds, which would make it more difficult for me to pick up the pot when I flop nothing. This also will give me a looser image, which I can use later in the game.

Flop: Q 7 6 ($42 pot)

Villain checks and Assassinato bets $32.

AF: I'm betting for value here. It also will help me know where I'm at in the hand, because this isn't the type of guy who will check-raise me here without a good queen. However, he will still call down with a 6, 7, ace high, and draws, so it makes sense for me to value-bet here. He calls me pretty fast.

Villain calls $32.

CT: Does this help narrow his range for you?

AF: I'm still pretty sure my hand is good, but the call tells me a few things. He helps me clip off his hand range: Gone are sets and two pair. If he had 7-6 or a set, he at least would debate raising here, mainly because he's going to want to get value from his hand. When he flat-calls me so quickly, he's letting me know that his hand is either a weak queen, a 6, a 7, 8-8 through 10-10, or 9-8 or 5-4.

CT: Do you ever consider timing tells online?

AF: Oh, yeah. When a person has an actual hand, he tends to worry about a draw catching up or getting more money for his hand. There will be a few seconds of debate. When he gets fed up with me constantly raising in position and betting him off a hand on the flop, he will start calling me down really quickly with his weaker holdings, as if to say, "Look, my hand is so strong, I'm going to call you down the whole way." And as we all know in poker, when someone acts strong, he's typically weak. This isn't 100 percent true, but it's a huge tell with many players.

Turn: 3 ($106 pot)

AF: That turn card completes one of the straight draws.

Villain checks.

CT: Did he check quickly once again?

AF: Yes.

CT: Which now means?

AF: I think there's a good case for me to bet here, but I don't want to create a big pot for my opponent to bluff me off my hand on the river. If I bet here and he calls, and then an overcard comes, I'll have a hard time discerning whether he has a hand or not. My specific read on this guy is that when he gets into a big pot, he makes spewy plays. I don't want to put myself in that odd position. This also applies if a straight card comes or one of the cards pairs.

CT: Should you check, then, for pot control?

AF: Well, if I check behind here, I induce his entire range to bluff on the river. It will be easy to call him, because I will have kept the pot fairly small. I get more value here than if I bet, and make it difficult for a 6 or a 7 to call a second barrel. I'm also limiting the damage if he has a good queen or 5-4.

Assassinato checks.

River: 3 ($106 pot)

Villain checks.

CT: The river card doesn't change much.

AF: Nope. At this point, I know I have the best hand. If he had Q-10 or better, he would have led this river for value. He's the kind of player who would assume his queen was the nuts after I checked behind on the turn. He also would have led the turn and river with 5-4. His range now is a busted straight draw, a 6, a 7, or 8-8 through 10-10.

CT: So, how do figure out your bet-sizing here?

AF: Normally, I would make a sizeable value-bet here, because there's a good chance he will call me. He will assume with those hands that once I checked the turn, I don't have a queen. Again, this is another advantage to checking behind on that turn, because now when I bet, it will look like I continuation-bet the flop, gave up on the turn, and then decided to make a last stab at it.

CT: So, how do you extract the most value?

AF: My read on this guy is that he gets desperate when stuck in a big pot, and he'll raise to try to win it now. So, instead of betting three-fourths of the pot here for value, I'll bet less than half the pot for deception.

Assassinato bets $44.

AF: I'm hoping this bet will make it look like a cheap ploy for me to win after he's checked three times. Hopefully, he'll turn some of his hands with showdown value into bluffs. He also might look at a small bet and think "scared," which is even better. He might have had the plan to just check and give up, but once he sees the small bet, he sees a lot of room for me to fold. In his mind, it might be the time to make the hero shove.

Villain moves all in for $416.

AF: I called instantly.

Villain flips over the 8 7. Assassinato wins the pot of $938.

AF: The Villain took a weak hand with which he didn't know what to do and jammed the river, turning his hand into a bluff, mostly because I made that small bet. My small bet induced his raise, which would've been more than a pot-sized value-bet, although I was surprised he shoved his whole stack.

Alex Fitzgerald is 20 years old and is from the Seattle area. He has been a professional poker player ever since he graduated from high school. Initially starting in the lowest sit-and-gos and multitable tournaments available, Alex has gone on to play in the biggest tournaments online and live and mid-stakes cash games for a living. He is also an instructor for the new training site Poker Pwnage.

Ex-Teacher 'Bhanks11' Schools the Competition
By Shawn Patrick Green

Leaving a job that you're passionate about can be very hard. Brent Hanks had been teaching fifth- and sixth-graders at a small school since he had graduated from college at St. Bonaventure in rural New York.

"I really loved teaching; I loved the kids, and I loved what I did," Hanks said. "I left [teaching] because I realized that before I got a little older than what I am [25], if I was going to make this poker thing work, I really needed to make it happen now."

Hanks had been making thousands and thousands of dollars playing online poker (under the screen name "Bhanks11") while he both taught and worked toward a master's degree. All of that money, coupled with the competitive, challenging nature of the game, meant that his switch was from one career he was passionate about to another career he was passionate about, which made his resignation from teaching a little bit easier.

Since his switch to professional poker, Hanks has racked up nearly $500,000 in Online Player of the Year (OPOY) cashes this year, scored a win in the PokerStars Sunday Million (every online poker player's dream), and made a huge splash at the 2008 World Series of Poker, cashing in three events and making one final table (at which he finished fifth).

Hanks recently talked to Card Player about his own education, the recent Series, and some strategies for success.

Shawn Patrick Green: How'd you get started playing poker?

Brent "Bhanks11" Hanks: On the side, I'd always played poker. I grew up playing with my dad in home games and some of the high-low stuff. And when the no-limit hold'em boom kicked in, I caught the sickness and was determined to make myself quite good at the game. It didn't take too long, about a year and a half of watching the best players online and working with some of them and basically adapting my skills.

SPG: You had quite a bit of success in this year's WSOP. You cashed three times for about $194,000. Can you talk about the final table of the $2,500 no-limit hold'em event you were at?

BH: I think I was roughly third or fourth in chips. Another guy at the table named Shawn Buchanan was to my left, and he was quite aggressive. I recognized him from other events. He was really the only one who I thought could give me a tough time.
We got five-handed, and I pretty much had held my own at the table and chipped up, chipped up, chipped up. In fact, in the first pot, I had gone all in post-flop on a K-K-10 board, and all I had was the Q J , which was an open-end straight draw and a flush draw. But I was all in on the very first hand, so I set my aggression at the table right away.

When five-handed, I played a pot against Steve Merrifield. If it was folded to me in the cutoff or on the button, I was going to raise any two, because of the stack sizes I had behind me. Shawn Buchanan was always in the big blind when it was my button, and as aggressive as he is, he didn't want to get too carried away when it was five-handed. I know that's kind of how good players think; when it gets four-handed, you can start to open up a bit, but when it's five-handed, you almost can't be overly active from certain points at the table, like the big blind, where you're out of position. So, I raised with the A K on the button, and Steve Merrifield - who was probably third in chips at the time, and I was second - flatted [flat-called] me from the small blind. The flop came A-K-9 with two spades. He led out for roughly 225,000 into a 350,000 pot.

SPG: What were you thinking when he led out on that flop?

BH: I actually had misread him, slightly. I thought he would flat me with a hand like A-X suited up to A-J; I thought that with A-K or A-Q, he would probably reraise me preflop. So, my range included all small aces, but it also included a hand like K-Q, with which he would have flopped second pair. Guys like that have a tendency to lead out to see where they're at in a hand, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. A lot of times, they'll lead there with second pair. If that were the case, I could make a small enough raise to maybe look like I'm trying to bluff by representing an ace, and then he would shove second pair through there. So, I decided to go for a raise; I made it about 500,000 or so to make it just barely more than a min-raise back to him. He thought about it for a couple of minutes before moving the rest of his chips into the middle. I called, showing him top two, and he got there. He had a bare flush draw with the 8 7, and he made his flush on the river to cripple me, and I was out shortly thereafter.

SPG: What got you to that final table in the first place? It was a pretty big field, right?

BH: Yeah, the field was quite large; there were about 1,400 entrants. I was comfortable with my live-tournament play; I adjusted fairly quickly. I'm pretty patient when it comes to live poker, as I think you really need to be, because there's a different gear among the best players live than there is online.

I remember that by the first break, I was very short. I got down to like 1,700 in chips. Anyway, I chipped up, chipped up, chipped up, and when we got to about four tables left, it was quite an inflection point for the tournament. I picked up my aggression a lot, and I was three-betting all in on post-flop plays. I check-raised all in twice, once when I flopped a gutshot-straight draw with K-J on a Q-9-X board. It was just a lot of very, very aggressive plays that I hadn't really had to take out and apply through most of the stages in the tournament. I picked my spots to speed well, and I also picked my bluffing spots quite well.

SPG: Would you say, then, that being aggressive is less important in the early stages?

BH: Yeah, absolutely. You do get moved from table to table, so your image is going to change every time you get moved somewhere new. But, for the most part, in three-quarters of that tournament or more, possibly even four-fifths, I played a very patient style of game, very TAG [tight-aggressive]. It almost got to the point that I thought, "I might be able to get exploited here because of how I'm playing." But that was really part of the game plan anyway; if people think they can run you over and you can sense that kind of aggression toward your play, that's when you smash the deck in their faces. So, only when we got down to four tables did I let loose, and it shocked a lot of players, and they were uncertain as to what they were supposed to do, and I got fortunate enough never to move in when they had hands.

SPG: You took down the PokerStars Sunday Million early on this year. How did you do it?

BH: I play that one a lot differently than I would play a World Series event, although you can kind of compare them. I always play very aggressively in the early stages of that tournament, simply because the structure has a tendency to move on very quickly right away. So, I come out raising and reraising right away with such a deep stack in the early levels, basically to shoot off and collect a big stack in such a tremendous-sized field. That style has quite a high variance, but that's how I've come to play on Sundays.


'Andy McLEOD' is Back and Already Scoring Big

The online poker world has seen its fair share of underage phenoms (Annette_15 ring a bell?). One of those under-18 superstars was James "Andy McLEOD" Obst. He flew under the radar to hide his identity as much as possible as he made huge cash after huge cash during 2006 and 2007. Then, in late '07, he was outed in the online poker forums as being underage, and he was promptly banned from the major online poker sites.

Well, Obst is now of age, and the poker sites have let him back in the ring. So, what do you do with your newly re-found ability to play online poker? Make the final table of the PokerStars Sunday Million, of course. He came back in style when he finished in fourth place there, earning almost $76,000. Welcome back, James.

'Yuvee04' Takes Down Two FTOPS Events - on the Same Day

Poker pro Yuval "yuvee04" Bronshtein proved his mettle to the poker world with an unprecedented feat: He took down two events in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series IX (FTOPS) on the same day. And the two events couldn't have been more dissimilar; one was a $500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event, for which he earned $70,000, and the other was a $200 no-limit hold'em turbo event, which landed him $102,000. These weren't Bronshtein's first FTOPS titles, either; he took down a seven-card stud eight-or-better event in the FTOPS VI. To say Bronshtein is a multifaceted poker player would be an understatement.

Matthias Neu
By Rebecca McAdam

Matthias Neu, also known as "Goodvibe," has rocketed up the ranks in the world of online poker. Going from strength to strength, he has, so far this year, earned more than $260,000 online. The 27-year-old German recently burst onto Card Player's live tournament database with some modest but noteworthy finishes, including 26th out of 2,508 in event No. 44 of this year's World Series of Poker, $1,000 no-limit hold'em with rebuys ($18,144), and 22nd out of 257 in the 2008 Deep-Stack Extravaganza's $2,500 no-limit hold'em event ($3,274). Although his live takings are only a small portion of his total earnings, the German juggernaut has only just begun.

Rebecca McAdam: Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into poker.

Matthias Neu: I live in a small town between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden. Before I got into poker, I was working in the food industry as a sales representative. In 2004, I started playing backgammon online. In 2005, the first season of the European Poker Tour aired on Eurosport, and I pretty much was hooked right away. Before that, I knew only five-card draw poker, which to me was always kind of boring. So, when I played backgammon online the next time, I saw an advertisement for a poker site, clicked on it, and the rest is history.

RM: Was there a moment when you realised you could really get somewhere by playing poker?

MN: Well, I always saw it as a hobby, but after having some success, I noticed that I could make a living out of playing poker. It's not what I want to do my whole life, but for now, I chose to take some time to really focus on the game and travel to live tournaments. I still have plans on completing an economics degree. We'll see how it goes.

RM: What kind of games and tournaments do you like to play?

MN: I mainly play all the big tournaments online, like the $100 rebuy and the $1,000 tournaments. I prefer deep-stack tournaments, which allow for more play over the standard freezeout tournaments. When I was starting out, I used to play a lot of sit-and-gos, but now I rarely play them anymore. Lately, I have been getting into cash games more and more. I usually play $3-$6 and $5-$10 no-limit hold'em.

RM: What do you think the differences are between playing online and live?

MN: Personally, I don't think it's that big of a difference, since the game is the same and you use the same strategies and tactics to beat your opponents. What I did find a little bit difficult to adapt to when I started playing live was keeping track of all the chip stacks at the table. It's very important to know at any time how big the stacks behind you are when you are opening a hand. I remember raising a mediocre hand in one of my first live tournaments, then having a short stack move in behind me in a spot where I was forced to call because I was getting great pot odds. It definitely is not an ideal situation. When you are playing online, you get all the information at a glance.

Also, while playing at home, you don't get distracted at all. In live tournaments, especially at the WSOP, there is so much going on around you - people screaming because they just won a big pot or people at your table talking while you are in a hand. It takes some time to get used to, but after that, it's not an issue anymore.

RM: You started playing poker online at first; was the transition to live play difficult at all for you?

MN: It took me a couple of live tournaments to adapt. Now I really enjoy playing big live tournaments. The play sometimes differs quite a bit from online, and you see people make very bad plays, like folding with such great pot odds that you have to call with any two cards, or pushing all in over a raise with a very bad hand and zero fold equity. But when you go deep and the field gets tougher, there is not much difference anymore.

RM: On a lighter note, where does your nickname Goodvibe come from?

MN: Actually, there is no deeper meaning behind the name. When I tried to register at the first big online site, I remember typing in a name like five times, always with little variations, but none of these variations were available anymore. So, I wanted to choose a different name. At the time, I was still buying a lot of music on vinyl, and I had this one record on my desk from a label called Goodvibe recordings. I liked the name and just went with it.

RM: Who are your peers on the German online poker scene, and whom do you most respect?

MN: As far as tournaments go, there are not that many players in Germany who consider tournaments their "main game." Although, recently, I noticed more and more top tournament finishes by German players, so maybe this will change. Some people I consider strong tournament players are "taktloss47," "derdings," "fa_morgoth," "psychobenny," and "bastet2004." I pretty much respect all the top-ranked players and the people I think play a strong game, but this list could go on for quite a bit.

RM: How would you say poker is developing in general in Germany, then?

MN: I think there are people who could give a better answer to this question, but from my point of view, poker in Germany is developing pretty well. The big boom might already be over, and we also have some legal issues like in the U.S., but I think poker is becoming more and more presentable, and hopefully the number of people who enjoy the game will keep on growing over the next couple of years.

RM: What levels do you play online and how did you get there?

MN: I'm playing pretty much the biggest online tournaments that are available. When I started out, I didn't think much about bankroll management. I remember playing the $100 rebuy tournament on PokerStars with a bankroll of about $2,500 - definitely not something I can recommend. So, basically, I learned the hard way by losing money. I built my first bankroll with sit-and-gos, had some success in small tournaments, and in May 2007, I finally had a big score. After that, things went really well for me, and I basically had a win every week.

RM: What has been your most satisfying result to date?

MN: If I had to choose, it would probably be one of my wins in the big PokerStars $100 rebuy tournaments on Sundays. Those fields are pretty tough, since they are full of the best online tournament players. There are not that many weak spots in them, like, for example, in the Sunday Million.

RM: How did you get on in the World Series?

MN: In 2006 and 2007, I played only the main event. This year, I stayed in Vegas for the whole six weeks. It was a really great time, since a couple of other German poker players and I rented a big house and had lots of fun during our stay there. As far as my tournament performances go, I must say that I'm very happy with the way I played. Although I cashed at only one tournament at the WSOP and two other tournaments, I think there is not much I could have done differently. I had a couple day twos and basically got unlucky in some key situations in which I put my chips in with the best hand. In the second $1,000 rebuy event, in which I finished 26th, I lost an unavoidable coin flip that left me short-stacked, and I busted out shortly after that. These are the situations in which you just have to win or you cannot win the tournament.

In most tournaments, when there are only a couple of tables left, you are going to have these all-in preflop situations, and you can be the best player in the world, but if you lose them, you are not going to win the tournament. So, you have to take it for what it is and try to concentrate on the next tournament you are playing. Overall, I'm satisfied with the way I played and hope to run better in the upcoming tournaments.

RM: Are you planning on playing any EPTs?

MN: I'm definitely going to play some EPTs. I haven't made a schedule yet, though. It also depends on which events I'm qualifying for online.

RM: What are your main poker ambitions?

MN: I would like to follow up my online success with some big live scores to show everybody that I can be successful in both fields. Also, getting some kind of sponsorship deal would be nice.

RM: What has been the best lesson you have learned so far or the best advice you have been given?

MN: Don't take anything for granted.