The Scoop -- Jimmy Fricke

Jimmy Fricke, known as “Gobboboy” online, splashed onto the poker scene with his second-place finish, behind Gus Hansen, in the 2007 Aussie Millions main event, because of both his aggressive, intuitive play and his age. He was 19 at the time, and took home $800,000 for his efforts. Since then, he’s been traveling the live-tournament circuit, where he has accumulated almost $1.5 million in winnings. He recently sat down with Adam and Diego, and took a look back at his first real taste of big poker success.

Diego Cordovez: We had Gus Hansen on, and we went through his book Every Hand Revealed, and you are the co-star of the book.

Adam Schoenfeld: I would say the star [laughing]!

Jimmy Fricke: I have yet to see a royalty check from that.

AS: Well, you received one million Australian dollars as a royalty.

JF: That’s true.

DC: He writes extensively about you, especially about the whole period when you were three-handed and Andrew Black was the third player. He writes about the fact that, uncharacteristically, he was almost in a shell. There was a big ladder jump, in terms of prize money, and he said that you recognized this and really took advantage of it, applying a lot of pressure on him and Andy. He was on the receiving end of all the bluffs and plays, which is not the normal turn of events. Is that how you remembered it, and did you read the book?

JF: Yeah, definitely. In retrospect, it’s a lot easier to see it now, especially getting to see it on TV, because he was playing very tight; both of them were. In fact, when we started three-handed play, Gus wanted to make a deal. We all went to the bathroom on a break, and he was like, “Is this where the three people come in to chop up all the money?”

AS: All the best deals are done in bathrooms.

JF: Andy immediately turned it down, so I actually didn’t have to say anything. We went back out there, and they just played the tightest poker you’ve ever seen.

DC: Did you pick up on that right away?

JF: Yeah, pretty much. Gus had played pretty tight throughout the final table, especially once I started kicking his ass. The few people in between us busted first, so I had pretty good position on him really quickly. So, he would open [raise] and I would three-bet [reraise] with garbage. Eventually, he just stopped playing pots. Then when we got three-handed, it was pretty easy. I just raised every single button, and he would defend. The first time he decided to play back at me, I completely owned him, and then he just went into that shell you were talking about. The K-Q versus K-Q hand was my favorite hand of the whole broadcast.

DC: I don’t remember that hand; can you tell us about it?

JF: I raised the button [with K-Q], and he reraised in the big blind [with K-Q]. I called, because we were like 4 million deep or something. It comes A-10-5 with two spades. He bets 800,000, and I raise him just the minimum. He thinks about it forever, and folds. After he won, someone came up to me who was apparently in the [production] truck watching it, and told me about the hand. I was sitting there all depressed because I punted [lost] the tournament, and he came up to me and said, “I just want to congratulate you. That hand was amazing. The guys in the truck went nuts when that happened.” He had this big drink in his hand [laughing], so that was pretty cool. …

… I’ve gotten much better since then; back then, I was just ready to get the money in, I didn’t care. That was just the way I played back in the day. I was in the middle of a huge run-good streak, and at the top of your game like that, you’re going to take shots at people. I did that the entire tournament, and it just kept working out.

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