Getting To Know Geshkenbein

Vladimir “Beyne” Geshkenbein is a player bound to get attention no matter what event he is in. Whether it comes down to skill, style, character, or presence, some players just stand out more than others. People enjoy the action that bit more when there is someone at the felt who is pushing their opponent’s buttons, and at the recent European Poker Tour Snowfest, it became clear Geshkenbein was one of those players. The Russian made all the right moves and was made champion receiving €390,000 for his stellar performance. Card Player caught up with the Team PKR Pro player following his big win.
Rebecca McAdam: What is life like right now as an EPT champion?
Vladimir Geshkenbein: Two words: F**king Amazing!
RM: This is the biggest result for you, will the money make a difference to your life or game?
VG: Only on the spending side. I’m not going to play higher limits or high-roller tournaments from now on. But I might spend a little more on my life in general.
RM: Tell me about your background — what you were doing before you got into poker, how old you were when you started etc…?
VG: Before I got into poker I was just a normal student at high school. First time I played poker I must have been 18 and it was at school. We went to play $5 sit’n’go’s during the breaks.. And sometimes instead of going to class! [Laughs]
RM: How did you get further into poker?
VG: After winning most of those sit’n’go’s I saw that there is more than just luck involved. So I got interested in the game, found a site that gave me $50 (at that time that was a lot of money for me — $50 was what my parents gave me weekly for spending) and started to play online. I started at the lowest limits at 5 cent/10 cents and grinded up from there. It was a long grind and I’ve played pretty much every limit available. It took me around a year to get up to NL200. At that point I had a solid roll and decided to do a one year break from school and see how it goes with poker. I moved out from my parents and went to Malta with a few poker friends. First I wanted to go for only three months, but now it’s two years later and I’m still here!
RM: What is poker like in Russia at the moment?
VG: I have no idea; I’ve never set foot into a Russian casino.
RM: Do you play more online or live?
VG: I used to play online only, but after PKR gave me the contract I decided to travel the world and play live tournaments. I like to travel and I like poker, so it’s a good combination, but still I play most of the hands online. Live, you just play so few hands, and it gets boring quite quick for me.
RM: What stakes and games do you play online?
VG: I usually play from $5-10 up to $25-50 online with seldom tilt-shots to $50-100 or $100-200.
RM: You became part of Team PKR in 2009 — did things change for you after this at all?
VG: After becoming Pro, I started to take thinks a little bit more serious. Now I was an ambassador for the site and I couldn’t swear as much in the chat as I was doing before [laughs]. And also I got a lot more involved in the live poker scene. Before I was not really a big fan of live tournaments, but since I’m a Team PKR pro I obviously had to travel a lot to these events and I started to love it!
RM: How would you describe your style of play?
VG: My style of play is what I would say between a “loose-aggressive” and a “maniac”. I tend to play really loose preflop, but after the flop I get tighter. People often don’t recognise that and think I’m bluffing on every street. I tend to bluff much less on the turn and river than people think (don’t tell anyone).
RM: Do you like to psychologically play/have fun with your opponents?
VG: Actually yes, it is quite fun to put people on tilt. And also often I’m just bored so instead of playing just one game (poker) I add another game (tilting your opponents). But most people know, I’m just having fun and not meaning it really seriously. I do it to loosen up the atmosphere (and the game). I hate nothing more than sitting with 10 nits on a table and nobody says a word.
RM: What do you think is the biggest mistake players make against you?
VG: They never give me credit for a strong hand. Because I like to raise a lot of speculative/bad hands before the flop they think I only have trash all the time. But when I get a good hand I get the max payout. Nobody is ever folding bottom pair against me.
RM: Have you played many EPT’s?
VG: I have played around 12 EPT’s before that [EPT Snowfest] and it’s my first one to cash… [laughs], but that’s my style — go broke early or win it!
RM: Is playing a main event (for instance EPT Snowfest) very different to playing a high roller event? Obviously the standard is generally better in high rollers and the fields are usually smaller but does this make you have to change the way you play?
VG: The high roller fields are generally made out of people who buy in directly, while main events tend to have a lot of qualifiers. Buying in directly leaves these choices about the players: They are either rich fish that don’t care about money, or really good players who won the money for the buy-in through poker. So you will have either really good players or really bad. While in a normal main event tournament you will have a lot of average qualifiers that either have a little bit of a clue, or are scared money and try to fold their way into the money. That makes a high-roller tournament much more aggressive in style and you have to put the money into the middle with less strong hands often because if you don’t do that you will just get over-run.
RM: Tell me about your journey to the top at EPT Snowfest?
VG: Day one started God-like, I ran pretty well and people were spewing like crazy. One guy five-bet jammed 6-4s against my pocket jacks; another called a four-bet with K-T (only because it was me, I doubt he would have done this against anyone else). I finished day 1 as the overall chip leader. On day two, absolutely nothing happened. After 10 hours of play I had pretty much exactly as much as I started with. I still had a healthy stack though, due to my rampage on my first day. Day three started pretty funny as well, I sat next to the Swedish EPT winner [Michael] Tureniec and we had some chat going on, after which he proceeded to five-bet jam J-8s versus my A-K and had to return to his hotel and book a flight back to Sweden. Overall day three was very similar to day one: A good run of cards, and everybody throwing money at me, not believing me in any hands and just spewing. On day four, I was already getting tired and stressed out, as the tournament got pretty deep and a lot of money started to be at stake. I didn’t run really well though on that day, but managed to grind myself into the final table. Day five was the final table. I was really nervous when I woke up, but after a visit to the spa, the sauna, and one or two drinks I was feeling more comfortable. My plan was, due to my short stack, to play tight and let the other players bust (so I get bumped in the payout jumps). I was playing tighter than usual in the first few hours. I was opening a lot still, but I was holding back with loose three-bets and loose four-bet jams, which I would often do. But I didn’t want to bust before the other shorties. So after every short stack busted and there were four people left I got even more aggressive and opened more than 50 percent of hands. I tried to avoid the chip leader [Kevin] Vandersmissen, but it was hard to avoid him, as he was involved in nearly every other hand as well. So I tried to play lowball and I was check/calling much more often than usual. Normally I would check/raise and try to get the money in with top pair, but against him I was trying to keep the variance low, as I didn’t want to bust third or fourth. As soon as we were three, we discussed a deal. Both Belgian guys were really good players, so to reduce variance we did a three-way deal and played for 80k for the winner (instead of a 240k pay jump from third to first). After that the match ended shortly, I was holding A-9 and three-bet for value and he jammed on me. He was very aggressive and I was expecting to see a lot of hands, so I didn’t think before calling. A lot of people are shocked to see me three-bet/call it off with A-9, but we had a sick dynamic going on.
RM: Who was your toughest opponent?
VG: My toughest opponent was Vandersmissen. He was playing really good and put a lot of pressure on me. He minimum raised pretty much every button when I was in the big blind, I had to give up a lot of pots uncontested. He could afford to put pressure on me since he was the big stack.
RM: How did you find the final table in general?
VG: For an event of this size I was quite happy with the final table. I was thinking it would be stronger. There were a few inexperienced players on it and apart from Vandersmissen nobody tried to give me much trouble.
RM: Were you using Twitter to try and tilt Vandersmissen?
VG: [Laughs] I didn’t even know he read my twitters. I don’t usually tweet, but PKR asked me to do it so I tried my best.
RM: Was there a point throughout the event when you really felt like you were going to win?
VG: Not before it went threehanded and I had a big stack. Before that I was kind of shortish and was just trying to grind up the payout steps.
RM: What are your plans now?
VG: Chill out, relax a little, and then it’s time for sex, drugs and rock’n’roll again!
RM: What are your poker dreams and goals?
VG: I pretty much reached all the dreams I had about poker. I made enough money for a decent living and I won three major tournaments. I never had bigger goals than that. Actually I set my goals really low compared to my achievements, so I’m happy with how everything has gone so far [smiles].♠