When I Was a Donk: Frank Kassela

Frank Kassela is one of poker’s best all-around players and nicest guys. The Tennessee native broke out big time at the 2010 World Series of Poker, winning two bracelets and recording a third-place finish in the $25,000 no-limit hold’em six-handed event. The scores were long overdue for the poker veteran, as he finally managed to cement his status as a regular on the tournament circuit. Altogether, he has more than $2.3 million in career earnings spanning about a decade.

Card Player caught up with Kassela to talk about the first no-limit hold’em tournament he had ever played — the 2000 WSOP main event – and how he learned from it.

“The funniest thing for me to remember when I reflect on my performance during my very first no-limit hold’em tournament is my complete lack of understanding about bet size.

“Over time I developed a keener understanding of how important my bet size was in relation to blind and pot sizes. As any player can tell you today, there are two things that scream out lack of experience when you sit down with someone you have never played with before: how they handle chips and how they size their bets. Over time I realized there were a couple of things that I had to keep in mind about my bet sizing.

“First of all, I realized that I was frequently giving away too much information about my hand strength based on the size of my bring-in bets. In the beginning I was unsure exactly what to do to keep other players from gaining too much info, so I just decided to keep all bring-in bets consistent based on the blinds. I would always bring in raises at 2.5 times the big blind before the ante levels, then three times the big blind once the ante levels started. I would use the same formula if I was three-betting preflop as well, but I was using the initial raiser’s total bet as my base for multiplying instead of the blind. I felt like always keeping my raises consistent based on those multipliers would keep anyone from being able to read anything specific about the hand I might actually be holding while at the same time allowing me to feel like I was solidly in control of the action.

“Secondly, I felt like I was leaking information on my continuation bets and my turn bets as well. To prevent that, I started to use the same betting percentage on both streets to keep my hand strength concealed. I would always bet approximately two-thirds of the total pot on any flop and any turn. Again, it gave me the ability to consistently stay on top of the action in the hand (maintaining my position as the aggressor) without feeling like any particular insights were being revealed about my hole cards.

“Finally I was faced with how to deal with my river bets. There is no easy formula to use for your river bets. Before you push those chips out there you have to figure out how you got to the river and what hand your opponent is likely to be holding (especially if you were aggressively betting on every street). There are frequently times when the way the action unfolded on the flop and turn it will be pretty apparent whether your opponent is on some kind of draw or reluctantly calling with a marginal hand hoping that you will stop your ridiculously relentless and aggressive betting. Overall, I liked to consistently bet around half the pot on the river. Whether I was bluffing or value-betting was generally beside the point. It is important for the other players at the table to feel like you are always going to go for that thin value bet on the end just as likely as you will be there firing your third barrel on a complete bluff. Either way, you want to be in charge of the pace of the betting, stay the aggressor, and control the size of the pot.” ♠