Final Table Takedown: Dominik Nitsche Shares Continuation Betting and Player Tendency Strategies vs. High Level Opponents

Dominik Nitsche began playing poker like most of today’s young guns, online. He entered his first live event after turning 18 and won it, the 2009 LAPT Mar del Plata main event in Argentina for $381,030. In 2012, he won a World Series of Poker bracelet in a $1,000 event for $654,797. In 2013, he finished third in the WSOP Europe main event for $551,000 and followed that up the next year by winning another $1,000 event and the $10,000 WSOP Circuit National Championship.

He is also a World Poker Tour champion having captured the 2012 WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic title. Most recently, Nitsche took down his fourth bracelet in the WSOP Europe High Roller for One Drop, banking $4,049,782 and bringing his lifetime live tournament earnings to more than $11 million.

Event: World Series of Poker Europe High Roller for One Drop
Players: 132
Entry: $129,022
First Prize: $4,049,782
Finish: 1st

Key Concepts: Out of position; Monster stack vs. opponents with similar stacks; Delayed continuation betting

CT: Please set this table up for us?

Dominik Nitsche: For the most part all the big pots I played at the TV table were big cooler situations. Instead of focusing on one specific hand I’d rather illustrate an important concept.

CT: What are the stack sizes of your opponents?

DN: Mikita and Andreas are both pretty short stacked at around 27 big blinds. I’m the chip leader.

CT: What’s the action preflop?

DN: Andreas folds the button and I am in the small binds with 9 5. Typically this hand will be limped in most tournament situations. Final tables however are different.

CT: Please explain.

DN: Well due to my huge stack I want to apply a lot of pressure on Mikita who simply won’t be able to do anything about it. He’s interested in keeping the pots small and reducing the risk of going out before Andreas. I therefore decided on a small blind strategy with a few limps, a lot of raises to 2.75x the big blind, and a few all-in shoves before looking down at my cards.  

Nitsche raises to 5,500,000 from the small blind holding 9 5.

CT: So any two cards are a green light to apply pressure.

DN: Yes. And 9-5 suited fits perfectly into my game plan of raising often. I choose this size raise as it should give me plenty of fold equity against Mikita. I do think any size between 2.5x-4x the big blind is perfectly reasonable for our game plan as well.

Badziakouski calls.

CT: What kind of hand range do you put him on? I am sure he knows what you are up to, at least to some extent as a good player.

DN: He should still be putting chips in the middle here fairly wide, but not overly aggressive. He’s probably going to be reshoving a large amount of his A-x and low pocket pair type hands preflop. And I assume he folds a lot of his offsuit high card and low card combinations preflop. It’s important to realize at this point which boards favor me and which boards favor him. Most people tend to just blindly stab flops here as they have the chip lead and they want to apply pressure. This strategy won’t be efficient against someone as good as Mikita though, so we need to be a bit smarter than this.

Flop: A J J (pot: 11,900,000)

CT: Is this an automatic continuation bet with your hand?

DN: While most people would just blindly bet this flop small “because the ace is good for the preflop aggressor,” Mikita is simply too good for that bet to be too effective. He’ll be defending very wide knowing that our range contains a lot of absolute garbage hands that can’t really do much more than bet once. Even if we had an ace we wouldn’t be able to bet three streets comfortably. 

CT: So, what’s the plan?

DN: I decided that this was a board where checking a lot is absolutely mandatory. I’d do the same play with all my A-x and probably even my J-x hands. If I had an ace in my hand I’d have very little incentive to bet, so why would I start betting nine high? There are still future streets to be played if Mikita checks behind, which I assume he’ll do quite often given what our ranges look like. 

Nitsche checks. Badziakouski checks.

Turn: 7 (pot: 11,900,000)

DN: The turn is a 7 which brings a potential backdoor flush draw. And this is where I decide to take a stab at the hand, hoping to make Mikita fold all the hands that I thought would call one street on the flop. 

Nitsche bets 6,000,000.

CT: So this looks like an ace in his mind?

DN: Well from his perspective my line does look very much like an ace and he will simply not be able to do anything about it even if I am bluffing. Most of the time he will hold a hand like Q-5 suited and be forced to fold. In the actual hand Mikita did have a weak Queen high and folded rather quickly. 

Badziakouski folds. Nitsche wins the pot of 11,900,000.

CT: This is such valuable information for many players. I love this hand, though it’s so simple and straightforward. Yet you continued to build your stack.

DN: I know. While this hand certainly wasn’t the most exciting to watch, it illustrates an important concept. When applying pressure on good players it’s very important to be smart about it instead of using blind aggression. Often times you’ll see recreational players and weak professionals blindly continuation bet and try to bully players off their hand. This can be effective against weak players, but once you are up against world class competition you have to play a lot smarter than that.

Key Concepts: Player tendencies; bet sizing; c-betting

CT: You’re now heads-up. Do you have any read on Eiler?

DN: I thought this hand was very interesting. Andreas is a very strong online heads-up player. Once again it wasn’t the biggest pot, but this hand gives you an insight into what my strategy was playing heads-up against Andreas. 

CT: Did you have a plan in mind?

DN: I had already decided on a very aggressive button raising strategy of around 90 percent of my hands (there are antes in play which is why the number is so high). I’d be looking to 2.5x raise as my default.

CT: Anything else?

DN: During the dinner break Steffen Sontheimer, Christoph Vogelsang, and I had worked out a very specific strategy tailored to the tendencies Andreas had been showing today.

CT: Which were what?

DN: He was sticky on the flop and quite happy to call bets with various holdings that can only really be hoping to take the pot away on later streets. One hand that comes to mind was his call with 10-7 suited on an A-8-2 board when we were three-handed. We figured if that was his strategy, I wouldn’t need to make any big changes to my c-betting strategy. Rather, I’d be looking to get very aggressive on most turns. Specifically, those that don’t hit his wider than normal calling range. 

Nitsche raises to 6,000,000 holding J 4. Eiler calls.

Flop: 9 7 3 (pot: 12,800,000)

CT: Keeping with your game plan, is this a good flop to c-bet?

DN: This is a perfectly fine hand to continuation bet. In a perfect world with no read on my opponent, I’d probably quite literally flip a coin whether I’d want to bet or check. Here I decided on a bet due to all the preparation I did with my friends during dinner break. And I was already planning on following through on a bunch of turn cards. Any 8, 9, 10, or J is fantastic obviously. Queens or better are a lot worse given Andrea’s sticky nature.

CT: What do you mean?

DN: Well here is the interesting thing. If Andreas really calls too many K-x or Q-x type hands on the flop, my turn bet will be very profitable on almost any card. Andreas might be sticky, but he’s not the type of guy to call me down with king high for no real reason. He’s a smart player who will simply fold away the bottom of his range on the turn. 

Eiler checks. Nitsche bets 5,000,000. Eiler called.

Turn: 3 (pot: 22,800,000)

Eiler checks.

CT: Is this a good card to fire the turn?

DN: While this isn’t that fantastic of a card to keep betting against most players, I feel like against Andreas this is a mandatory bet for all reasons I stated above. He will still have plenty of K, Q, and A high type hands that will fold without too much thought.

CT: And if he calls?

DN: If I do get called my jack is a very good out and there are even a couple other ways for me to win the hand (say the river comes a 6 giving me a great hand to bluff with holding the 4 in my hand)

Nitsche bets 13,000,000. Eiler folds. Nitsche wins the pot of 12,800,000.

CT: Any other thoughts on the hand?

DN: There is one last thing to note. I choose a slightly smaller bet sizing than usual on the turn (approximately 60 percent instead of my typical 75-80 percent) here, as I figured Andreas range was significantly weaker than average. I therefore figured that a slightly smaller bet sizing is going to make me more money.

CT: Did you find out what he folded?

DN: In the actual hand Andreas folded K-7 offsuit, which I was honestly surprised to see.

CT: Since we last spoke you have accumulated more than $8 million in tournament cashes. What is the biggest improvement that you’ve seen in your game over the last three years?

DN: It’s tough to say. I have just become an all-around much better poker player. My goal is always to improve every day and since three years is a long time, I’d hope to say that pretty much nothing I did back then still shows up in my game today. I honestly believe I am a whole different player at this point. I went from playing $5-$10 online cash games and struggling to open sitting $25-$50 (six-max and heads-up) and getting very limited action. The Dominik from 2014 was an okay player, but he was just at the beginning of learning what is possible with today’s poker tools. ♠