A Conversation with Day 1 Chip Leader and Team PokerStars pro Pieter de Korver

Follow along with all of the action from Day 2 at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event on the PokerStars blog feed.

Team PokerStars pro Pieter de Korver was the overall chip leader after day 1 at the 2010 PCA with 245,300. Card Player caught up with the season six European Poker Tour Grand Final champion during the first break of the day and he talked about his tournament experience on day 1A as well as his new approach to poker in 2011.

Card Player: What mindset are you taking into day 2 as the chip leader?

Pieter de Korver: Well, I hope I can just cruise on and I don’t want to have to play big, big pots. I got a healthy stack. Of course I’m trying to get as many chips as possible. I want to be healthy when bubble time is coming up. It would be nice to stay double and triple the average [laughs].

My table was quick to break this first level so I didn’t want to get too crazy at that table because you don’t have too much information. Now I’m at table nine and I think I’m going to be staying there for a long time. Table nine doesn’t have too many familiar faces, I know a few of them, but there aren’t huge names there.

CP: Are you going to spend the next level really trying to build profiles on your opponents?

PK: We just had a sick hand with aces, kings, and queens. You can’t get any information from that but the guy who won gave a good explanation about how the table was. I immediately got some information that I can use now.

CP: How important is it to start to store all of that information as soon as you arrive at a new table?

PK: For me the first impression is really, really important. I don’t want to go crazy immediately during the first five hands. I want to take my time and choose my opponents. When you go deeper in the tournament everyone has bigger stacks and it is more difficult to look at who is the weaker or better player.

I’m making my game plan. 2010 started good, I had some little results but not great, so I had to change my game plan. I took a one-and-a-half month break and recapped my whole year. I was thinking, what did I do wrong, and I saw my game plan had some mistakes. I am going for a totally new game plan and this year has been pretty good so far.

CP: How did you accumulate so many chips during day 1A?

PK: It’s always nice when you start with a profit in a tournament and I was never in the minus. I immediately flopped a straight in a four-way pot and I got paid off and went to 40,000. Then I opened with Q-9 suited and I made my flush draw while an opponent made a set of kings so I got paid off by that. Then I hit one out and I was at 80,000. That was in two levels so I had a good start.

Then I went to 90,000, but I dropped to 66,000 before the dinner break. I was like OK, let’s have a good dinner, let’s think about how I can build back up. And then it started again, I grinded up to 80,000 and then 100,000. And then there was half an hour where I went from 100 to 200, it was like a rush, all in five hands or something. First I had A-7 on the button and one guy opened and I three-bet. One player called and the flop came 7-7-4, that was a dream scenario, and he paid me off three times. The hand after that I had nines and the shorty threw it in with aces, but the river came a nine so that was good.

And then suddenly I got A-K against jacks and hit my ace and suddenly I was at 200. That was good and fast and after that I was grinding it up and played some hands and one time made a full house on a four-way flush board. All of the time I was hitting little rushes so it makes it easy for me because I can sit down and relax. That’s what you need sometimes to get into that zone.

CP: How does it feel to do so well opening the New Year with your new approach to poker?

PK: It was so nice, I just wrote an article for a newspaper where I said that in 2011 I want to rock and try to do my best and immediately the next day I’m doing this. I’m the chip leader in the main event of the PCA, it’s a good start to prove my article right and I’m going to try to make 2011 a great year.

CP: You have been a Team PokerStars pro for a while now, what is a way your life has changed that you didn’t initially expect when you first won the EPT Grand Final?

PK: My story is a total dream scenario. I won a TV free roll in 2008 and then I was able to play in a couple of tournaments before I was asked to join PokerStars team Holland. I had a feeling that it would be a little year with a few tournaments and then I was out of there, or I had to do crazy stuff to stay on. I really liked it so it gave me good motivation to win big.

After that it has been crazy. I’m traveling around the world and doing all kinds of things. 2009 was amazing, 2010 was when I could feel that I was really living the life of a poker pro, but you need to focus and find balance. There are a lot of distractions when you travel a lot, absolutely. You need to focus on what tournaments you’re going to play and where you’re going to go. I’m a person who needs more breaks and I didn’t give myself enough in 2010. I hope I can take it to the next level this year.

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