WSOP: Bracelet Winner Q and A -- Blair HinkleBlair Talks About Joining his Brother Grant as a Bracelet Winner and a Big Compliment from a Big Player |
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Blair Hinkle left little doubt about who was going to walk away with the gold bracelet in Event No. 23, the $2,000 no-limit hold'em event. Blair dominated the final table with aggressive play, and only suffered a slight setback in the closing period of action after he eliminated his main competition, Dustin Driksen. In earning his first braclet, Blair made history by joing his brother Grant as the first brothers to ever win bracelets at the same World Series of Poker. Card Player caught up with Blair at the post-final table press conference and he talked about what the historic win meant to him.
Question: A lot of player are going to walk out of here with bracelets by the end of the summer, but only you and one other person on the planet can walk out as brothers with bracelets? What does that mean to you on top of winning your first bracelet?
Blair Hinkle: That means probably more than just winning it. We’re setting a record together and he’s the one who really got me going in poker besides my grandma, so I’m just really happy that we could both win in the same year and do something really unique. It’s been a blast.
Q: So your brother showed you the game first, but now you’re the monster online, and you both have bracelets. If you go heads up, who’s going to take it down?
BH: I’m not sure, if we play no-limit I think I might have an edge on him, but if we play limit or stud or anything he’s much better at those games than I am. He would crush me in limit hold’em for sure.
Q: You were at your brother’s final table to sweat him, but he wasn’t here tonight to sweat you. Where was he at?
BH: I actually called him at five in the morning to tell him I’m playing and he’s been looking for flights out of Kansas City to get here and he couldn’t find one because they were all booked up. So he would definitely be here if he could, and I talked to him right after I won and he was happy for me, and I’m glad he got to watch it even if he couldn’t be here.
Q: Was Dustin Dirksen the toughest player you had to face at this final table? How good was it to knock him out early tonight?
BH: That felt great. He pulled a nasty bluff on me last night. I just had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to really open up my game until he was off he table, because he was able to make a lot of moves postflop and really turn the heat up if he needed to, so I was really glad to see him off the table. The rest of the players were a little bit tighter so they allowed me to open up and raise a lot of pots and take down a lot of uncontested pots.
Q: We have seen you out on the tournament trail the last couple months, most notably when you were making big plays against Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth at the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic. Is there any player in the world that intimidates you, or do you have no fear, and your aggressive style take a lot of these big name guys by surprise?
BH: I wouldn’t say I’m intimidated…I do try and hold back every once in a while just because I know the player is going to be good and pick me off every once in a while. But, my game is just to keep it going. Today that person was Dirksen…when a guy went all in for 100,000 and Dirksen just called, and I shoved for over a million with king-jack suited, that just broke the ice. I knew that if I could make that move on Dirksen and get in a big pot, and get him to fold, that I could eventually make more moves on him, and I eventually did bluff him out of a really big pot and just kept it going after that.
Q: Ivey said after the play down day at the L.A.P.C that you were the toughest opponent he faced all tournament. What do you think of that compliment?
BH: That’s a really big compliment coming from Ivey. He’s been my idol ever since I started watching poker four-five years ago. I’ve always wanted to watch him play, not play at the same table with him on my left, but for him to give me that compliment means a ton.
Q: Aside from your brother winning a bracelet, what does it mean to you to have one?
BH: I don’t even know yet, I came into the Series hoping to go deep in a couple tournaments. Obviously my main goal was winning a bracelet, but you just can’t expect to do it with these huge fields every year and for me to do it in the first year I’m playing all of the events just feels great. It hasn’t even set in yet actually.
Q: At the start of the final table you had set the precedent with aggression, and then you were battling with Dirksen. But when it got down to four handed and three handed all of your opponents were playing really tight. Were you adjusting to them, or were you trying to keep picking up all of the small pots and hope when they finally moved all in that your cards would have them covered?
BH: The only thing that set me back a little bit was when I got all in with ace-queen vs. king-jack and he rivered the straight. That slowed me down quite a bit because he had enough chips to play back, and just the suck out, I was just like ahh…got to take some hands off and I slowed down a little bit, but once we got three handed I was never going to slow down.
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