Online Poker: Interview with Kevin 'BeL0WaB0Ve' SaulTalks About His Recent FTOPS Final Tables and Playing 10 Tournaments at Once |
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Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul is a legendary name in online poker. He was at the forefront of the wave of killer online tournament players when online poker players were starting to get a lot of attention. While some top players from online poker’s “in the day” days have since fizzled out, Saul is continuing to put up massive results.
Shortly after winning the Bellagio Cup III main event in July 2007, a feat that earned him $1.3 million, Saul had a self-described “slow period.” To be fair, what’s slow for him is a dream come true for lesser players. Regardless, Saul is easily back on track as far as online poker is concerned. He has cashed three times in the currently-running Full Tilt Online Poker Series IX (playing under his Full Tilt name GetPWN3D), including two final tables and one final-table bubble. His total winnings for the three cashes come to almost $275,000.
Card Player snagged Saul to talk about his FTOPS success, how to play short-handed tournaments (his two final tables were in six-handed events), and how to focus when playing 10 tables simultaneously with different poker variants and betting styles mixed in.
Shawn Patrick Green: Congrats on the success you’ve had in the FTOPS IX. Which of the two final tables was tougher, and why?
Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul: The toughest was definitely the $300 rebuy. For the Monday $1K, Ram Vaswani was there, as well as Ben Fineman, who is another good player. But, especially approaching the final table, I found that the players were so much weaker in the $1K, and it was easier to rock the bubble and the money jumps and whatnot, because a lot more satellite players are going to go deeper in a $1K event than in a $300 rebuy event. Because when they win a satellite into the $300 rebuy, they only get the one barrel. So, they just take their chances with the 1,500 in chips, and if it happens, it happens; they don’t rebuy.
SPG: Basically, the pros have the advantage of not being able to bust during the rebuy period, and so those tournaments are disproportionately losing a lot more satellite players early on, is what you’re saying?
KS: Of course, of course. And, I mean, I couldn’t even tell you how many good players there were left in the $300 rebuy with four tables left. There may have been, among the final 24 players, two or three weak spots. Everyone else was just sick aggressive, and there was just so much three-betting and four-betting preflop, and floating, and it was just really disgusting.
SPG: As far as particular opponents go, was there a particular person who was giving you trouble?
KS: He didn’t really give me trouble, but IWEARGOGGLES, Luke Staudenmaier, is a really good player, and when we got to the final table, him, another guy, and I were all between 1.6 million and 1.8 million in chips, roughly, and the other three stacks were all around 500K. Luke was two to my left, and the short-stack was in between us, and I knew that once the short stack busted that Luke would start giving me fits and prodding me a lot preflop, and trying to play pots with me in position. It really caused me to tighten up my game, somewhat, and to just try not to allow him to do anything.
We must have gotten to three-handed play after like 15 minutes, and it was IWEARGOGGLES, MishkaT, and me, and I had a decent chip lead, because Mishka had taken some chips from GOGGLES and then I doubled through Mishka. And then Mishka got short, so I just started pounding on Luke’s blinds and reraising him out of the blinds when he’d raise the button, because this Mishka person was short and there was a $40K pay-jump from third to second. So, I was trying to use that to my advantage. Luke was definitely the one who I was worried about at the final table, but he didn’t really give me any trouble, at all.
SPG: As far as the situation you described where Luke was two to your left and you had a short-stack in between you two, I’m assuming that Luke’s position also inhibited your ability to isolate and play against the short-stack?
KS: Well, the other three stacks at the table were basically in push-fold mode, for the most part. If they were going to play a hand, they were probably going to go with it. So, we didn’t have short-stacks for that long, and by the time we were three-handed, it was almost neutralized, as far as position goes. And really early in three-handed play I was able to double through Mishka with A-K versus A-J, and that just allowed me to do so many more things.
SPG: Things like what? You were talking about pounding on Luke’s button raises and stuff like that; what else?
KS: I pretty much raised every time it folded to me in the small blind; I raised Luke’s big blind. And he didn’t want to get into a confrontation with me, because he was waiting for either him or me to bust Mishka, because, at the time, I think Mishka was below 500,000, and Luke had like 1.5 million, and then I had the rest. That situation allowed me to just bleed him down, and eventually Mishka doubled up through him, so now it was a situation where Mishka was at the 1-million mark and Luke was forced to play a hand. The first time that he played back at me, he had K-9, which was a standard shove. He ended up running into me with A-10, and I won a 60/40, so …
SPG: So, obviously you usually want to be in position, but it sounds like, in that kind of situation, you actually benefited from being on Luke’s right and having initiative on him. Is that true?
KS: It was really just the chip stack that benefited me. That’s what made things work.
SPG: Both of the events you final tabled were six-handed events. In most tournaments, you don’t play with six of fewer players unless you make the final table, of course, so how do the early stages of a six-handed tournament differ from a normal tournament?
KS: You’re supposed to be more aggressive and play more hands six-handed, which fits my style perfectly. But, to be honest, by the second break I think I had 4,000 in chips, and you start with 5,000. Then, when the antes kicked in, I was able to win a few pots. I had A-K versus A-9 against a guy who had 3K, and that got me up to around 9K. And then, from there, I just kind of went with it and ran, and things worked out.
SPG: When you say you “went with it and ran,” what does that entail? How were you playing differently than you would at a full table?
KS: Once you get chips, there are so many things that you can do, because you know that everyone else is opening with a wider range six-handed, so you can reraise with complete air, if you want. I’ll probably be doing a video for the $300 rebuy tournament in which you will see me reraise with complete air. You can find that at PokerXFactor. But once you’re a big stack, they just fear you and stay out of your way. They also let you know when they have hands, basically, so it makes it a lot easier to play.
SPG: It is obviously common knowledge that when it’s short-handed, you open up your game a bit, but do you think that people have a flaw in their games such that when they’ve called or raised with a wider range, as they’re theoretically supposed to, they shut down when facing a reraise, even though they’re supposed to be calling that with a wider range, as well?
KS: Sometimes. Actually, when there were nine or 10 people left in the rebuy, Ram Vaswani, who made the final table of the $1K with me, as well, was to my immediate right. He literally opened my button in like four hands in a row, and he wasn’t a big stack; he was one of the shorter stacks in the tournament. So, I decided to three-bet him on the button with A-5, and the small blind snap-shoved for like 170,000 more. The pot was like 520,000, and I had to call, but that was an instance where that guy [in the small blind] knew I was reraising light, so he went with his two sevens, which I was shocked to see. But I obviously had to call, and I whiffed.
That kind of made me tighten up, too, after seeing the player to my left have the ability to go with the two sevens there and recognize his spot. I decided to sit back a little bit and just kind of coast and wait for some hands. I eventually busted Ram in a blind vs. blind situation in a very weird hand.
SPG: You also bubbled the final table of an Omaha eight-or-better event.
KS: [Laughs] Yeah…
SPG: [Laughs] Why do you react like that?
KS: Well, I’m just disappointed in that.
SPG: Oh, OK. From that reaction, I figured it was something specific that had happened.
KS: Nah. When we got down to 10-12 people, when we went from six-handed tables to five-handed tables, I had some chips and I was staying active, and I was getting good hands and flopping draws, but I was whiffing everything. It was just kind of disgusting.
SPG: How do you rate your skills in limit Omaha eight-or-better?
KS: I’m not quite as good at it as pot-limit Omaha. Two FTOPS ago, I finished in seventh in the Omaha $500 six-max tournament, so I bubbled that final table. Also, Paradise Poker had a Masters Series that they used to run when they were in the U.S., and I won the Masters $200 buy-in pot-limit Omaha event for like $30,000.
SPG: So, you’re no slouch in Omaha, then, is what you’re saying? [Laughs]
KS: Oh, yeah. The first game I started playing was pot-limit Omaha.
SPG: You were playing a limit Omaha tournament and a no-limit hold’em tournament in the FTOPS on the same day and almost final tabled both of them. How hard is it to concentrate when playing not only two different games, but two different games with two different betting structures?
KS: When the FTOPS rebuy started, I was down to two tables in the Omaha hi-low, and I was in 10 games, including being the chip leader in the Stars $10 rebuy with two tables to go, raising every hand in that. So, it was a little hectic that night, but I don’t think that had anything to do with me losing the Omaha hi-low. I timed out on a couple of screens a couple of times, and I sat out of some games for a little bit when things got too hectic, but I’m used to it, I guess you could say.
SPG: But there’s a difference between playing 10 screens of no-limit hold’em at once and playing even nine screens of no-limit hold’em and one screen of limit Omaha eight-or-better at once. Does that even affect your concentration at all, playing such dissimilar games?
KS: Not really. In the hi-low, especially approaching the final table bubble, I definitely have to concentrate more on the hi-low tournament. But I have two monitors, and there’s one quadrant that is my main-focus game, so my biggest tournament of the night will go there; that’s where the Omaha hi-low was.
SPG: OK. Thanks for doing this interview with me, Kevin.
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