Tournament Trail Q and A -- David Steicke

David Steicke has a record in high-roller poker tournaments that can be envied by the very best in the game. In 2007, he entered his first high-roller event at the PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour stop in Macau and made the final table in his third poker tournament ever. He finished third in that event to cash for $110,592 -- his first career cash. One year later he made the final table of the APPT Macau high-roller event once again, finishing in fifth place for a $89,743 payday.

His latest triumph in the high-stakes tournament arena came last week when he won the Aussie Millions Poker Championship $100,000 no-limit hold'em challenge. His first major tournament win came when he beat 22 of the world's best poker players to claim a first-place prize worth $807,780. Steicke now holds $1,207,950 in career tournament winnings, the lion's share of which has come from high-roller event success.

Card Player caught up with the commodities trader from Hong Kong after the victory in Melbourne, and he talked about what draws him to compete against the world's best poker players with a lot of cash on the line.

Ryan Lucchesi: How does it feel to top such an impressive field?

David Steicke: Yeah, I’m on top of the moon. This is the 64th tournament I’ve played in and I haven’t won anything before. I’ve had a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth-place finish but I actually hadn’t won anything. I made a few final tables, and I’ve been playing poker for one and a half years. I knew I was going to get there one day, and today was…I though today would be it because this is 64th tournament, and the number 8 is very luck in Hong Kong, where I live. This was the eighth tournament I’ve played in at Crown.

RL: You’ve done well in high-roller events. What leads you to compete so favorably in the toughest fields?

DS: I play more properly because it is a large buy-in and in the smaller events I just try to double up early. Also, in the smaller events you don’t get that many chips, and in the high-roller events you get a lot of chips, so you can be patient…the other reason I wanted to play this is because you just learn from good players. If you want to beat the best, you’ve got to play the best. I got to play with the best here. J.C. Tran is a great player; from what I saw he’s really, really high caliber.

RL: Do you think it is to your advantage to fly under the radar, because in this field these guys are all known entities?

DS: Yeah, that was a positive for me. Yesterday, the first table I sat down at there was Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius, and they didn’t know me from a bar of soap. They were having raising wars and having fun since they go back a long ways and they know how each other plays.

RL: You said that you’ve only been playing poker for a year and a half. What were you doing before poker that has allowed you to play a lot of high-roller events?

DS: My first tournament was the APPT in Korea, and my second tournament in 2007 was in Macau, and I didn’t do well in the main event, and then the high-roller came up. I was hemming and hawing and I scratched around at the cash machine and got the money together for that and played. I didn’t really know what I was doing but somehow I found my way to the final table…but I’ve played so many tournaments since then that I think my game has improved a lot. It’s a funny thing that the more you play, the more you know that you don’t know.

RL: Would you agree that you have placed yourself on an accelerated learning curve in these high-roller events?

DS: Yeah, it was all good players in this one. When you play these other events you get a whole mixed bag.

RL: What was your profession before poker?

DS: You see, I’m playing for fun really. I’m a trader by background. I trade commodities and I do that Monday to Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday I look for some recreation and play some poker.

RL: Are you still involved in the market?

DS: Yeah.

RL: Is the poker more profitable these days?

DS: Uh...well, after this one, yeah.

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