Poker Tournament Trail -- Thierry Van Den BergVan Den Berg Talks About Becoming a Team PokerStars Pro and Winning His Seat for European Poker Tour Events |
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Thierry Van Den Berg has won $1,226,299 playing tournament poker during a poker career that dates back to 2005. The majority of his success has come on the PokerStars European Poker Tour, where he made two final tables during season four in Baden and Dublin. He has cashed a total of seven times at EPT events. He also run deep in the World Series of Poker main event twice, cashing in 81st place in 2007 and 138th place in 2009.
Van Den Berg has also become a force online, where he has won or cashed in 39 events. He is also quite skilled at winning his seats for big buy-in EPT events in online satellites. He was recently picked to be a member of Team PokerStars Pro, joining fellow Netherlanders Noah Boeken and Marcel Luske.
Card Player caught up with Van Den Berg recently in Barcelona and he talked about his poker career and the current EPT season.
Ryan Lucchesi: What is your opinion of the new deep-stack structure at EPT events?
Thierry Van Den Berg: I love it. It’s always better for the better players to put more chips into the game. The better pros are going to have more of an edge when this happens. The good thing now is that, because Internet players reraise a lot, you can call reraises. You can see flops and play big pots. You can lose 10K and still have some chips left.
RL: Do you think the weaker players have nowhere left to hide in these events?
TB: The weaker players can always have hands. I think this year you will see a lot of pros at the final tables of the EPT events. People are going to make more mistakes, and since everyone gets the same hands in poker over the long run, it’s about how many mistakes you make each time.
RL: How does it feel to be a new Team PokerStars Pro member from Holland?
TB: It feels great, and I’m really glad that PokerStars gave me the opportunity to show my stuff. I think I have done well in the past. I haven’t played poker for that long, and I don’t play all of the EPT events, because I always pay for my own buy-ins. I will play if I qualify online. I think it is good to be a part of the team, and I have to prove myself now. I don’t have any big finishes yet; I have made a couple of final tables and cashed a bunch of times. I almost always make the money. I hope I win an event, and then I will get a real good deal.
RL: You’re very good at winning satellite tournaments to make these EPT events. What is the key to winning a seat?
TB: Don’t be afraid [about having to] win the tournament; you don’t have to win the tournament to win a seat, so you can fold a little bit more. There’s a lot of fold-equity in these games. It’s like a sit-and-go strategy. The structure is a lot better, though. Level by level, I know what to do, that’s really important. There’s a lot of fold-equity in satellites. You can also fold kings or aces sometimes; you don’t have to do it much, but if you see a big raise in front of you and you already have enough chips for your seat, there is no reason to risk kings. In satellites, you need to double up at some point; how can win if you don’t double up at some point?
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