FULL TILT POKER BLOG

Interview with a Bracelet Winner, Part I

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

Last night Rafe Furst won the $1,500 buy-in pot-limit event. I interviewed him this afternoon in the Full Tilt hospitality suite.

JG: How was the party last night?

RF: We were all so exhausted. We thought it was appropriate to go over to the Tilted Kilt [a bar at the Rio] and have a beer. We had a somewhat subdued but really happy celebration and then I crashed. It was three solid days of 12 hours of poker. And as you can imagine, I didn’t get too much sleep after being jacked up on adrenaline. It wasn’t the total party you would expect.

JG: You appeared extremely cool throughout the day. How did you keep such a calm appearance?

RF: It’s not that I don’t feel the same emotions, it’s just that I decide not to express them. [I do this] partially because it gets me in a zone and rhythm I want to stay in. And partly it’s strategic. I remember seeing Pete Sampras when he burst on the scene, winning the U.S. Open as a teenager. He looked like a total ice man around all these well-known pros. Johnny Carson was interviewing him, asking how he remained so stoic. He said, “It’s part of my strategy. I want people to think there’s nothing they can do to get to me.”

I kind of feel the same way. I have an advantage if people think there’s nothing that can happen that can rattle me. So it’s partly a strategic thing and it’s partly something to keep me in the mental zone.

JG: Going in, were you nervous under the ESPN cameras and lights?
RF: I was oddly calm. I have played a few times before in front of the camera, once at a final table that I won. That was at the Ultimate Poker Challenge last year. So I felt I had a little bit of an advantage in that respect – that I wouldn’t be as nervous.

You know, I’ve been playing for a long time. I was confident in my abilities. I didn’t see the need to change up strategies that were working. I’ve seen enough situations where I feel I can react to whatever’s coming down the pike. So there’s really no reason to be nervous. For me, I was really focusing on what I was doing and making good decisions.

JG: John Juanda had a short day, but other than that, how do you feel your opponents adjusted to the higher pressure situation?

RF: I don’t know if it was the pressure, or the difference between the structure of pot-limit and no-limit, because most of us are used to playing a whole lot more no-limit. At that point, if it was no-limit, I think most of my opponents would have been playing correctly. But in the pot-limit structure, being first in the pot and picking up some significant blinds is not such a good thing, in my opinion. I’d rather be the second one in, getting someone to commit some of their chips and coming over the top. It’s much easier to pick up a pot that way. The other thing that’s different is that there are no antes in pot-limit, so the value of each pot is diminished. I guess I was trying to look for mistakes that I could exploit.

They all played solid, but I figured the mistake they were making was playing too aggressively, so I tightened up.

JG: I think Eric Lynch played well. He played very tight, then changed gears when it got down to 5-handed.

RF: Eric was a very tough opponent. I’d never played against him before, but after asking around I heard what an accomplished player he is, how experienced he is. I felt fortunate he was on my right. My strategy was to build up a good image and let him commit some chips on a pot where I could come over the top. I was going to let him have the small ones. But he played aggressively and well.

It’s hard to say exactly if he made mistakes at the end. I picked up some hands at the right time when he was playing very aggressively. You’ll see on TV, I wasn’t making moves, I was just playing the strength of my hands.

JG: That said, he did seem to have a lapse and make some errors. How were able to avoid that sort of lapse?

RF: The one place where I felt things were going a little awry was when we got back from dinner and were playing three-handed. We moved our positions around at that point and I don’t know if the new view of the table got me out of sorts or if it was that the blinds went up. It was probably the latter. I had to play aggressively because it was three-handed and the blinds were high.

I did feel out of sorts the first few hands and lost a good portion of my stack. But that happens, and the difference sometimes between being there [at the end] and not, is not losing your cool. You need to make good decisions regardless of the fact that you just lost half your stack. The way I try to think of it, if I have 300,000 in chips, it doesn’t matter how I got there, whether it’s from losing 300,000 or doubling up from 150,00. I try to think how would I feel if I just doubled up. I’d feel great.

JG: You only played one hand heads up. Let’s talk about the hand.
RF: Before we played head’s up, I had a little powwow with Phil Gordon. He’d been tracking how everyone played and was helping me analyze what strategies would work well. He said something really helpful. He said Rocky makes most of his mistakes post-flop, so I should try and play a lot of pots with him.

The very first hand, I picked up a nothing of a hand — 8-4 of diamonds. I was on the button and limped. I wanted to establish that I was going to play pots with him. The flop was a dream for me [T-8-4].

He bet 80,000 on the flop and I raised to 160,000. The question there is why didn’t I play it more aggressively. Clearly, I wanted him on the line. I was thinking, let’s get as many chips as possible out of him but let’s not snap the line. So I raised the minimum, and gave him chance to make a decision to either give up the hand or maybe [commit] all of his chips.

But the wheels came off the hand there, when the turn was a Ten, counterfeiting me.

[Rocky then bet 400,000 into Rafe].

My first thought was “Gosh darn it. I let him get away. I’m counterfeited. He’s got me beat with either a higher pair or a Ten. I’d be silly to continue with the hand.” But then I slowed down and thought about the situation. I tried to think about what hands would make sense given the way he played the hand. I didn’t think he had a Ten. He’d try to trap me with that. And I didn’t think he had a higher pair than 8s. He would have raised me after I limped on the button. The blinds were getting pretty steep and a pair is a monster heads up. I just didn’t see him having a pair.

I kind of figured him for a draw on the flop, or nothing. In the end I decided that I had a pretty good hand and there was unlikely to be a hand that had me beat, so I called.

[Rafe made a small raise to get in the last of Rocky’s chips.]

JG: There were a lot of suckouts in this tournament. And I think it’s unfortunate, because once it’s edited for television, that’s all you’re going to see. You’re going to miss a lot of good poker.

RF: It’s the nature of television. I’m sure ESPN was happy that I spiked the Ace. [Rafe hit a 2-outer to stay in the tournament.] There were a lot of miracle cards and they probably have to show that on TV. But it’s okay. I feel good about how I played and I’m glad I got the bracelet.

Part II of the Interview will post tomorrow on this blog.

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