#287 - FTOPS Bulletin - Event #6 - The Stud in Eight-or-Better, Yuval “yuvee04″ Bronshtein

Although my own performance in FTOPS has been predictably dismal, I actually KNOW someone who won one of the events. This is a mixed blessing. On one hand, I’m thrilled for the guy and for the chance to give you a bit of insight into one of the winners. On the other, he won Stud Eight-or-Better, in which I had the chip lead for nearly an hour (the first hour, which is also known as The Useless Hour) so while I don’t begrudge him his success … I … begrudge him … his success.

The winner of FTOPS #6 was yuvee04, Yuval Bronshtein. I met Yuval in London during the WSOP-E. He was seated across from me in the HORSE event, a young guy wearing a tee shirt and a short jacket with close-cropped hair and, though he hardly ever spoke, had this leering grin that said (to me), “Aren’t you pissed that I’m half your age and I think I’m way better than you?”

I got into a couple hands with him and figured I’d wipe that smirk off his face. I got news for you: throwing chips at someone doesn’t work. He was an extremely solid player who, at least to me, gave off a vibe that he was better than the cards when in fact he was merely better WITH the cards. By the time I busted that first evening, Bronshtein had a big stack and I had realized he was clearly skilled in the variety of games. In fact, it wasn’t a surprise to me that he made the final table of the HORSE.

By that time, I had done some more homework and found out that Yuval was 23, lived near Atlanta, was killing the local games, and finished third in a Pot Limit Hold ‘Em event at the 2007 WSOP (for more than a hundred grand) and cashed in a NLHE event there too. PLHE and NLHE aren’t even games he plays a lot – he told me that the first time he ever played PLHE was in that WSOP event. Bronshtein has developed as an old-school player. He excels in limit poker and plays all the games well.

He later told me “I make most of my money playing high stakes Razz on Full Tilt. I have played all stakes, usually $50-$100 up to $1,000-$2,000. Last year, I earned $300,000 from Razz alone. One time I played Phil Ivey heads up and won $10,000 from him and have won as much as $50,000 in one night’s work.”

In fact, he flew to London to play just the HORSE, so he paid 50-100% juice and made a big profit, something that both impresses and annoys me. “I have played 11 live tournaments, cashed in 5 of them, and made 2 final tables, but those are more for pride than anything else.”

Most of his time online is spent in Razz cash games as yuvee04. “I feel that I am the one who has really helped Full Tilt establish Razz as a main game on the site. I have induced so much action, filled up the tables, and had a lot of success. When I first got into Razz I would sit alone at a $20-$40 table and wait for action because no one played Razz. A few weeks, the table was always full. I would do the same thing for higher stakes.”

Occasionally, yuvee04 plays some of the big tournaments on Full Tilt, especially the Sunday HORSE. He finished second one recent Sunday. When we visited briefly after he busted from the HORSE final table in London, he made it clear that though online poker wasn’t his focus, he was hoping to attract someone’s attention at Full Tilt - someone with more influence than me, which includes just about everybody - to possibly develop a professional relationship with the site. WSOP final table? Winning an FTOPS event? You getting any of this, Uncle Tilty?

Bronshtein has a bit of a chip on his shoulder, which is not necessarily a bad thing for a poker player or inappropriate to his accomplishments. (I don’t really follow the Razz cash games enough to verify his results but I don’t have any reason not to believe him.) “I have a large following and fan base; everyone on the site knows who I am because I’m ‘the main Razz guy.’ I also feel that I have accomplished a lot as a pro poker player, while playing mainly on Full Tilt, and also having lots of live tournament success. I’ve done a lot to help the site and having my name in red will guarantee that every table and tournament I sit at will quickly fill up because I have a reputation and people want to play against me.”

In a couple tournaments over the last few weeks, we’d seen each other playing and said hello. Because I knew, from painfully close range, of Bronshtein’s skill at high/lo poker, I made a point of watching him from early in the FTOPS SEOB tournament. As my fortunes were on the decline, we were briefly at a table together. (I knew better than to tangle with him unless absolutely necessary.) And after I busted, I watched him during my long and ultimately frustrating tour of the next FTOPS event, the $300 + $22 NLHE.

From the few hands I watched closely, I saw what I saw in London. An extremely aggressive player who knows how to extract the most when he has the boss hand. By this time, I noted that his most common action was FOLDING. He knew how to pick his spots, an essential skill in the later stages of a Limit tournament, where stacks are relatively shorter and injudicious hand selection is like a Roach Motel (you can get in, but you can’t get out). And then he extracted the maximum payoff when he found a hand worth playing.

As younger players swarm Full Tilt and enjoy greater and more conspicuous success, fossils like me are increasingly recognizing that “young” and “inexperienced” are definitely not synonyms. Yuval mentioned to me that he started the final table with 300,000 in chips (around average) but was down to 100,000 two hands later. This is where his experience – garnered during recent but intense play – carried him through. “I thought back to the HORSE event in London, when I started the final table in second place, lost some chips early, and never regained my composure.” We had a similar impression watching that final table: Jennifer Harman epitomized what it means to play like a pro, rebounding from bad cards, bad luck, bad position, and a short stack. Remembering both his own failure in London and how Jennifer handled it, “this made me believe I COULD play my game and win this event, despite being down to only 100,000.”

Here are a few SEOB tips Bronshtein was willing to share by e-mail:

• “Play hands that are good high hands, or good low hands with potential for high as well. This game seems like Razz at first, but if you play it like Razz, you will lose your shirt. A hand like 2-7-8 should fly into the muck 8.5 out of 10 times unless you are the bring-in. A hand like 2-5-7, with very limited high potential, and decent for low, should be played when you are getting the right price. Don’t call 2 bets with it, though, thinking it’s the same as Razz.

• “The value of an ace is higher in this game than any other game except perhaps for OEOB. I usually try to play low hands that are either suited, connected, or include an ace in them. I also want to emphasize that a 9 is absolutely the worst card in this game, although not as bad as it is in OEOB of course.”

• “Don’t play 7-8-9. You will lose, or get lucky and win half the pot.”

• “This next idea is very important: don’t slow play. It’s better to raise and get some of the low hands out of there to avoid splitting the pot. It’s better to scoop a small pot, then to chop the pot in most cases. The only instance i will slow play is if i am rolled up, and this is in order to build value, and create a bigger pot, where winning half the pot may be greater equity then winning a small full pot.”

• “Another strategy which is very important is stealing the antes. When you have position, and an advantage in your card showing, you are getting the right pot odds to attempt to steal the antes and pad your stack. Even if you have junk, you can catch good and get them to fold, plus you can easily get away if you catch bad on fourth. Often, if i am the only player with an ace showing, I will complete or raise regardless of what my other two cards are, because most of the time the players will either put me on a big high hand, or a big low hand. If I think they are weak, I will keep betting as if I have another ace in the hole, or as if I am drawing to the nut low-draw.”

• “DON’T CHASE DRAWS. The only time I will play an open-ended straight draw or a flush draw is if I have a low-draw with it for backup, or a big pair. I have seen so many people chase a naked flush draw, only to get scooped, or to get lucky to win half of the pot. If I have the nut low possible at the time, and can make a winning high hand, I would bet as much as I can at that point to make other drawers pay and get more value for my hand.

We e-mailed after the PLOEOB event, in which he busted short of the money after building a decent stack and losing a couple big pots after getting his chips in good. He found some merit in my publication of Chris Ferguson’s thoughts about how to approach the game. I appreciated the compliment and thought he meant it; a number of skilled players told me they enjoyed reading about how another very skilled player looks at a new game and that they learned from it.

He told me he was traveling in Europe for awhile but was looking forward to the $500 + $35 HORSE event on Thursday night. Frankly, I like his chances.