During Jesse May’s dissection of the PartyPoker Big Game he talked about the coming of age of Dominik Nitsche. The German is still so young he has only ever appeared twice at the World Series of Poker (WSOP); hard to imagine when you consider in his pomp he was one of the most experienced live tournament grinders in the world in terms of volume.
In 2012, Nitsche received the glory that so often accompanies all of the hard work. He picked up a WSOP bracelet during his first-ever trip to Vegas and then promptly won the inaugural World Poker Tour (WPT) event on South African soil when he took the title in Johannesburg.
Despite that success it’s time for a change.
“I’m not known as a cash game player but I have been focusing on them a lot lately. I am getting bored of tournaments and so during the WSOP I decided I was going to learn how to play cash games. I mean cash game players are better than tournament players anyway, so why not learn how to play them? So I started playing $5/10 and $10/20 games online. I have actually played 30k hands in the last few weeks and have made a profit.”
It’s a cliché but Nitsche lives and breathes poker. If you cut him open playing cards would fall everywhere and there would be a lot of heart. You can tell that he has a very analytical mind. He’s a man with a plan and his appearance at the Big Game was no exception.
“I play 40BB cash games and although not a lot of people like them as a tournament player I believe I have an edge in them. The $200 straddle suited my game perfectly because there is now more money in the pot. I figured I could buy-in for $10k and it gives me the equivalent of a 40BB stack in an online game. People like Sam Trickett and Jungleman are great players but when the game gets down to 40BB I believe I have a big advantage, especially in that set-up where Trickett is opening to $700 pre flop. If I’m in there with a $10k stack I’m not going to make any mistakes and its really hard for him to play. I can three-bet him really small and he has to adjust, so as long as they kept opening big and I had a short stack I felt I had an advantage.”
In continuance with Nitsche’s cash game learning curve the German left with a profit. Some might call it a classic hit and run; so does Nitsche, but he doesn’t care. There are no flies on him…it was all part of the plan – a plan to win money for him and his friends who backed him.
“The game went great for me and then suddenly I had 150BB. So as part of my strategy I left. People can say I hit and run and I did, because that was the plan. I never wanted to play 150bb deep, out of position, against the Jungleman. I did it for two hands and thought I suck at this I am gone. Marvin {Rettenmaier} had 10% before he sat down, David Vamplew and Andrew Teng also had 10% and I told them that if I was out of position, deep stacked, against a good player then I would get out unless I had position on a fish, and I had position on Sam Trickett so I got out.”
