Big Slick Poker

It could be argued that the best German poker player is 25 year-old Sebastian Ruthenberg.

According to this poker interview, Ruthenberg began playing in 2004, but didn’t start taking the game seriously until 2006 after he finished his education. Fast forward to two years later, and Sebastian finished 11th on the Card Player POY Standings. This fantastic finish was fueled by two huge wins. First, Sebastian won the 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo World Championship at the World Series of Poker. The buy-in for that event was $5,000. Over 250 of the world’s best players competed and Ruthenberg bested them all. His final opponent was five-time WSOP bracelet winner Chris “Jesus” Ferguson.

Ruthenberg’s second big win of the year came on the European Poker Tour (EPT). Season five of the EPT kicked off in September with the Barcelona Poker Open. A hefty €8,000 buy-in and a huge field of 609 players left a massive €1,361,000 waiting for the eventual winner, Ruthenberg. That win landed Sebastian in elite company. On the year, only a small handful of players can lay claim to besting Ruthenberg’s enormous winnings of $2.3 million.

As if his year hadn’t already been impressive enough, Ruthenberg closed things out by narrowly winning another EPT event. The €5,000 buy-in EPT Prague event took place just a few days ago. Ruthenberg was ousted in 9th place for €42,800, a truly great finish in a field of 570 players.

So what’s his secret? In his interview with PokerTips.org, Ruthenberg advices “reading, reading, and more reading”. Clearly, poker books and online poker strategy guides have been key to Ruthenberg’s path to riches. He also recommends bankroll management and patience. This understanding of the variance associated with poker is key to being successful in the game. Multi-table tournaments in particular are known for their brutal ups and downs. Since usually 25-33% of a prize pool goes to whoever wins the tournament, the stretches between victories can be long and tough for pro poker players.

As we head into 2009, it will be fun to monitor which German player finishes the highest in the Player of the Year Standings. Just for fun, here are some odds on who that person will be:

3:1 Field
6:1 Sebastian Ruthenberg
8:1 Florian Langmann
8:1 Johannes Strassmann
10:1 Thomas Bihl
10:1 Alexander Jung
12:1 Andreas Krause

You have to give the field a lot of credit here. After all, stars such as Langmann, Strassmann, and Ruthenberg all basically came out of nowhere in the past 18 months. It seems reasonable to expect that some German poker player who is currently unknown could rise to fame in 2009.

Poker is a game of exploiting your opponents’ mistakes. When you slip, they profit, and when they slip, you profit. With that in mind, it’s important to pinpoint ways in which your opponents are profiting off of your mistakes. Of course, I can’t know what mistakes you are most prone to making… but if you’re anything like most poker players, you’re probably vulnerable to committing the following four mistakes from time to time.

Playing too many hands from the blinds

It’s a big temptation for a lot of players to call raises from the blinds. The logic goes, “well I’ve already got $x invested in the pot… so why not put in a few more chips to see if I get lucky on the flop?” This line of thinking has led a lot of people to losing a lot of money. In general, playing hands from the blind positions is the least profitable position at the table. Of course, that seems sensible since, even if you do fold preflop, you’ve lost some chips from the blind you posted. However, don’t add insult to injury by playing “catch up” with marginal hands from the blinds. You’ll be out of position for the rest of the betting rounds. Being out of position is something you should avoid as much as possible.

Playing too many hands from early position

There are two primary things to consider when weighing whether or not to play a hand: the hand’s absolute value and what position you’re in. A common novice mistake is to disregard what position you’re in and only evaluate hands based on some rigid, absolute scale. In other words, certain hands are always played and certain hands are always folded; position doesn’t matter. This is a very sub-optimal approach to poker. In reality, the value of a hand is very much determined by the position you’re in. Without getting too specific (and thus ignoring other necessary variables), a hand like pocket fives could very easily be folded in early position but played for a strong raise on the button. The rule of thumb is that hands tend to be much less valuable in early position since you’ll be first to act on all subsequent betting rounds.

Overplaying TPTK

TPTK is poker lingo for “top pair, top kicker”. For example, if you have Ace-Nine and the flop comes Nine-Four-Two, you have TPTK. Generally speaking, players tend to overvalue these hands. To be sure, they have value, but they’re not necessarily a “close your eyes and get all of the chips in” type of hand. In a tournament where the stacks are short, it is generally more understandable that you’d play that type of hand for your whole stack. However, in deep stack cash games, be careful how eager you get with these hands. In some circumstances, it might not be a bad idea to slow down at some point and limit the amount of bets that make it into the pot.

“Seeing a lot of hands” early in tournaments

One common “fish strategy” in tournaments is to “play a lot of hands while the blinds are low.” In theory, this isn’t necessarily a bad strategy. However, in practice, the types of players who tend to be attracted to a strategy like this are the types of players who don’t know how to implement it very well. I would recommend beginner- to intermediate-experienced players avoid these cutsie “play a bunch of hands” styles of poker. Until you’re really experienced, it’s a good rule of thumb to keep your decisions infrequent and relatively simple.