Fredrik Paulsson is a well known Swedish cash game professional who makes his online home at Party Poker. His blog, http://fredrikpaulsson.blogspot.com/ has received worldwide followship from fellow cash game players and his insights into tilt control and 6-handed game theory have catapulted him into the mid-stakes where he is one of the top steady winners over the last year. Poker News Daily caught up with Fredrik at the World Series of Poker’s Main Event in Las Vegas where he was making his WSOP debut and gave unique insight into a European cash game player’s perspectives on Las Vegas, meeting big name pros and how to mentally handle playing in the Main Event.
PND: Can you give a brief introduction of your poker history and your current poker stakes/game?
FP: Basically I’m an online cash game player, and I started playing in the fall of 2005. I had dabbled a little at Paradise Poker around 1999 but stopped. I had completely missed the “poker boom”; my return to online poker had nothing to do with Chris Moneymaker or anything like that, but it was simply a matter of me being sick and bored in a hotel room in Mexico. So I spent some time playing online poker, and got hooked.
PND: How did you satellite into the World Series of Poker Main Event?
FP: A website I frequent, CardsChat, had set up a deal with Party Poker to run a $5 tournament where the first prize was a $12,000 Main Event package. So for $5, I had a share of about $13,000 (2nd and 3rd place paid as well) which also had an overlay, which was the main reason I entered to begin with. I don’t like to play tournaments, and I don’t particularly like to play live, but it was an investment like that I just couldn’t pass up on.
PND: As a European making his first trip to Las Vegas, what were your first impressions of the city and many casinos (and more specifically poker rooms)?
FP: Very first impression? “Wow, they sure like to place slot machines everywhere.” Lori – my wife – called the strip “one big amusement park” which I think is spot-on. My impression of the poker rooms is… Well, I don’t know. I can’t say that I really formed an “impression.” Play is obviously softer than it is online (online, I’d be happy to find a table with one guy doing stuff like limping J5o; live I more often than not found that half the table would be doing stuff like that), and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that drinks were free, but other than that I’m not sure what to say about it.
PND: How did you mentally prepare yourself for the Main Event?
FP: In a couple of different ways, addressing a couple of different factors:
1. I reminded myself that unless I draw a very tough table, I’m likely to be among the better players at my table on the first day. I reminded myself not to be intimidated by live players just because they can do chip tricks (and I can’t) or because they’re physically bigger or tougher-looking than I am. I reminded myself that their need to look tough (sun glasses, hood, tough-guy stare, “bling”) is their way of compensating for lack of actual poker skill.
2. I thought about how it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t do well in the tournament. It was, essentially, a freeroll and the worst case scenario would still be a big win for me – it’s maybe a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
3. That said, I was still there to maximize my chances of winning. Trying to “stay in the tournament” was not my goal, it was to make as much money as possible. I thought about playing aggressive and not being afraid to take the necessary risks when the opportunities presented themselves.
PND: Did you do anything online like play in big field tournaments to prepare your game for the Main Event?
FP: You know, I thought about doing that, but no – I didn’t. I did, however, hire Matt Matros (a StoxPoker coach and seasoned tournament player who’s done well for himself) to guide my thinking in the right direction when it came to tournament poker, as I’m almost exclusively a cash game player. It was a very interesting hour of tips and tricks and I think anyone who’s willing to pay $10,000 to play in a tournament would do themselves a favor and pay another couple of hundred dollars for coaching before they go. I was very happy with the coaching itself; too bad it didn’t work out this time, but such is the nature of tournaments.
PND: You got caught up in the entire Day 1D registration mess. Can you talk about what caused that debacle in your circumstance as well as how it was resolved by eventually getting you a seat?
FP: I honestly don’t know the exact details, but to the best of my understanding, what happened was that Party Poker had a verbal agreement with Harrah’s staff about their players registering each morning. On day 1d, as you know, all seats were sold out, which meant that we – there were 16 of us playing from Party Poker that day – were essentially shut out. However, they did arrange for us to get seats as 16 other players had been eliminated. This is the strongest indication that the screw-up was on Harrah’s side and not Party Poker’s, since 300-or-so other players were NOT allowed late entry and I don’t see why Party would have received special treatment in this.
So I got to start late, after the first break, with a full starting stack. I’m not happy about missing the first level of play – especially since that’s when play was 300 blinds deep, which is good for a cash game specialist – but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
PND: When you sat down to start playing the Main Event, you ended up sitting at a table with then chip leader Josh Arieh. Also at your table were several known poker pros that regularly play $5-$10 and $10-$20; can you speak to that experience?
FP: I think it bears mentioning that I didn’t know who Josh Arieh was. No disrespect to Mr. Arieh, of course, it’s just that I don’t follow poker on TV and unless you’re a known pro whose blog I like to read (and there aren’t even many of those) or a former Main Event winner or an author of a poker book I happen to own, the chances of me recognizing you are pretty slim. That said, I figured from various interactions – and his Full Tilt attire – that he may be a “noteworthy pro” and after I was done playing for the day I googled “full tilt pro josh” (he had referred to himself as Josh at some point), found pictures of Josh Arieh, learned that he had won two bracelets and that was that. He seemed like a nice guy.
Some other guys at the table mentioned in passing that they played mid-to-high stakes online, and after some awkward moments of trying to decipher online nicknames/IDs into something pronounceable it turned out that some of them had played each other. Like I mentioned above, I felt good about my chances of being one of the better players at the table, but unfortunately, this table was not one of them. I wasn’t the worst at the table, but my edge on any of these guys was probably small to negative. Anyway, after finding out who some of the other players were, the dynamics of the table shifted radically. Especially one guy, seated immediately on my left, overadjusted and managed to outlevel – thinking that I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know-that-you-know one time too many – himself in at least two spots with thin value bets that then were “forced” to call a raise because he-knew-that-they-knew, etc. It was funny.
PND: Sorry to bring up an old wound, but can you talk about how you busted and the hands that led up to it?
FP: The hands that led to it were essentially every hand I was dealt in the entire tournament. I wasn’t exactly card dead, but I got the good cards at the wrong times. Most of the Main Event was for me an exercise in slowly bleeding chips. I won only a single pot in the first level I played, and that pot was small. And when I had a strong enough hand to open, Josh Arieh had a knack for 3-betting me. Of course, he 3-bet everyone almost all the time (I’m not saying he went after me specifically), but the times he did it to me I just happened to have the weakest part of my range and had to fold. There was a lot of that.
Finally, coming back from the last break into the last level, I believe the blinds were $200/$400 with $50 antes and my stack had dwindled down to about $9,000, and so I was in push/fold mode. Double up or go home. I guess some people might play conservatively at that point because I was so close to reaching day 2, but… What was the point of me starting day 2 with a tiny stack? No, as I had told myself before even going to Las Vegas, I was there to play the best poker I could and that included being aggressive with a major risk of being eliminated when the circumstances dictated it. And here they clearly did.
I got a little unlucky early on in the last level, being dealt aces and squeezing a raiser and a caller with my shove but unfortunately no one looked me up. I was then dealt AK a little bit later and shoved over another guy’s open-raise, but he folded, too. With hands like that, I’m not looking for the fold equity, I’m looking for the double up, so I was a bit unhappy about the folds. I did get the call a little while later, though, when it was folded to me in the cut-off and I shoved with 99, and the button called with AA. His hand held up, I said good night to the table and went back to the hotel. Very undramatic.
PND: For Europeans making the trek all the way to Las Vegas to play in the World Series, do you have any specific insight to share with them to make the trip and experience of the Main Event a successful one?
FP: Arrive in Vegas early and deal with the jetlag. Despite landing four days prior to playing, I was still pretty sleepy when I reached the end of day 1. If you plan on touching down the day before playing, make sure to adjust your time zones before you leave for Vegas (i.e. stay up late). Bring plenty of money because when you’re eating in restaurants on The Strip, you’ll pay for the pleasure. Oh, and breakfast’s not included in the hotel rate, which you should probably be aware of (I wasn’t). Also, don’t bring a 3-month old baby if you can avoid it (I couldn’t), because you’ll find that there are preciously few things you can do with a kid that old in Las Vegas.
PND: While at the Rio or during your stay in Las Vegas did you run into any poker celebrities (be it online or “live”) and if so, who did you meet and how did it go?
FP: Depends on what you mean by “run into.” I spotted several big-name pros around the Rio, but I didn’t bother talking to any of them or even taking their pictures. I’m not all that impressed by fame, really. I did get to shake the hands of Dr. Pauly and Short-Stacked Shamus, however, two poker bloggers I respect a great deal and that was cool; they were both surprisingly nice to me given that they were there trying to work and probably had better things to do than deal with people like myself. And of course, I sat at the table with Josh Arieh (who, as mentioned above, I wouldn’t have been able to name before or even during my play in the WSOP), and Mike Sexton was the Party Poker representative so I guess I met him, too. He was cordial enough.
PND: What are the chances that you’ll head back out to play in the Main Event again in the foreseeable future?
FP: Close to zero. The chance that I’ll manage to satellite myself into another tournament ticket is pretty small to begin with and I won’t even try unless I can find another big-overlay tournament like the one I won this year, and I’m definitely not going to pony up the entry fee myself. It was great meeting a lot of people, and it was interesting to see Las Vegas, but I’m not itching to go back. Like I said, I stayed for much longer than I really wanted to (I think 5 days would have been plenty) and right now, with less than a week distancing myself from Vegas, I’m not enthusiastic about going back. Maybe that’ll change. But if I do go back, my visit will be shorter and I’ll try my best to either not bring the family or find a baby sitter for the baby for the time we’ll go there. Since the latter is unlikely and my wife is currently in a state of “over my dead body” when it comes to the idea of flying anywhere (let alone Las Vegas,) and I’m not sure I’d want to go alone, I think the earliest I’ll be back is 2011. And even that’s unlikely.
