Headed into Day 4 of the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, Florida native Amir Lehavot holds the 128th largest stack overall out of 789 players remaining. Levahot, the Day 2B chip leader, sat down with Poker News Daily to share his thoughts.
Poker News Daily: What is your main goal for Day 4 on Saturday, when the money bubble will likely be burst?
Lehavot: I just want to chip ahead as much as possible. Making the money would be nice, but it’s not extremely important. The more chips you have, the better off you are. Because of how my day went on Friday, I’m happy with how many chips I have. Anytime your chip count goes down, it’s not a fun experience. The day went badly for me and it was tough in terms of not winning hands and losing big pots.
PND: Is it daunting that the Main Event’s chip leader, Team PokerStars Pro member Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, has 1.4 million chips?
Lehavot: It’s just a number. It doesn’t matter if someone has one million chips or two million chips when you’re so deep. I’ve learned over time that it doesn’t make that much difference.
PND: Was the attendance at the 2009 WSOP Main Event, 6,494 players, what you expected?
Lehavot: It was pretty much what I expected. It shows that the poker economy is alive and well. I play online a lot, so I know the games are still pretty active. I didn’t come here expecting it to be completely dead.
PND: Living in Florida, do you make it out to the local casinos and card rooms to play?
Lehavot: I mostly play online because I like that, online, I can get a lot more play in. I can get 50 to 60 tournaments per day in online. If I play live, I can only enter one. It gives me a chance to put in a lot more volume. I used to play more often live. Now, I just play in a few big events. I played in the Shooting Star event this year, but that and the Main Event are really the only two big tournaments I enter.
PND: Talk about your new website, PokerWit.com.
Lehavot: I had a different take on how people can talk about poker online. For poker players to be able to talk with other poker players is very valuable. Forum sites right now are based on plain message boards. With all of the new web tools coming out, I wondered why anyone hasn’t tried to customize something for poker.
PND: Do you have a background in web design or online marketing?
Lehavot: My background is in engineering and marketing, but not in web development, so I hired a developer to help me. I worked with him, tested it out, and fully launched the site last month. Traffic has been steadily growing and picked up a lot over the past two days with all of the exposure I have been getting.
PND: Can you talk about the environment at the WSOP Main Event?
Lehavot: The Main Event is a very interesting tournament. It’s different from most other tournaments because you get such a large field. There are 6,500 players putting up $10,000 to enter. There are a lot of professional players and also a lot of amateurs. The play is very dependent on a person’s background and incentives. A lot of people now are focused on making the money. Some are more focused on trying to accumulate chips. It’s very different since players have such a variety of backgrounds.
