1 Who are they - first Elky - hes a French guy who is always on TV as the chip leader in lots of events. He final tables often and has won millions. I am most interested in how he gets such an early chip lead and how he maintains it. Now Jovial Gent - real name Yevgeniy Timoshenko and also known as atimus in the forums - this is a phenomenal young player who I have watched since he knocked me out of the Aussie millions a couple of years back. I played with him for several hours in that event and won plenty of chips off him before he knocked me out in 33rd place. Later I found out he was an online whizz and since has won millions of dollars in APPT and WPT events. So I like to watch him play events I cannot afford to enter and try to learn what makes him so good.
2. So Elky - how does he get the early chip lead. It seems he plays incredibly tight early in the tournament but when he gets a decent pair of AK he gets full value out of them by betting his whole stack. Most training sites suggest small-ball poker and smallish bets - Elky seems to turn this on its head by pushing his whole stack in if he has an edge, and often doubling up. It is only 2 or 3 double ups and he is chips leader. Also once he has chips he plays very aggressively aganst the shorter stacks and will call a short-stack push with marginal hands nr 50/50 races. Often he wins and this again gives him the big stack in the tournaments.
3. Mid tourney play - both Elky and Jovial appear to be aggressive in stealing blinds 2 or more times per orbit. Interestingly they steal off all players and do not repeat-steal from one player very often. JovialGent seems to often steal 2 in a row then go quiet for a bit, whereas Elky seems to focus more on stealing from the shorter stacks.
4. Late play - both payers are extremely aggressive with 2.2x min raises several times per orbit. If people play back they sometimes fold and sometimes call/cbet. At the final table JovialGent was obv. aware of the difference in prize money between 9th and 4th/5th so he was not afraid to cbet small, turnbet small and then put a midsized stack all in via a river bet. The mid-size stack always folded as several small stacks were on the table.
Interestingly Elky would build his stack to top 5 with up to 20 players remaining and then go very quiet until the final table, not wanting to get involved in the pushfest/gamble to get to the last 9. He was happy to get to the final table in 6th or 7th place in chips. This was completely different from Jovial Gent who kept stealing/increasing his chip stack right up to the final table.
On the final table Jovial Gent continued to be aggressive right from the start whereas Elky picked his spots.
Hopefully watching these players do so well will help me do better - time will tell!
No comments:
Post a Comment