Q&A with nicnicnic

poorbarman wrote: »

Keep up the good work nic.No questions,just keep it up.Just one....what site you playing those STTs on?(for obsverational purposes only)

I'm keeping the alias I'm playing ATM private but if you have any specific ?s in relation to stts just pm me and I'm only to happy to help

And another, boxing match HJ V R4AD..who wins?

Well I don't know any of the two lads personally so don't know,.

.

The Improver wrote: »

Hey Nicky, good stuff so far, just a few quick ones for you.

1.in the last Waterford fest when i doubled you up on the bubble do you think i should have folded considering the stack i had and especially when i picked up info on you earlier when you showed AAs KKs a couple of times?

No that hand was a cooler and you cant fold QQ in that spot against me esp with the blinds being what they were.

the fact that I showed the AA KK should make you want to call more. Setting up a play is the only reason I'm showing these cards.

2.when you sit down and play on line do you play only stts and how many hours do you put in?, or do play sats and mtt as well.

If I'm playing stts I just play, them Mtts can tilt me online I generally play one or two small ones when I'm finished for the day late at night on stars while watching a movie and browsing.

3.We have been on the same table quite a few times, what do you think of me as a player?

I think you have improved ( no pun intended ) emmencely since I first played with you, you have become much more positionally aware and you seem to put a lot more thought into what your doing while in a hand these days. but as with myself I think your still capable of the odd complete brain fart

Best of luck Keith.

tks Keith

rag2gar wrote: »

Nicky you are considered one of the top players in the country thanks to some very impressive results in Irish tournaments. What do you believe is key to making the step up from an average run of the mill tourney player to a top successful tournament winner?

This is going to sound cocky but TBH Gary I've never been a run of the mill player and played the bigger games right from the start and was competitive straight away in them. I was asked A similar ? to this in my blog recently and this is what I came up with


*** its very hard to quantify what makes a good tournament player and many different styles can be successful. All I can really advise you on is to play as much as possible, no amount of books can teach you experience. Yes you need basic poker maths but people can get boggled down with all the literature out there. Learn how to win first you can learn why your winning later.

I think you will learn a lot more by making mistakes and thinking about where it went wrong then reading about what mistakes to avoid. I consider myself very much a situational player and can play hands very differently then the pure theorists will dictate. All I can advise is play as much as you can and go with your reads don't be afraid to look silly if you think your right. I still make plays that would be laughed at in $10 stts but its these same plays that have made me a winning player for the last three years now.

I know all this is very vague but you just cant put into a box what ultimately makes a winner of tournaments. I will say that understanding playing the player and understanding when to gamble are very important, again this cant really be thought you must learn it through playing. I think these two areas are what separates the OK players and the good to great players. When I talking about gambling I'm not talking pot odds but rather taking a shot at a race considering the holistic effect this will have on your chances of winning the tournament. Or if a player is running over a final table it could mean taking a stand with a marginal hand to slow them down and swing the balance of power on a final table in your favor.

My goal is always to win the tournament and I always think in this context rather then cashing or sitting up the money ladder. This year if I was a more conservative player in these areas I could probably of sat into cashing for €200k+ more then I have with the situations I found myself in, but I firmly believe over my poker life my philosophy is + EV.

Having played countless hours of live poker over the last few years what is the most impressive attributes eg good stategy and worst flaws eg going on tilt you see in quality/poorer players?


Well patience is hugely important but I think one of my best assets is that I always have a complete understanding of where I stand in the overall picture of a tournament. I mean a good awareness of whats needed/dictated by my stack the blinds in the holistic context of a given tournament.

In a deep stack the worst mistakes I see by novice players is impatience and not understanding the value of there stack. You see guys with 6k of there starting 10k in the second level thinking there shortstacked and throwing the rest of the chips away all the time.

If you were to rate yourself as a poker player today on a scale of 1-10 where would you be and why?

Well I'm not going to rate myself ( we've played a few times you can rate me ) I will say that I'm learning and thinking about the game all the time and that my game is in a state of constant change and always evolving

Is it correct to never do deals in tourneys under normal stuctures/payouts in your opinion?

Well I always say no and know that doing deals is -Ev for me but end up doing them anyway. The payout structure of many events lends itselt to deal making, first in the IPC this year was 180k and forth 35k this is two big a gap in my opinion for a field of that size and business will always be done with that kind of gaps

What percentage of your attitude to playing poker is considered working or entertainment? (EG 60% for work ie making money element, 40% for entertainment)

God I dont know probably 70/30 live 85/15 online but thats the last few weeks it was 10/90 on line for 7 months before january

Your blog seems pretty well received with 14 comments on your last post. Do you plan on keeping it up in the future and to what extent? As in a post a week/month after a big tourney etc?

well all the comments stem from people feeling sorry for me after a post I made here last week I think. I enjoy writing the blog I was kinda doing one anyway on the bigslick forum for six months with a challenge I was doing and I always did review/reports on the bigger events I played. In its current form it was just really to let friends see how I was getting on in Vegas last summer, texting twenty different people the same is just time consuming. I have grown to enjoy keeping the blog its a good personal diary if nothing else but I do get good feedback about it in general which is nice

Who's your tip for next months deepstack game? Are you playing and if so how do you rate your chances in what shall be a truly unique tourney?

Well I could probably pick 30 players and have 5 final tablets but like any event its wide open as you put me on the spot I'll go for Muldoon. I'm 50/50 about playing it ATM I just don't fancy a week in a Drogheda hotel room as we speak but I know what I'm like so will more then likely be there

Thanks a mill

NP

I'll get to more later but gonna take a break from them now

cheers for doing this nicky, it's grate to be able to see inside the head of a real life poker professional.

my question is this how do you find the time to be ram vaswani's personal trainer and log all those hours online and traveling must take a fair bit of planning ? how often would you meet up with ram to discuss his progress etc.

again thanks for this:D

Hi Nicky,

Great well and very interesting read. My attempt at some Qs.

1. When playing live MTTs do you have stage goals i.e. 70 runners 10k starting stack by the first break I want to have approx. 15K etc.

2. Early stages of an mtt do you pay much attention/importance to the average stack size?

3. If there are one or two runners with super tankers in the early stages would this focus of hindrance your play.

4. Read about this one a couple of times…..Online riggaments lol. Do you have any thoughts on the “large stack syndrome” i.e underdog suck outs against best hand, "again"


Cheers.

Van Dice wrote: »

good thread nicnic

TY VD

eagle eye wrote: »

Fair play Nicky for doing this, just a couple of easy ones for you.

ty

1. Whats your preferred structure for a freezeout with a €500+ buyin?

the two bigslick monkey events last year and more recently Connies festival had a 60 minute clock and 15000 starting with all levels were all great games so I'll go with that

2. Who is the player you find it most difficult to play against?

A good aggressive LAG on my left but they are few and far between, no individual springs to mind

3. Whats your best piece of advice for someone starting out at poker?

read and learn all you can about bankroll management and position

4. What is your biggest goal in life pokerwise?

To make three times what I would of made working every year

5. Who is your favourite golfer of all time and present time if different?

LOl its usualy the most recent winner I've had a few quid on, I always liked Seve he was special when on his game Greg Norman was always great to watch also.

6. You find an old dusty lamp and rub it and a genie pops out and gives you three wishes, what are they?

lifetime suppley of coke cola bottles the jellys, hair, inner peace for Mike Tyson

7. Who is your favourite poker player of all time and present time if different?

I dont really go for Fav players so the answer has to be me

8. Who is your least favourite poker player of all time and present time
if different?[

that Khan guy was pretty annoying at this years wsop

..

BigCityBanker wrote: »

Q - above you say that you dont like a good aggressive lag on your right as he is the most difficult to play against.

care to elaborate? if you have confidence in your own game id av thought that was the place for him?

missprint ment left, i love them on my right, I like you at either side

Shortstack wrote: »

Nicky, well done for doing this.

TKS Mike

1: When was the first time you ever played a hand of poker and what were you initial thoughts on the game?


I played cards all my childhood some of my earliest memories are watching my dad playing poker in the C Y an old club in Waterford that had three snooker tables and a card playing room. I played a lot of seven card stud in my early teens, I lived close to the city center and on summer nights there was always a card school going on some street corner. The first hand of holdem i played was on betfair in Sept 2004 my initial reaction was yes I'll have some of this; I maxed a credit card that day.


2: If you were asked to compile a top 20 Irish Live MTT players where would you put yourself in the list. What about Pat?

I'd have both of us in the top 10

3: What is about your game that has made you so consistent?

I donno Mike all I can think of is that I'm very good at it

4: Why are you so offended about being labelled as a "character" on the Irish poker scene. Do you feel it detracts from your image as a successful player? Would you rather be a money making "character" or a losing "He's a great player"?

I wasn't offended at being labeled a character. This is about a piece that Mike wrote on antesup in the run up to last years IO. He listed about 15 Irish players that he considered had a good chance in the event ( I don't think any of them cashed ). Then in the next sentence he said and then you have players...... like bob battersby, the chief and Nicky Power. I took offence to being categorized with the two biggest running joke of players on the Irish scene. Can you please write something similar this year it was obv a great motivator.


5: If you were to live your life again from the age of 11 and were allowed to make only one different choice down the route of your life what would it be?

Well I've made many mistakes in my life but they have made me what I am and while I haven't and don't lead an orthodox life I'm happy with what and who I am. Hmm so it will have to be never start smoking, they will kill me but I don't think I'll ever give them up

thats it for today get to the rest tomorrow

Flushdraw wrote: »

Cheers Nicky...great read so far...


TKS Tony

Oh and the questions from Michael McGumshious..obv for the purposes of a bet with Ste05, technically MrMcGumshious didnt post on boards....

Hectorjelly wrote: »

Describe some of your most interesting experiences from Henrys

I don't think I can come close in any words to describe the good times I had in that place. The atmosphere was totally unique and sometimes there was just so much energy in the place it just seemed like the whole building would explode. The building itself was a **** whole and wasn't far from really collapsing I'd say in reality. I became fairly good friends with resident djs Shane & Greg and remember one night in the dj box with Shane ( it was over the bar looking down on the floor ) Just watching the way a tune would take hold of the crowd was something else. Sweat ran for 13 years and was the longest running club night in Europe and also won numerous awards including mtvs best club. Greg and Shane started producing there own stuff and released an album about 4 years ago operating under the name fishgodeep ( I don't think either played tournaments) and a track from it topped the British dance charts. Shane Johnson the best DJ I ever herd play. There's a **** load of mixes from sweat nights on fishgodeep.com but the site is down for some reason


Do you still listen to house music?

Yes all the time but don't go clubbing anymore and what I listen is mostly stuff from 1993/2003 I've kinda lost contact with most of the people that I used to knock with from that time and am not really with whats going on atm in the contemporary dance scene

Give a broad explanation of some of your Speech Play tactics

Its hard explain really and I seldom use speech play during a hand these days. I do talk a lot at a table and much of it is to affect, influence opponents perception of me to basically setting up plays. A good example of this what I told DE Wolfe at last years IO, from my blog

Got the start I needed when after an hour I found AA and got them in pre-flop Vs 88, which got me to about 150k. Then Roland De Wolfe is moved directly to my right there were about 32 players and we were heading for 14k payday at 29 players. He starts talking about how 10k is a lot of money asks me what I do and is this a lot of money to me. I copped straight away what he is at. I tell him I do some part-time teaching and that 10k is a huge amount for me as I won my entry in a free-roll but 14k would be unreal as I could change the car and have a holiday. Three times in the next three orbits I came over the top of his bets. Each time he says you must have a big hand I tell him a monster I'm not risking that 4k without the goods.


9 handed tournament, you have about 50 blinds. Would you prefer kk on the button or AA utg?

KK on the button and its not even close

Where was that stooped and mealy-colored old man I used to call poppa when the merry-go-round broke down?

Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

..

Brilliant stuff,great read well done Sir.........

very good read so far nicky, fair play to ya
I'll throw a few random questions at you.

You say if you wernt into poker, you'd work in a bank job - isnt there something else you would have liked to do?

Have you ever travelled - such as the australia trip?

I often find that i couldnt be bothered replying to some theory threads, that although i may know the "correct" answer in some situations, or have the bones for a decent argument in others, my manner in structuring my comments into defined areguments is lacking - unlike some other posters, and this has me not bothering as such - Are you in the same boat??

If not can you explain why you dont post as much in the theory section, as when it comes to tournie situations people would obv value your and ollies opinions highly (amongst others)

What handicap do you play off in golf?

Would you rather go to the ryder cup in america, all ireland final were waterford are the favourites, champions league final or the WSOP 2008 (your not playing in the ME)

What was the omaha book like you read, and do you think you;; ever get your head around it?

Tell us a story that still makes you laugh when you look back on it, something of the same varietty as the geansai story in waterford last year

do you regret not playing the ETP dublin seeing you were in such a rich vein of form??

Poker players tend to destroy their bank roll with sports bets - is it only those with bad bankroll management that do this? do you bet on horses/football alot of golf??

And finally do you know the whereabouts of mr flash??? we miss him

thanks nicky