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| 15 Outs ... One Time! |
| It's Shronk Daddy. It's 15 questions. It's all the poker knowledge you can handle |
| Featuring : Jimmy Fricke |
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| Jimmy Fricke, only nineteen at the time, burst onto the poker scene in 2007 with a second place finish at the Aussie Millions, and a playing style hard to miss. Proving to be no flash in the pan, and despite not being able to play most U.S. events, he followed up his Aussie Million success with first place finishes in the 5th Annual Empire State Championships and the Limit Stud / Stud Hi-Lo / Razz event at the 2008 Aussie Millions. He is poised and ready, with a crew of fellow 2p2ers, to bring some noise at this year's WSOP. |
Justin Shronk : Here’s a question I’ve been starting off with for everyone – what’s your take on the main event final table delay?
Jimmy Fricke : I think it's really bad for the players and really good for everyone else. There's not a whole lot else to say about it. Those who are rallying for the integrity of the game won't be happy about it, but ESPN is trying new things to get ratings to the show and hopefully make poker grow. I think the nine out of 8000 players will be excited just to be there, so I think it's worth giving it a try. I DO NOT, however, think they should be skipping a live broadcast. If you are delaying the thing for four months, they should not just be doing a ridiculous two-hour all-in fest the next day of it. |
JS: You were one of the few players who were able to turn their online success into a big live score (in the ’07 Aussie Millions) before you were even twenty-one. Was it frustrating to have to go back to playing mostly online after that?
JF: It's really most frustrating not being able to play the WSOP because the expectation of any good player in any tournament there is going to be so absolutely huge. The other tournaments I got over because there was so much else that I could do that made up for it, but once a year during the summer it was extremely frustrating, especially since I went out to the WSOP to hang out with friends and couldn't go anywhere they could go simply because of the stupid gaming and alcohol laws.
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JS: Now that you’ve turned twenty-one, what are your plans and expectations for this year? What are your plans and expectations for the WSOP? And what are your plans and expectations for the rest of the tournament circuit?
JF: My plans are to play every tournament I possibly can. The last few months have been really tough for me poker-wise. I've learned a lot about my game but I've also gone through easily the roughest patch of variance of my career. I think my game has suffered significantly because of it and I hope I can pull myself out of it at the beginning of the WSOP. I know I'm a long shot to win a bracelet and probably a little better than even money to make a final table, but if I don't win a bracelet this year I'm going to be disappointed. Some would say that's silly, but I'm not expecting to win one. I'll just be disappointed if I don't.
If I feel good about how I played during the WSOP, then you'll likely see me at every stop after that. I have a lot of things I want to fix in myself as a person and a player, and honestly at this point I'm not feeling real good about either of them, and that needs to change for me to be playing $10k tournaments every other week. |
JS: There are a few concepts that are widely accepted in poker theory, like “protecting your hand,” that you’ve told me are basically misnomers. What about “protecting your hand” is a misnomer, and what are some other concepts that people tend to throw out there that are just plain wrong in your eyes?
JF: First off, a bet has to accomplish something. "Finding out where you are" isn't doing that. You're basically turning your hand into a bluff by doing so. If you tell yourself you're going to bet, hope your opponent folds, and fold if he raises you, what is that called? That's a bluff. Protecting your hand is a different sort of thing compared to that, and yes, most people misuse the term. A bet to “protect your hand” should only be used when:
- You are almost sure you have the best hand.
- Your opponent is very unlikely to try to bluff you (or if he is bluffing you already, unlikely to bluff again).
- Your opponent likely has multiple outs to beat you.
- You can't go for multiple streets of value with the hand that you have against what you think your opponent has.
A bet when all these criteria are met would be a good “protection bet.” However, shoving 3x the pot on the flop with an overpair against a tough player because “there's a flush draw on the flop” is NOT good poker and never will be. You're giving up massive amounts of value and you're turning your hand into a bluff essentially. If you get called while you're ahead, it's a miracle and the money would've likely gone in anyway. |
JS: You’ve told me that you didn’t have a great year, or the kind of year you expected, after your Aussie Millions score. First, how do you keep yourself positive during a streak like that? And also, at some point do you start to think you might have to make adjustments, or are you confident in your game and just have to ride out a streak like that?
JF: A lot of people have said it before, and I'll say it again here. Poker is a sick game. It can put doubt in you like nothing else unless you're the most egotistical person on the planet. I don't deal with the lows particularly well, but it's made me have a lot more humility than what I used to. I'm anything but confident right now, but hopefully with a big score I'll go back to my normal game. Right now I'm playing too passively, possibly too scared, and worst of all, EXTREMELY impatient. You can't force anything in poker, it doesn't like to be told what to do. Best to just sit back and enjoy the ride. |
JS: You’ve told me that peer support is extremely important in learning poker. Who were your peers and how did they help you develop your game?
JF: I'm a big poster on the forums at twoplustwo.com and always have been. The poker community there for MTT's is just fantastic. I joined in mid-2005 and all the posters there were just getting into tournaments at the same time, so we learned how to beat them together and we sweated each other at all the $2 freezeouts online and gradually became what we are now. I think over the next few years, when some of these people turn twenty-one, you're going to see the best tournament players you've never heard of take everything by storm.
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JS: Your mom has also made a name for herself in the online community by posting on message boards along with you. She seems to have taken a real interest in your poker game. How important has family support been? How would things have been different if you had a family that thought poker wasn’t a practical or healthy thing for you to be putting so much of yourself into?
JF: Family support is nice. It's good having people back home know what you're doing and wanting you to succeed. When you're in the moment and playing poker you're not thinking, “Wow, I'm so happy my family loves me!” but when you're sitting in the hotel room on a six-figure downswing it certainly helps to have something like that. I think all family members will have doubts until you “hit it big,” even though that's completely ridiculous when it comes to tournament poker, but it certainly calms them down and makes them think twice about it. Don't expect them to ever understand the things you have to go through as a player, but don't think they won't understand anything, either. |
JS: What is the one thing that you most see “pros” doing wrong in tournaments?
JF: Making absolutely ridiculous preflop errors deep in tournaments based on a “read” that was basically them hoping their opponent had a certain hand. People don't seem to understand that in a lot of situations "I put you on ace-king" doesn't cut it for a read. Sometimes they will show you no pair, but a lot of the time if you call my shove with an underpair I'm going to show you a better hand. I see people folding huge hands deep in a tournament like ace-king and queens, getting massive odds like 3:1. If I'm getting 3:1 I'm probably not going to be folding 9-7 let alone ace-king. People need to start talking about their opponent's RANGE for making a particular play rather than guessing what they have exactly. |
JS: How important is a bracelet to you? Would you rather leave the WSOP having made $1.2 million with a few final tables and no wins, or $600,000 with one win?
JF: If I can play all the tournaments comfortably and have enough money to live my life the way I want, I'd take as many wins as possible. Only when I would be restricted to not doing something would I sacrifice wins, because, honestly, I want to be respected by my peers and other people enough that I would do almost anything to win a bracelet my first year. |
JS: Where do you see poker in five years?
JF: I honestly have no clue. I hope it's still around and growing, that's for sure.
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JS: You’re among the crop of Internet wizards who are making 2008 their first WSOP. Gimme some names (other than you) that I should look for to make some noise?
JF: For people who are newly twenty-one, I'm likely to forget a lot of the names, but one of my roommates this summer, who is aptly named Jason Somerville, (“JCarver” or “taknapotin” online) turned twenty-one just before I did and I expect him to absolutely destroy the weak WSOP fields this year. David "Bakes" Baker is another super aggressive player who I expect to make a big splash. There are a lot of early 20's people I expect to do really well this year who are in their first few years at the WSOP, but frankly there are too many to name. |
JS: Who is the best NLHE tournament player right now?
JF: You can give a lot of stock answers for this one, but my honest belief is that by the time he turns twenty-one, a friend of mine who is nineteen right now will be the best NLHE MTT player alive. |
JS: Who is one player you hate to play against?
JF: Anyone who talks a bunch of shit and 3-bets me a lot in position. |
JS: If you had to stop playing poker forever, but could back five people for the rest of their careers, who would you back (and maybe why)?
JF: This is too hard a question since there are so many ridiculously good players out there. But if I had a choice, I'd rather back cash players than tournament players for sure. |
JS: When you’re fifty, what will you have had to accomplish in poker to be satisfied with your poker career – in other words, what is your long-term poker goal checklist?
JF: I don't think it's good to really have goals in tournament poker since you're just setting yourself up for failure, but I hope to have set a few records in the next few years, let alone when I turn fifty. I hope to have retired from needing poker income by the time I'm thirty or thirty-five at the latest. |
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