When he won WPT South Africa late last year Nitsche earned a seat in the WPT Championship at Bellagio. Not knowing how big the ISPT overlay was going to get Nitsche decided to skip it instead of flying back and forth to London.
When he found out the ISPT had almost €600k in added cash he immediately regretted the decision.
Pokerlistings.com caught up with Nitsche on a break from the WSOP grind to find out more.
PokerListings.com: You won your bracelet late last summer, which made your WSOP. How are you able to keep your concentration for the entire WSOP?
Dominik Nitsche: It’s pretty tough to do for some people but for me it’s easy as I play so much and it’s always the same. You always know that losing 20-30 tournaments in a row is a possibility.
That’s especially true here at the WSOP because the structures are so fast in most of the tournaments. You’ve got no play early on and you’re pushing thin edges so obviously you’re going to brick a whole load of tournaments here and there.
That’s what tournament poker is all about though; you have to chase that one big score and hopefully it’s big enough.
Two of my good friends (David Vamplew & Manig Loeser) have already had big scores this year and hopefully I can do that as well in the tournament I’m in right now.
(At the time of the interview Nitsche was above average with 80 players left in a $1k event)
PL: You're known for traveling all over the world for good value. Why didn't you play the ISPT?
I can’t believe I missed the ISPT in London! It’s the most annoying thing ever; I was so tilted.
I was in Vegas at the time as I won a WPT and had to play the WPT Championship obviously. They wouldn’t let me skip that one.
I wanted to play the ISPT because I thought there would be an overlay and I thought it would be soft.
I was talking to Rupert Elder and David Vamplew and asking them if they thought I should come back just to play that but I was already in the States and it was a 12-hour flight back to London.
That’s just too much for me so I just went to visit a friend of mine in Mexico to play the SCOOP, or the last weekend of it.
That was all right too but once I saw how much of an overlay there was, I wish I had made the trip back.
Everyone thought there was going to be an overlay but no one thought it was going to be nearly six hundred thousand. For six hundred thousand, I’m on the next flight back and then coming straight back to Vegas.
PL: What are your thoughts on the ISPT? Success? Failure? Do you admire Rob Yong and DTD team for trying to save it?
It’s really tough to say if it was a success or failure. Rob Yong said he might do one in Prague and one in Brazil and they could be good.
It’s good for poker and it was a great event that people really enjoyed. There were a lot of local players in the tournament and that’s always a really good sign.
The pros are not sure that they enjoyed it so much but I’m one of the people who will travel to wherever the tournament is.
Overall it’s good for poker and I’m really happy they matched the guarantee; it would’ve been a disaster if they didn’t. There would be no more ISPTs if they didn’t do that, as no one would come anymore.
They put their money where their mouth is and now they have an opportunity to do more. Rob Yong did a great job.
I’d like to see it successful in the future as it’s something different. Football is much bigger than poker so maybe you’d get some more football fans in there as they want to play in the stadium.
It’s really great for the casual players and it’s something new. We have the EPT, the WPT and you can’t really compete with these tours so you have to do something different.
The ISPT is on its way there so hopefully they’ll do a few more.
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