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Dave Bland

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Getting right to the point: what makes you so competitive?

I’ve always been competitive, since I was little. I did a lot of sports and everything has been a competition, with my buddies and so on. If I start anything, any sports or ball games, if I get decent at anything I just love to make some short term goals and work hard for them. I can’t sit in my home not doing anything, without goals. Every day when I wake up I want to know what goals I have and what I want to achieve.

The new thing for me has been these big golf bets. During the World Series this summer I’m going to play for some big money on the golf course. I make these golf bets with some of the Finnish guys I play poker with, and I also have a big tennis bet with Gus Hansen. The tennis match has had to be postponed for a lot of reasons–he’s been injured, I’ve been injured… we’ve just had a tough time finding a time for the match.

When did you realise you liked an element of gamble in what you do?

I probably realised I liked to gamble when I was around 13 or 14-years-old. I was just playing one cent games with my buddies, and on a really good day you might win a dollar. We were playing a game called ‘Circa’. It’s basically five card stud, where you have one card face up. We played that as a limit game with progressive betting. However, I started gambling in other ways from age 11, and started sportsbetting when I was 13.

Many of your fellow high stakes poker players, like Howard Lederer and Eli Elezera, like to sports bet. It is something you still enjoy?

I really don’t sports bet that much. Yet when I do bet, I bet very big and I would rather bet with other poker players or my friends so there’s no juice. I used to bet more when I was a kid, on anything I could watch. Ice hockey, soccer… anything I could watch I would bet on. Now I like to bet on fights and boxing, tennis or golf. Anything I can watch basically–it’s more fun.

Are there some people you prefer to have the action with? Gus and you have some big bets between you…

I just prefer to bet with my friends, people I can trust money-wise. We seem to have some of the biggest bets in the poker industry amongst us. Some of my Finnish buddies seem to like the action too!

There seems to be a group of Finns, including yourself and another leading online player, Ilari Saharies, who seem to be playing the highest levels available. Why do you think the Finns make such big gamblers? Is it a national thing?

I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out. I think Finnish guys, and European players in general, have a better chance to be good poker players than Americans because when it comes to gambling, Europeans have more gamble. They bet on lots of different stuff, and that tends to open their poker game up. The new generation of poker players are also more aware of their equity. They’ll often sit there and say to themselves, “I don’t want to play this guy because I am not too sure I have an edge on him.” I don’t think you become a better poker player like that though. If you play someone who is better than you, you learn something from him, and from time to time you just have to gamble with him. You’re more able to trust yourself, trust your instincts and make better decisions, and play better poker if you don’t care so much about the money and what happens.

How do you think you’ll get on in the golf game with the Finns? Are you any good at golf?

Well, we made the bet last December. I’m playing with my personal assistant against these two Finnish guys and we’re going to play two full rounds at the Bear’s Best (Las Vegas) and we’re going to card everyone’s scores and whoever has the lowest score will win the bet. Now, when I made the bet in December I was a really bad golf player! We would have got killed very badly. I’ve got my golf game in better shape over the last two months and it’s looking decent. I’d never back off a bet anyway and I wouldn’t let them buy out. We’ve still got three months until the game, so I’ve got a bit of time to work on my game.

Do you still follow the tennis much?

Well I don’t get much time to watch anything, but if I do have some time to watch some sports then I’ll have some bets. My number one thing to watch are the MMA fights. I’ll watch anything if I like it though, like tennis and soccer. The only things I’m really not into are baseball and American Football. Golf is something else I like to watch now. I never bothered before because I thought it was boring, but I watched the Masters, so…

A lot of sportsmen are coming into poker now, like Boris Becker. What do you feel a sportsman coming into poker has which will help them make the game, and what problems do you think they might come across?

You know, I don’t think there are any major disadvantages for sportsmen. Athletes will have a mindset which is ideal for poker. They have to be realistic and work hard for their game. I think they realise poker is a long game, and they have to work at it to become better.

Another thing, especially for tennis players for instance, is that when you’re used to competing against one opponent it helps when you play heads-up poker. I think I had a big edge on most people when I started playing heads-up. In tennis what you do is find another player’s weak spots. If he has a weak backhand, you hit shots to try and open him up on his backhand, and then you get into the net. You just have to think how you open his game and how you use his weaknesses.

It’s the same thing in poker. When you play, you have to figure out what it is he does badly and then use their weaknesses. There are some good ex-tennis players who have become some of the best poker players, like David Benyamine and Gus Hansen.

Have there ever been any bets which you thought were a bit crazy?

Well, sometimes you make a bet so fast and you sometimes stop to think “did I make a good bet?” I’m not regretting anything at least. I won one golf bet around six months ago for $100k. I was happy with that because I had to work on my game.

My sportsbetting was a bit dead for a while, but I have some big bets coming up this summer. I wasn’t able to play any tennis or golf for a while because of a back injury. It doesn’t feel too bad now though, so you better ask me that question after the World Series! (Laughs) I have $700,000 worth of bets made already, just on golf and tennis. I love the action.

You say you like to push yourself and put yourself outside of your comfort zone. If you could play against one sportsman, who would you want to play with?

If it’s tennis, I have a problem. I like watching about 70% of the players now because they all hit the ball so well. When I was young I used to like watching Andre Agassi because he was hitting the ball harder than everyone else. There are so many good players out there perhaps I am better off not saying anything. I admire athletes now. They’re just that much better than before.

Coming back to the Finnish guys, you had a little wager with them in some heads-up poker matches recently, right?

Yeah, we agreed to play while we were playing golf. It was a bit stupid actually, because we were all a bit wasted. One guy was very wasted. We just made a very stupid bet because I didn’t realise the heads up matches we’d play would have such a short structure. We only did it with one buy-in, so it was me and Ilari against Jani and Sammi Kilpurro. So we just had a little match–everyone put in €100,000. Ilari’s game lasted six hands before all the money went in. He had top pair, two over cards and a flush draw in Omaha and his opponent had top two pair. Ilari was about 51% favourite, but he lost.

In my match, I lost a pretty big pot early on and so was short stacked. I lasted one more hour, but we just played with this stupid structure so basically there wasn’t much skill involved. We should have had more than one buy-in and a better blind structure. It was fun gambling, even though I lost €100,000!

In a previous interview with Bluff Europe Magazine in early 2007, you said that you felt you could clean up in The Big Game (the highest stakes mixed cash game in Vegas) if you were only playing Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold’em. You’ve played with some of the players from The Big Game on ‘High Stakes Poker’. Has your opinion changed since then?

I think they (Bluff Europe) got it wrong the first time around. They put something like ‘I would get all of the money if it was those two games’, but I don’t think I said it that way. I said I would crush those games, because the players who play The Big Game are not the best players in No Limit Hold’em (NHLE) or Pot Limit Omaha (PLO). They are more made for the mixed games. The games are all limit, and they know them well, and that’s why it’s hard for anyone to jump into the game. They always want to play six to eight games, and even if you’re the best player in two of the games but you suck in the other games very badly, you’re going to end up losing a lot of money.

Naturally, I want to play NLHE and PLO. We’ve had a couple of really nice games there. One time during the World Series we played a few days without any cap on the betting, and we saw a couple of two million dollar pots. There was a lot of gambling. That happens a lot nowadays because there are a lot of people who want to play those games and are willing to play big. You don’t see those same players who are playing the big mixed games at the table.

Talking about massive pots, you were in the biggest pot on High Stakes Poker with Sammy Farha. You had top pair and not that great a kicker (Patrik had Jh-9h), and all of a sudden there was a million dollars out in the middle of the table. What do you remember about the hand?

I know it’s not a bad play to re-raise in that spot with hands like Jack-Nine, and I like to do it with a wide range of hands. I prefer making the play with hands like that because it’s easier to get away from the hand if you don’t flop anything. When I raised, I wasn’t expecting Sammy to fold. He likes to play a lot of hands, so I was expecting the call.

Well, I can only say that when he checked the flop (6d-3c-9d) and I bet, the way he raised me I just felt he didn’t have a very big hand. So I decided to push. In some other cases I might fold it, but I just knew I didn’t want to call there because I’d put myself to a tough decision on the turn if he’s going to push.

Another thing is that this is Sammy. Even if he was making that raise with pocket tens, jacks or queens, he might be able to lay down that hand, but probably not against me. We’ve played so much poker together and we’ve had a lot of crazy hands. I just felt like my top pair was winning and to play it like that. Sometimes there’s no explanation. I just make the decisions according to how I feel about the hand. It seems crazy sometimes.

Your face when he made the call was a picture. The negotiations as well, talking about how many times you would run the turn and river was interesting.

The way he called so fast, I thought I was dead for a while. When you’re talking about your hand, nothing matters about if you say what you have or not–it’s all about the odds and percentages, nothing changes. If you run it ten times you get the same value for your money in the long run.

Usually when I play poker, I have a lot of instincts involved and I feel like I have to do something. Maybe I feel like I am going to lose if I run it once or twice, and this time I decided I wanted to run it as many as possible. It was also a very big pot, so even when we run it four times, each pot is worth a quarter of a million dollars. For heads-up pots we’d usually just run it twice. If there are three people in the pot, we’d run it three times, and you get your money back if you win one.

I was happy with how it turned out though (Patrik won the first, third and fourth pots, netting just under $750,000). If we’d run it twice, he won the second one so we would have split the pot. You know though, Sammy always wants to have the best of it in negotiating. He never wants to tell you his hand, and he likes to do business. He’s a very superstitious guy in my opinion. So am I, though, but not as much as Sammy.

What superstitions do you have?

I just have my feelings–that’s the only thing I have. Sometimes something feels bad, other times something feels good. The feeling normally comes when all the money goes in and you just know sometimes you’re going to lose the money for sure. Of course, you get to feel like you’re going to win, too. It’s hard to explain. Something just happens in my body, with my heart. I get this feeling like an electric shock when I think I am going to lose a hand. My body stops, and my heart stops beating for a second.

You know, it never happens during the hand, it only happens when all of the money has gone in and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just sit there and think, “Who’s going to get it?” and you get really excited. Sometimes I will be sitting there, super cool with my heart beating at like sixty times a minute and there’s half a million in the pot. There’s no reason to worry because I’m going to get it. It’s just funny what my body tells me. I just can’t explain those things–that’s where my superstitious side comes from.

Do you get the same adrenaline rush in tournaments?

I get them more in tournaments. In cash games, you know if you bust out you can reload. I have lost $400,000 sometimes and not worried about it. In tournaments though, when I’ve been there for two or three days and it’s one I really want to win, I get a hundred times more excited. I get so nervous sometimes, even if it’s for small money. I only get one shot, and I can’t rebuy, so there are times in tournaments where I never feel very comfortable. If I am playing a big pot, or running a big bluff I get way more nervous than I do in high stakes cash games.

Was it like that at the World Series of Poker Europe when you were knocked out with pocket threes?

I didn’t think there was anything I could do. Maybe I could’ve folded it, but Gus Hansen had played tight all day; and he played very tight. With Gus though, just because he’s playing tight doesn’t mean he’ll have a big hand when he does raise. So, when he came in for a raise and I had a small pair, I had a decision to make. I had to go all in or fold. I was on the button, so there were only the blinds left, so I went all in. The guy in the big blind had Ace-King and went all in right away. I just lost that coin flip and I was out.

That tournament was really disappointing. I was in such a good spot, and I just lost a couple of big pots. It was just another chance that I didn’t capitalise on…

Have there been hands from your career so far which hurt more than others?

The hand from the Bellagio WPT tournament when all of the money went in with Ace-King against Ace-Four (Patrik finished second at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Open in December 2005). I had more chips, and we were heads-up, so if I won that hand I would have won my first WPT title. It wasn’t about the extra money; for me it’s about the title. I don’t really play WPT events; I only play the Las Vegas ones, so that was probably my best chance to win a WPT title for a while. That’s the only hand that comes back to mind and I wish would have won that and not stress about winning the WPT anymore.

And with the WSOP coming up, is it more of a deal to win a bracelet?

In this case, it’s more about money. Everyone has a bracelet now, and it’s so much easier to win one–not like in the old days. Having one now means nothing, unless you win one of the $10,000 buy-in World Championship events, or some of the $5,000 events with a tough field that’s hard to beat. They give bracelets for $1,500 buy in events with 200 runners, and I can’t even bother to play any tournament under $5,000.

You had a good run in the H.O.R.S.E event in 2005, too. Will you be playing that again?

I had a good chance in that, even though I had only been playing those games for a short while. Forty five minutes before the final table, I was third in chips. That’s one of the nice events, but I prefer those No-Limit and Pot-Limit games. I just don’t think Limit games play so well as tournaments.

If you could choose which to win from $50,000 HORSE event or the Main Event of the World Series, which would you choose?

I would like to win the Big One (the $10,000 buy-in Main Event), but there’s a lot of players and a lot of money involved. I just hope that it will be my time to win one. There have been so many times when I’ve been in good spots with forty players left, and when you play big hands and big pots in those situations and can’t win anything; it makes you feel so stupid and frustrated. You need luck at the end of the tournament, when you have to win those big hands, and you have to get in the mindset that you’re going to be lucky.

There’s a lot of luck involved in tournament poker, and everybody knows it. That’s a good thing, though–it makes them a lot of fun, and you get a lot of different winners.

So we come to the Patrik Antonius’ Fantasy Final Table. Normally these are full ring affairs, but it seems more appropriate to have yours as a short-handed game. So, along with you, who would be the other five players on your fantasy final table?

(Sighs) These are the questions I never know how to answer, because people get so offended if you say someone’s name but not theirs. There are so many good players out there.

They don’t have to be who you think are the best…maybe just the ones you’d enjoy playing the most with.

Ah, okay! Well, definitely Phil Ivey (Patrik obviously feels back up to the challenge of playing Mr Ivey again–Ed.), Gus Hansen would be there, along with Ilari Saharies (high-rolling Full Tilt cash player ‘Ziigmund’). I also really enjoy playing with Sammy Farha…. it would definitely be a high-stakes cash game! I’d have Daniel Negreanu come along to the game too. I think I’d have a pretty good time with those guys. (laughs)

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