Poker Training, The Venetian Deep Stack, and $206K - By David “The Maven” Chicotsky

The 2008 World Series of Poker had just ended and, after having several very deep runs in poker tournaments with massive fields of entrants, I decided to take one last swing at things and enter the Venetian Deep Stack Main Event. In addition to the WSOP, I had just come off several unbelievably profitable months of playing poker online so, needless to say, I was super confident and very sure of myself going into the Venetian event.

On July 2, 2008, the Venetian Deep Stack Main Event began with 228 entrants. The very first day of this tournament I had a very difficult table draw (relative to the $2500 buy-in), stacked with both live and online professional poker players. First and foremost, I had the recent winner of the Aussie Millions, Alexander Kostritsyn, directly to my left. This slowed me down from being able to open up as much as I would normally pre-flop. Hence, I used a counter-punch strategy of re-raising other players to my left and in doing so, managed to successfully accumulate chips in this manner.

On the bubble of the tournament, I looked at the table next to mine and saw that it contained my poker mentor Ari "BodogAri" Engel and Justin Bonomo. Every pot was a raise and a re-raise...and Ari ended up doubling up Bonomo with 22 against AA, which was unfortunate for him. At this point in the tournament, the trend was pretty much “kill or be killed”- only the strong were going to survive and I knew I had to pull myself up by my boot-laces and make this happen.

As I already mentioned, there were mega-pros all around, though I knew I had what it would take to beat them. Finishing day one, I had an average chip stack but, more importantly, a clear and motivated mind. I went into day two looking to play my best and making sure not to make any critical errors. Day two was interesting in the sense that they broke up our table, but at the new table I continued to have Kostritsyn seated directly to my left. From there, they broke the table again and I had the adverse experience of having Bonomo seated directly to my left. Again, I employed a counter-punch (3-bet and fold and/or 3-bet all-in) strategy. Definitely one of the stronger points of my game and something I am quick to impart on my students at www.ArisTrainingCenter.com poker training center.

The most crucial hand that led me to the final table was a very aggressive re-raise all-in for about 30 blinds (stretching things a bit, I know!). Keep in mind I had already literally re-raised this loose player maybe five or six times up to this point and won the vast majority of those pots. He tanked forever and finally called with AJ off-suit. I kind of laughed, said “nice call sir” and flipped over my Q7 of clubs. Wouldn't you know it, I hit a flush!!!

So, now going into the final table I had about 65 big blinds and was in the top three or four in chips. Now Bonomo was seated two to my right and I was able to start effectively re-raising him (rather than playing possum sitting to his right). Overall, I played very “middle of the road” and carefully; won a pot, lost a pot, but slowly accumulated chips.

Fast forward to 4 handed play, where I raise UTG with KK, the small blind calls (who later tanked forever and claimed to have folded pocket tens) and Bonomo pushed the remainder of his stack in with AQ suited. I turned away - at this point, being relatively new to live poker tournaments, I couldn't even bear to watch. I knew if I heard loud cheering that it would mean I'd have lost the pot (as Bonomo had fans and friends on the rail). I didn’t hear said crowd noise, so I looked back to find that the board had blanked, and I had just scooped a massive pot for the majority of the chips in play.

The rest is history. The win was worth over $206k and best of all I had prevailed over a field of more than 200 very skilled poker players. I want to thank Ari Engel for encouraging me to play - I wanted to back out at the last minute and Ari was my proverbial back-bone by insisting, "No way Maven, you're playing it!" I also want to thank my friends, family, and fans along the way. Winning the main event of the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza poker tournament series definitely changed my life for the better and it's a fond memory upon which I'll always reminisce. I can’t stress enough the fact that I likely would have never been in those shoes had it not been for being a serious student of the game and participating in intensive poker training. If you are interested in taking your game up to the next level, training is essential. You can reach me by email at Info@TheMavenVT.com and feel free to visit my forum at www.TheMavenVT.com.