Nevertilt22 at EPT Prague Main Event

by Bodog Poker | Dec 18 2008

Nevertilt22 (Smith Collins) caught our attention when in 2006 he climbed to the top of the Bodog Yearly Tournament Leader Board (TLB) despite starting late in the year. He played great poker but it must have been a fluke, right? Wrong, Collins went on to top the Bodog Yearly TLB again the following year proving he was a rising star in the world of online poker.

To this day nevertilt22 continues to crush online poker tournaments while shifting some of his focus to live poker. His online skills continue to earn him shots at major live tournaments through online poker satellites like Bodog’s Player’s Choice qualifiers.

Collins recently won a $12,000 Player’s Choice qualifier, which he elected to use to attend the EPT Prague Main Event. We had a chance to catch up with him and ask about how the tournament went, how he is playing lately and what his plans are for poker in 2009.

You elected to use your Player’s Choice qualifier to go to the EPT Prague Main Event. Can you tell us a bit about what that was like?

It was really cold when I got there and kind of rainy but then it cleared up and was really nice for the rest of the trip. It was cool. It was really historic and had a lot to see. When I wasn’t playing poker I went out and saw a lot of the city. I don’t think a lot of poker players do that.

So you hadn’t been to Prague before?

No. I hadn’t even been to Europe before. It was my first time. It was crazy to hear a hundred different languages while just walking down the street. And most of the players at the poker table didn’t even speak English even though it was forced on everyone. So if you spoke to people most of them would just stare at you blankly since they couldn’t speak English.

Tell us more about what the tournament was like.

It was different from America because they searched you every time you went in and out of the poker room. You had to empty your pockets just like at the airport but it was just a poker room.  I’ve never seen anything like that. And there were no dinner breaks. That was weird. It started at noon and have a 15-minute break every two hours and there would be no dinner break and it would just be over at nine.

You must’ve been starving when you got out of there each day.

Yeah, except I only made it to Day 2. On Day 2 I actually had 62,000 in chips with 1,200 blinds so I was doing really well and I got caught up with Sebastian Ruthenberg who also had a big stack at the table. We were both running the table pretty much. And then he took me out after I made a little mistake. It was kind of a cooler and tough to get away from so I lost a $130K pot at 600/1200. I would’ve been chip leader of the day, it would’ve been sick.

Can you tell us more about that hand?

Oh man. Well, he raised from early position which he’d been doing a lot, and he had doubled me up early in the day so he was definitely gunning for me the whole day. So he raised from early position and I had A-Q off-suit from the big blind. Like I said, it was 600-1200 and I had 65,000 and he had 80,000 and everyone else had less than us. So I just called and the flop came K-8-6 all clubs and I had the ace of clubs so I checked down. He fired out 4,000 and I flat call. The turn was an ace, so now I’ve got top pair with queen kicker and I’ve got four clubs. I checked to him again and bet 11K. I should’ve just flat called but instead I raised and he shoved all-in and I had to call and he had Q-3 clubs. I was drawing to club and no club came, but you know… one of these days.

I saw that Sebastian Ruthenberg actually went on to finish ninth.

Yeah, he does really well. He’s a good player. But he somehow actually knew to ask me who I was. He knew I was playing well. People don’t usually know who I am yet. He’s friends with Gus Hansen and he gave me a lot of trouble on Day 1. He’s a really nice guy too. But those are really the only two pros that gave me a problem.

Let’s talk a bit about your online game. You did the impossible by winning the Bodog Yearly TLB two years in a row. How has your online game been this year?

I didn’t really care about winning the yearly leader board this year. I thought that two times was good and that this time I would just relax for a year and try to get better. And that’s what I did because now I’m better than I ever was when I won the yearly. Next year I plan on playing a lot of volume so we’ll see how that goes.

And what are your plans for playing live tournaments next year?

Hopefully I’ll win more packages. At the rate I’m going right now I usually play about two $10K events a year. I’d like to make it more like five or six.

So any live tournaments you play, you just win the buy-in by qualifying online?

Yeah, that’s how I do it. And the weird thing is I used to feel inferior when I went to these live events. I’d feel nervous, I’d feel flustered, but now I just feel really in charge. Like I just take over the table. And so did Sebastian. We both did the same thing at the same time which is why it was kind of weird. But something I realized this trip is that I can hang. The fact that I’m playing live poker is kind of irrelevant. I’m getting pretty good reads so I think I’ve got a lot to look forward to next year.

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