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Vassily, is the WCOOP Main Event fifth place finish an absolute success for you or does it come with a little bitterness?

There is no disappointment about how the game developed. I was very lucky during the first day and the second day. But, there is a huge disappointment because of the fact that one of the players, for some unknown reason, refused to chop. There were five of us, each risking getting knocked out, and after I was out, the players chopped quickly. An absurd situation. In 99% of cases, we would simply chop. Often, more accomplished opponents would chop with the average players to keep variance at bay.

Objectively, if you judge by the level of skill, I was one of the favorites in the five-max, perhaps the strongest one there. Chopping by chipEV meant giving away $100,000. I could not allow that, even though I did not want to risk either. Eventually, one opponent for some reason declined chopping according to ICM and I paid the price. It hurts.

As to the game itself, the way the all-ins went, what flops came out, I am not upset at all. On the second day, I was so lucky that it compensated for everything.

AlwaysiNduCe refused to chop?

Yes, the Pole.

Did he explain it?

As I recall, he just said he wanted more.

What do you think about his game? He went very strong during the first hours.

He played well. He gave away chips in some hands. He lost 15 million on a very strange big bluff. In general, he had a decent showing, but why not chop?

What do you think about the champion, Coenaldinho7?

There were some non-standard lines.

Non-standard strong or non-standard weak?

For example, his method of a “bluff raise on the paired board.” I saw it on the second day and on the third, when on a 2-2-A board, he min-raised me. I bluff 3-bet with 10-9. On the one hand, this is a move of a weak player, but sometimes these moves can make it through very well if the opponents are at their level of thinking. He made this unusual game work for him. Joiso, for some reason, called 3-bets when he put in one-third of his stack. The Pole managed to bluff his whole stack into him with 9-7 in the weirdest hand.

He, by the way, was ready to chop from the very beginning. I was also ready for the ICM deal practically at any time. Therefore, respect to the Belgian. And I will not complain any longer.

Were the pre-final tables stronger than the final one?

Very much so. The table where I bad-beat MountainRo$e with ace-jack against his ace-king was intense. Besides us, there were also David Peters and some other strong players. There was a weird player, the Greek, Thxcomeagain. He had position on me – not too pleasant. Because of the strong remaining field, I had to go with a barely +EV or maybe even a -EV play with AJ suited. I won on a bad beat and got lucky.

Why didn’t Alexander Kostritsyn’s game go well?

Perhaps because he had not played the Hold’em tournaments for some time. Perhaps because he underestimated his rivals too much. Maybe his mood was not so good or he wasn’t feeling well. On average, I think he would play this final table better than he did. But, he did not play optimally, in my opinion. I think many MTT pros would agree with me in this regard.

On the final table, after you’d gained a nice stack, did many bluffs go through?

Well, a couple of bluff 3-bets with blockers went through, one into Kostritsyn, the other one into Nolet10. At the beginning, there was a big bluff into the Pole. From my point of view, it was was a good bluff, but he had so many chips, so he opened me up just for the hell of it.

What do you think about the hand when you, with a 20 BB stack from the first or the second position, opened a pair of jacks and K.T.A.-1985 put you all-in on a pair of eights from the blind?

I need to check it on the calculator, but I don’t see anything bad in it. Perhaps there were other options of playing it there, but it was more or less normal. There is no big problem in that hand.

When the first day ended, there were 14 or 15 hours of pause. How did you spend your free time? How did you calm yourself down? You obviously needed to sleep and rest.

Of course I did not want to sleep that much. I was still excited. I drank a bottle of beer and took a melaxen sleeping pill. I fell asleep eventually, but slept less than usual, for about four hours. And then was just lying around watching something, read, and did not leave the house. It turned out that I still felt rested, calm, and in a good state.

Did you play just the WCOOP Main Event final table?

Of course! I could have launched something else, but I did not want to find myself in a situation when I get knocked out from the WCOOP and have one $200 tournament left. I simply would not have been able to play and would have had to close it.

There was a little news from you during the WCOOP. How did the series go?

I went positive only with the Main. I was down about $30,000 on the WCOOP events and other tournaments. Until this Sunday, I did not have any ITMs in the WCOOPs, not in the Second Chances, at all. On Sunday, I got in the money in the turbo for a thousand, then in the Main.

Did you play a lot?

Yes, quite a lot. Not that I played it all, but I even got into a couple of Omaha tournaments and I am an amateur player in it. However, in a couple of recent Sunday PSKOs for $82 I got second and third. I got into the black in Omaha and played a couple of WCOOPs. It turned out that I had played the expensive ones in a sense that the opponents were better than in the Sunday one for $82. But, I like this game.

Just recently, you said that the European Poker Tour tournaments did not appeal to you. What are your plans now?

I’ve changed my mind. The expectation is, of course, smaller. Definitely, not bigger. But I wanted to play live so much that I decided to go. I was planning on going to Barcelona and wanted to play both the Main and the High-Roller. However, because of visa delays, I got there in time only to play the last two side events. I am planning on going to Malta to play a lot of the series.

How did you become a coach at 2CardsCollege? You refused at first, then eventually agreed. What thoughts did you have?

I do not like to have duties that bind me to some schedule. This is why I was refusing. But then I decided that first of all, I needed to engage in poker education and development for myself.

I not only teach at 2CardsCollege, but I also attend the lectures of the other coaches. In addition, during my lectures, I talk through some things and because of that I get better myself. The status of coach makes me take the game more seriously and not lay an egg in front of the students. When you’re a player, you can tilt somewhere, quit somewhere, and play emotionally. And when you are being watched, you have additional responsibility.

Secondly, a stable salary. It is small in comparison to the income from the game, but in absolute terms it is very good.

An interesting point of view. The first argument you said that you did not want to be bound to something. The usual coach’s dilemma is different: not to worsen the field.

Nowadays, those who want to learn will find coaches and videos without me. They will learn if they want in any case; it only depends on the person. When there are 100 coaches around, the 101st will not worsen the field.

Now, if no one coached at all and I was making money left and right in tournaments with a 100% ROI as pros probably did in 2005, then I would not coach. But when there are tens of thousands of players in tournaments and I’ve trained one of them, this will worsen my expectation by a microscopic fraction of a percent.

How are you going to use your WCOOP prize money?

I confess that I immediately began to think about how I will spend it. Besides, I was planning on winning a bit more.

I had investors and I got 37% of the prize. I sold 71% with the player profit share, part of it came back to me and my share came out to 37%. But, the prize itself ended up smaller than it was in the expectation on the final table.

I was going to change the apartment. Now, I do not know whether there is enough for an apartment and retaining for some good bankroll.

You change your car periodically, don’t you?

Yes, yes. A couple more places up or a chop and I would have changed that too.

One can often read that you put yourself within some kind of boundaries. You refuse to drink alcohol, comply with the harsh regime, and write reports, all for the sake of the long-term goals. Have you practiced any of this recently?

Recently, no. And it’s too bad, because I completely gave up on sports. I was ill for quite a long time in the summer, then there were WCOOPs, there was always a reason not to do anything. Now, I think I want to corner myself in the sports world for some time.

What sport? Boxing?

For the most part. I seem to have found a good new gym near my house. I found it a long time ago, but I am going to visit it tomorrow. I love to swim in the pool and sometimes I run on the treadmill without any fanaticism, but to keep myself in shape.

And your passion for dancing?

You can’t call it a sport. I am fed up with it as a hobby, so it is in the past.

What replaced it?

You can say that poker did. At that moment, when I was actively engaged in dancing, I was visiting parties and almost did not play. That was a time period that lasted for а few months. Dinner parties are held in the evenings, often associated with alcohol. This hobby makes playing in tournaments really tough.

And did you do it deliberately?

Consciously entertained myself, yes. I practically did not work for several months.

Were you tired of playing?

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I wanted to have fun. We do not live for the money only. One must understand what he needs at the moment. At some point, one needs money, at another, health, in the next one, entertainment. At that moment, I focused on partying hard.

So, you do not balance, but dive into things head first?

Generally, I try to balance. But at that time I dove into entertainment and sports. Every day there was a pool, some boxing, or the gym. Then, in the evening, dancing lessons first, then the parties. Hangouts, socializing with new friends, and dancing girlfriends.

And after there was a period when I plunged into poker, constantly playing with no days off at all. I woke up, drove to the pool, and then played, slept, and the same all over again.

Is the nickname Ravic associated with the Remarque’s book “Arc de Triomphe”?

Yes, I used to love reading. Less so now. I don’t have much time, plus I grew up and my perceptions have changed. When I read Remarque, I was young and in a romantic mood. Now, this all sounds simpler than before. I don’t want to read this type of literature anymore. But if I find out that some works are worth reading, I’ll do it.

Another point: when you are tired from the poker session, you can watch a movie or a TV series, but reading is difficult, as you need a clear head. Therefore, I get entertained more in a video format, watching comedy shows, sitcoms, and cartoons. I like good movies about crimes, Tarantino, for example.

You’re a very positive person. Could you share with us, how you can talk about it with a smile and no bitterness just a few hours after you have missed a chance to win one-and-a-half million dollars?

Of course, like everyone else, I’m upset. I think I am upset less than is customary because of the all-ins. I bad-beat someone, someone bad-beat me, and I accept it as inevitable. But if I screw up myself, as I have done several times in the expensive stages of tournaments, or the diplomatic negotiations that should have led to a deal, but for some reason haven’t, it’s annoying, naturally.

People tilt and people react emotionally, but in different ways. Someone tilts and does stupid stuff during play and someone tilts and tries to play according to his plan. It is the same way in life as well: one will be upset and get high on drugs and the other will be upset, cope with it, and live on. I tilt, but try to live and act reasonably in that condition.