ESPN to Provide "Near-Live" Coverage of 2011 WSOP November Nine

A 22 year-old poker pro from Cologne, Germany displayed a magnificent performance during the two day final table in Las Vegas. Pius Heinz the new WSOP winner won a total of $8,715,638. He also got the most desired prize, the WSOP gold and diamond bracelet. A few days ago, the world watched Team PokerStars Pro Pius Heinz conquer the World Series of Poker Main Event and win $8,715,638. PokerNews was able to sit down with Heinz the following day. In Part 1 of the interview, Heinz talked about how he feels as champion, and what he plans to do with the money. In Part 2, Heinz let us know how he responded to the final-table atmosphere and playing heads-up with Martin Staszko. He also discussed some of the key hands at the final table. What was your overall reaction to the atmosphere of the final table; being under the bright lights and the cameras? The atmosphere was just sick. It was just really, really exciting to be there. Did you get nervous at all? Yeah, especially when we started nine-handed play. For the first half hour, I was really nervous, which I didn't expect before hand, but I really was. My hands were shaking when I put the chips in and all of that. It was only this half an hour where I had to get used to it. How was it to come back to three-handed play, instead of heads-up play? It was interesting. Obviously it went really, really fast, which nobody expected. But yeah, I think it's a cool idea to make three people come back instead of two. On Sunday, you took the chip lead and started to really run away with the tournament in a way. Would you have rather just played the entire final table out on Sunday as opposed to having a break with Monday off, which could possibly let the other players regroup? No, I was actually fine with taking this break. By the time we got down to three-handed play, I was fairly exhausted. I think it was about around midnight, so we played for like 12 hours, basically. So yeah, I definitely wasn't sad at all about taking a break. On Tuesday, what was your reaction when you saw Ben Lamb and Martin Staszko get all the money in on the very first hand, and who were you rooting for? Personally, as a person I was more rooting for Ben because I like him and I think he's a great guy and I respect him a lot. Considering just what's good for me at the poker table, I was rooting for Martin. Which doesn't mean I want to take anything away from Martin, I think he's a really, really good player, but Ben is just sick, you know. How was playing heads up with Martin Staszko? He limped a lot of buttons and presumably because he felt that you'd be three-betting him a lot. Did you change you game plan when he started doing this or did you plan for him to do this? I think, actually, this was really smart for him to do that. And I definitely had my problems with his strategy. Usually I would react just by punishing a lot of his limps from the big blind, but when you look down at three-five off every single time he limps the button there's not much you can do. So yeah, I think it was really smart of him to do and I definitely had my problems with this a bit because you're really forced to play bad hands like three-five off out of position post-flop, which against a player as smart as Martin is always hard to do. You guys played heads up for a really long time, and you didn't have too many breaks because the final table was airing live on ESPN. Did you think you were getting tired at all? Would you have liked to have taken some more breaks? Yeah, I mean I understand that ESPN has to run the show and all that, but definitely as a player being there — we're playing for the difference between first and second was like, the better part of three million [dollars] — yeah, I definitely would've liked some more breaks. How did you feel you were handling things emotionally when you and Martin kept trading chips back and forth? For a while it seemed as though you would grind, grind, grind, grind, take a lead and then lose one big pot and reset things. That's basically how it went, yeah. At some point, I definitely started to get frustrated in the match because I could just never make a hand and he did. It was really, really tough at this point, but I just tried to not lose my focus and play as well as I could and hope the cards eventually fell my way. There are a couple hands we'd like to ask you about. The first one would be the king-queen hand where you decided to bluff-raise the river. Can you talk us through your raise on the river after checking back the turn? Yeah, sure. First of all, my preflop play is reasonably standard. I can definitely three-bet, but I thought that I was just going to flat here. The flop play is also really standard. I have the best hand there a lot. When a nine comes [on the turn] and he checks, first of all I thought that my king-queen is good most of the time so there's not really the need to bet a as a bluff because he's not folding. He might fold a six sometimes, but rarely, or a hand like two fives or two fours, maybe, but that's all I can get him to fold out. So there's really no sense in betting. And I thought, which I guess he disagreed because he made a really big call with kings, that by checking back I could rep a nine fairly well. I can also rep a hand like ace-ten or ace-jack, which I probably wouldn't three-bet. I probably wouldn't three-bet ace-queen, ace-king I probably three-bet. Source: Pokernews

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Larry's View: All I can say is wowww, it's amazing that this guy really won the WSOP 2011 Champion. And he's only a kid, 22 years of age thats awesome, he has a guts and the spirit to finish it up until the end. Before the game started, im expecting him not to win this title, this is really proves that poker is for every one. Either your old, young, experienced player, professional or amatuer. That being in the game you must have the attitude of the lion and the dragon that you have all the positive and lucky vibes. Never to to give up and fight until the end if you feel it right good vibes do it.