Betfair Player Turns Quad 4's into $20k

Betfair regular Mike Krasnytskyi could not believe his luck when his Quad 4's went to showdown meaning he had won a seat at the World Series of Poker "The Little One for One Drop" event in Las Vegas in June courtesy of Betfair Poker.

A tremendous performance in Las Vegas against some of the very best players in the world saw the 25-year-old finish in 25th place giving him a fine pay day of just shy of $20k for his efforts.

We caught up with the European-based player recently to ask him about the unique experience.

Talk us through your feeling when you hit quads 4s on Betfair. Did you realise straight away that you had a chance to win a seat. How did you feel?

Well, I was grinding Sit and Go's Heads Ups every day from the beginning of the month. Sometimes I was near it, I needed only one lucky river card, but it all seemed to be in vain and I began to lose hope. Until the very last day of the promotion.

I got Ac4d on the button and limped just to not give my opponent a chance to fold. My opponent checked. I saw a board which contained only one 4. "Just as usual" I thought. I checked and my opponent checked behind. Another 4 came on the turn. Well, I seen that before sometimes, so I didn't begin to worry. "Please, let me go to Las Vegas" I said jokingly and called my opponents bet, looking at the "strength of hand" line, not at the board. And then I saw a miracle. "Four of a kind". Last 4 of the whole deck appeared at river. I just couldn't believe it. But I still couldn't allow myself to feel any emotions. First of all I carefully clicked the "call" button, because a misclick in such a situation would just kill me and only when I was convinced that the hand would successfully go to showdown I allowed myself to listen to my emotions. For something like a minute I could only say "Wow, Wow, it happened" and did some strange and random clicking on other tables. Of course, at this moment I didn't care about my fate in the other games. But then I managed to calm self and finished my session. No time to waste, I still had a lot to do before my dream of visiting Vegas would come true.

When did you start playing poker and how did you end up playing on Betfair?

I played for something like five years. All of them I played on the ipoker network. Friends invited me to play at other networks, but I really like ipoker, so I always declined their offer. For various reasons I took a long break of playing poker in 2013. For nearly half of year I didn't play online at all. But at start of 2014 I felt that I missed poker so much, so I began to look for a comfortable room for me at ipoker. I needed a room from the A pool and with some interesting promotions and deposit offers. When I saw the variety of promotions of Betfair Poker that problem was solved. Though it is not the most important factor, but Betfair colours (purple, black and grey) are also my favorite colour combination and it's pleasant to play at tables when you constantly see your favorite colours. Right now I hope Betfair will continue to gratify its players with various promotions so it will become my online poker home for a long time.

I'm guessing it was your first trip to Las Vegas. What did you make of the place and how was the Betfair hospitality? Did they treat you well?

Yes, it was my first trip. For a long time I had a dream of visiting that city, because it personifies the soul of gambling. So I was really happy when I had a chance to see it with my own eyes. The city is really amazing, it shocks visitors with it's luxury and bright lights. Obviously it is better to inspect Vegas during the evening. The Betfair hospitality was also at the highest level and above all praise. I have never had the chance to experience such service before.

Do you play live much or mainly online? How did you find it playing against some well-known names (if you did)?

Mainly I play online, it's what I do to earn money. I play offline occasionally, mostly with friends while enjoying a beer in bars.

I don't know what most of celebrities look like and I think it helps a lot. While I heard some people at my table talk to some guys: "If I will lose I should lose to you". But I don't know these guys, so I 3bet them as often as other players. If they are pros, I should have more fold equity against them? Just kidding.

Any memorable hands from the tournament that you can recall? Did you ride your luck much or were you fairly steady throughout?

Yes, I think one hand was really important for my tournament performance. I had TT on the button. I raised and one of players in the SB went all-in. He had something like 25 blinds. Coward Mike in my head says "If you fold here, you can fold every hand and get in the money, it could be good for you". But clever Mike objected "No, it's good call, so even if you will lose and didn't get ITM you will know that you did right thing". I called, my opponent shows 77 and I managed to win. After that hand I felt completely confident which helped a lot during the tournament.

I won two times when I had worse hands than opponents (mostly because I was short stacked and just had to go all in with some mediocre hands) and I lost twice when I had better hands than my opponent did (my QQ lost to JJ and my QQ lost to TT). Also my last all in at tournament was a coin flip. So I think despite the fact that luck helped me a lot (I don't think there is a player who can say that he won decent money prize without any luck) it wasn't my only weapon that I used during tournament.

Any tips about playing in the WSOP for the readers?

Yeah. Just play calm. I visited a lot of big events while playing my hobby - Magic the Gathering, so when I sit at table I was quite calm, which really helped me when I push with a bluff and my calmness made my opponents think that "I had it" and fold.

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