I've already said congratulations, but congratulations again! Great achievement, it's your shot of a lifetime, yes?
"Yes, so far yes. I hope there will be other and better hits to come!"
We'll definitely keep our fingers crossed. We're talking less than a day after the win, how are you feeling now?
"I feel pretty good, it's such a feeling of satisfaction. I think I played well, the cards held me up. It didn't work out a lot of times before, now it worked out. So it's kind of a reward after a few months of going to tournaments and playing my best and now it finally worked out."
Have you had a favourite hand so far? And will it be eights now?
"It won't be eights, it's always been aces. It's admittedly a boring answer, but I think aces are my favourite, what can I tell you (laughs)."
If you had to review your journey through the tournament from the opening fligh to the final, how did you play?
"I played great, I didn't have any unfortunate collisions the whole time. The negative coolers stayed away from me, the slow structure was great, you could wait a while. In general there were a lot of people pretty pulled in, so there was quite a bit to steal this time around. Overall, very nice."
Although the final table lineup hadn't been decided before the last day, you knew what opponents you would be playing against. Did you study those players?
"I don't deal with this at all. I'm not looking at some hendon mobs or who I'm going to play. To me, those are misleading things. Once you have an exaggerated respect for someone on the table, it's only to your detriment. I play my game and what I see on the table is how I make my image of those players. Someone can have ten million loaded and be a total fish, and someone can have five grand in there and still crush online."
You went into the final day with the fifth highest stack, what were your expectations?
"It didn't mean anything because those stacks were about the same. The difference between first and tenth place wasn't a lot of blinds. After that, I was on the short stack the whole time and made it through to the final table. I was shortstacked the whole time until the last seven players."
What was going through your head at the time?
"I told myself that I would hate to get out, I would still like to play in this tournament for a while. But I know that when that situation comes, you can't control it at all. That if you have to send it out there, you send it out there. Nobody likes to get knocked out, but when you have to you send it in and you don't deal with it."
Has there been a situation in the last four-three players where you've discussed the deal? Or in heads-up play?
"There were those stacks split, there was one huge chip leader and two shorts. So there was no talk of a deal. In heads-up we talked about the deal for a while, I tried to suggest it. But then I rejected it. I told myself that if I made it this far, I would either win it or come second. Either or."
Now that you've moved on to heads-up play, how did you find the game? Are you confident in heads-ups?
"I was confident because I've played enough heads-ups in my life. And I was lucky that day as well, my hands were holding me up. And that combination gave me a great chance to succeed."
You went into heads-up play as the underdog, but you turned it around perfectly, and I think your opponent's botched bluff helped you a lot there.
"He was like that, he was shooting it pretty good out there, which I could take advantage of. In that hand he thought he was going to foul me, he thought I didn't have a strong enough hand. To my luck and his bad luck, I had queens, so I couldn't fold. And the stacks were even at once."
What's your experience with the TV table? Does it affect your game?
"Definitely, everybody sees you there, the whole community. When you make a slip up, everybody sees it. You want to show yourself in the best possible light and show the best possible game. That way it's quite different. People are such that a lot of people will say how you played what you played. But it didn't affect my game, I was just looking to play as efficiently as possible."
What's more important to you, that financial reward or the trophy and title?
"That's a pretty tough question. We all play poker for the money as well, anyone who says they don't is lying. But we definitely play for the prestige as well. It's an achievement, a person proves he's good at what he does. It's such a mix, one hand in hand with the other. But if I had to pick one, it would definitely be money. To be honest, the money always comes first. Money gives you freedom, you also have to live on something. Money means freedom and that's why we play."
Will this financial win change anything in your life or in your future playing?
"It doesn't change anything in my life, it's not an amount that changes your life. I'm going to continue on the path that I started. To get better at poker, to keep playing and try to get even more successful."
Moving on to you as a person, how did you come to take poker more seriously? Do you play poker professionally, is that your primary source of income?
"It's been some maybe twelve years or more since I've been a full-time pro. And to the first question, it was a long time ago, back in the early days of poker in Slovakia, when pretty much everyone could beat poker. As a student, I turned on online poker rooms and suddenly I was making more money there than if I had a part-time job. And it was pretty easy for me back then. Gradually, I got deeper and deeper into it. Then I realized that in order to keep beating it, I needed to improve my poker skills, and the merry-go-round started. I started being successful online and made a long-term living at it."
Aside from playing, how do you keep yourself mentally and physically fit? Do you have a routine?
"Yes I do, I always try to go to the gym to work out and get some healthy food in. That helps me, if I was just sitting around playing poker and not having any movement, I probably wouldn't do it."
What are your other hobbies outside of poker? How do you like to relax?
"I like sports, I'm into fitness. I like history, historical films and documentaries. And I like movies in general."
Do you have a favorite poker movie?
"I don't really like poker movies. For example, I love Bond movies, but I don't like the poker scene in Casino Royale. It's terribly naive, one me poker, one me straight flush, one me full house."
What are your next poker goals and plans?
"My coach Peter Jesko and I have a group of people, we're breaking down hands and trying to improve. That helps me quite a bit. I would like to win some bigger tournaments with bigger buy-ins, that's kind of my goal."
An EPT like that?
"For now, I would go a little bit lower (laughs). Maybe in the future."
Now you've got a ticket to the WSOPE, you can win that.
"That's right, I'm looking forward to that. I haven't played such a big buy-in before, so I'm very curious about it."
Is there anything you'd like to add in closing?
"The main thing in poker is to persevere and keep going, even when you're having a bad time, keep working on yourself. To learn from people who are successful and better at something and can help and push a person. Not to give up and to take poker as a marathon, not as a short run."
Thank you Matthew for the interview and fingers crossed for your continued success!
