'Top three' achievement on Dusty's road

We caught up with the WSOP Event #45 ninth-place finisher and ParadisePoker pro Johan "Dusty_Rat" Jakobsson at the Rio.

Here's what he had to say for conquering all but eight of the 3,097-strong field.

So how does it feel to have finished in ninth place at your first WSOP event?
It feels really good. I didn’t expect to make it this far when I started on Friday – I thought maybe I’d only be around for two hours! I don’t consider myself a tournament player at all. To be honest, whether it’s the World Series of Poker of just a home game, it doesn’t matter to me, but the best thing was that I came ninth in a field of over 3,000 players.

How did you cope with the three-day schedule? It’s tough isn’t it?
I’d never played in a tournament this long before and I miss my bed at the moment! I’m very tired and my neck hurts, but that’s because I’m not used to playing live poker for so many hours in just three days.

Were you happy with how you played at the final table?
The only hand that wasn’t standard was when I re-raised pre-flop with 8-7 off-suit against the tightest player I’ve ever sat with. I thought there was a great chance he’d fold, but equally if he comes back over the top of my raise, my decision is easy. If he calls, I know exactly what he’s got. He called and I put him on Ace-King, so when a King hit the flop, he bet out and I knew I had to fold. The final hand, when I got it all-in with 10-10, was against a really aggressive player who had been raising a lot. He had been raising with almost any two cards and with only 1,000,000 in chips to start the hand, I was always going with it. I was hoping for a flip and that’s if he even calls.

And what about your overall play across the three days?
I remember two hands in particular. Folding Ace-King with top pair, top kicker on the turn when a strong player check-raised me and another incident with 10-10. There were some difficult spots in there; I wish it was always easy with Aces or 7-2, but poker isn’t like that. Overall I’m happy with how I played though.

Obviously the cash games on ParadisePoker are your bread and butter, but will you look back and count this among your finest achievements in poker?
Yeah it’s certainly up there in the top three. At the moment I’m quite fed up with tournaments (he grins) but when I wake up tomorrow morning, I’m going to feel very proud of this.