Despite the start of play being just minutes away the affable German, who lives in Edinburgh, was happy to chat and wasn’t in the least bit fazed by the size of the buy-in. “It’s the same, it’s all the people I play with in the 10k’s anyway. The satellite (which cost €5,000) was quite strange there were quite a few people I’d never seen before. It’s odd to see strangers playing a satellite to a €50,000 tournament. You’d think the players would be more experienced, but some of these guys just came into play one and it was interesting!”
A poker nomad, aged just 24 he’s second on the all-time ‘cashed in different countries’ rankings with ‘flags’ from 24 different countries. The Isle of Man was his latest addition back in October 2013, but he has no plans to add to that list any time soon. “I’m not even sure if there’s anything on the schedule,” he told us. “I’m taking it easy this year, playing all the EPTs and the the WSOP-E in Berlin. So no new flags but hopefully a lot of old flags.”
He’s one of seven Germans who entered this tournament – eight if you count Igor Kurganov – and he once said in jest that had he been born in any other European country he’d be competing for their Player of the Year award but because he’s German he never gets a look in. It was very much a throwaway comment made firmly with tongue in cheek, but like most comments of that nature it’s rooted in at least some fact.
In 2014 Nitsche claimed two outright victories, winning the WSOP National Championship and claiming his second WSOP bracelet in a $1,000 no-limit Hold’em event. Nitsche’s continued success this year, and over a rolling three-year period, means that he’s currently the top ranked player from Germany in both the GPI 300 and the GPI Player of the Year rankings, sitting eighth and seventh respectively. His live earnings now total nearly $5,000,000 (he has online earnings of $3,300,000 too) yet despite that vast sum he’s ranked just eighth in the all-time German money list. In reality that’s actually tenth as Igor Kurgnaov and Max Altergott are both listed as Russian in those rankings. “I’m number eight I think that’s pretty good!” said Nitsche with a smile. “I’d like to think I’m pretty good but at the top we’re all equal and it basically comes down to who’s getting the luckiest and this year it seems to be me in the high buy-ins if you count tenth place as being lucky, which I really don’t.”
So all this got us to thinking, where would Nitsche be in the all-time money rankings of other major European countries had he been born somewhere other than Germany? Using the GPI’s numbers, this is how he’d fare:
Holland, Ireland, Italy, Poland: 1st
Norway, Czech Republic, Belgium and Spain: 2nd
Finland, Ukraine, Russia, Denmark and Sweden: 3rd
France and UK: 4th
With the exception of Russia, it should be noted that Germany has a higher population than all of the other countries in that list but still it’s a remarkable snap shot of the sheer volume of high stakes players that Germany has produced over the past few years. Whilst Nitsche might not claim there’s not a lot to split them at the top it’s hard to argue with the notion that he’s the most versatile of the bunch. He has victories in events ranging from $400 to $10,000 and he’ll be looking for the biggest win of his career this week in Barcelona.
Edit: It’s been a good start to Day 2 for Nitsche who has doubled his stack to around 290,000 during the opening two levels of play.