Online Poker Press

For the last few weeks we’ve been rolling out our WSOP Best Bets series, shining the spotlight on players from whom we expect big things at the 2011 World Series of Poker.

High-stakes online poker pro Thorsten Schafer was included in our German edition, and just one week into the World Series he’s cashed in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em World Championship.

The event attracted 249 of the world’s best high-stakes tournament pros and boasted a total prize pool of over $2.3 million.

Many players put great importance on getting results early in the World Series of Poker but Schafer disagrees, indicating a confidence in his game that isn’t built on small cashes.

“Honestly I don’t care about early results,” he told PokerListings.com moments after busting in 17^th place, good for $25,348.

“I know there’s a lot of variance in these events and I know that if you play your A-game, and you’re playing well, results will follow,” he continued.

As a high-stakes cash game regular online, Schafer has learned that the most critical thing in poker is to always play your best, regardless of short term results.

Schafer began his poker journey close to five years ago with a small deposit of $50. Since then he’s clawed his way up through the limits, and now plays in some of the biggest games on the internet.

It seems the appeal of high-stakes money, and the correspondingly high level of competition, is something that draws Schafer to events like the $10k championship in which he cashed today.

“Even though the players are way better in events like this, I really prefer them to low buy-in events with more weak players,” he explained.

“In the higher buy-in tournaments you get a chance to level players, and think on a much deeper level.”

While cash games are Schafer’s forte, he doesn’t have plans to play in any of the big buy-in side games for which the WSOP is famous. Even without playing live cash, Schafer’s free time will be extremely limited this summer.

“It depends on how often I make Day twos and threes but I’m expecting something like 20-25 tournaments this summer,” said Schafer.

Follow all the action from Las Vegas in our 2011 WSOP Live Coverage section.