Full Tilt Poker Montreal: Ambassador Blain Discusses a Hand History, Montreal, and More

Dermot Blain is among the three Tour Ambassadors still fighting on Day 2 of the Full Tilt Poker Montreal Main Event. Martins Adeniya and Sin Melin are both working towards Day 3 as well. During the last break, Blain was kind enough to step aside with us to talk about his role as a representative of the site, go through a hand history, and talk about his kinship with his fellow ambassadors.

PokerNews: We’re on the first break now and you have a bit above the average stack. You were just talking about a hand where you three-bet and flopped top pair, but lost a chunk of your stack. Can you take us through it?

Blain: I wasn’t at the table long, hadn’t played many hands, and had a relatively tight image. The player who opened was relatively tight, but he’s still going to be opening up wide enough in the cutoff, so I think it’s a decent spot for a steal. I had K♥6♥, and I three-bet on the button. He called. The flop came like Kx7x2x rainbow, and against a guy like this I think I have him drawing to two outs most of the time — nines, tens, that sort of hand — or he has me beat. So I decide to check it back, because it’s a disaster if I get check-raised on the flop obviously. The turn was a 5x, he checked again, so I’m obviously betting for value. I bet like 15,000 — half pot — and he called. The river paired the five, which is a really good card for me. I bet 32,000, and he sigh-called. I thought I was good, although he did call pretty quick, and he had AxKx.

So it was unfortunate, one of those spots where you want both of us to miss. In those cases, I am going to win the pot most of the time, so I was a little bit unlucky, but that’s poker.

You’ve been at your new table for half of a level or so. How are your opponents?

It’s a real action table. I think we might be moving to the feature table, but I could be wrong. I was going to tweet that it’s me and seven maniac French Canadians, but it should be fun. I think it will be good entertainment. There’s a lot of chips on the table.

What do you think that potential move could do to the action? Do you think it would open it up even more, or do you think people would tighten up, knowing that they’re being watched?

Most of the time it tightens people up, but it really depends. With these guys I’m not so sure – they find an ace and a jack and they like to put a lot of money in. So, we’ll see.

While wearing the patch and representing the brand as an ambassador have you seen players gunning for you and your chips?

Yeah, but that’s always been the way with anyone wearing a patch. Players always kind of assume you’re making moves and always doing stuff when a lot of the times you actually have to tone it down a little. When I do have it, I tend to find that I get paid more. So at times they definitely gun for you, but you can adapt to that, which is a good thing.

Is this your first trip to the Playground Poker Club?

Yeah, I love it. I don’t know if anyone has seen the pictures, but it’s an amazing setup. The black really sits well with the Full Tilt logos. People should check the live stream out – the feature table looks amazing.

How is your French?

Oh, terrible [laughs]. My English is a little better, but my French is pretty poor.

You and your fellow ambassadors took a trip to Croatia for a photo shoot, and it seems like you’ve all become really tight. Even when you guys aren’t playing, you’re here hanging out and fraternizing with one another, and it doesn’t seem forced. How has the relationship between you and the other ambassadors grown in the past couple of months?

It’s been really good. I knew Martins [Adeniya] a little, I didn’t know the other two so well. Away from the felt, we were at the Canadian football match yesterday, in Galway we had the races, we did some hockey – God forbid I bust the tournament I’m thinking about going to the ice hockey game on Tuesday. We generally go as a group for a bit of banter. I love my life, but sometimes traveling it can get a little bit lonely bouncing from hotel to hotel and airport to airport, so it’s nice to have people to hang out with and chill a little.

You called your signing with Full Tilt “surreal” when it happened. Do you still feel that way?

Yeah. You’re always asked to be doing interviews, and I’m not the best guy to interview, but I enjoying doing it. People come up to you and congratulate you, and like I’ve set in past interviews I always used to click in and watch the nosebleeds – I still do. To actually represent Full Tilt is a great feeling.

Where are you off to after this?

I’m flying straight to London. If I get knocked out I might head out tomorrow evening – hopefully I won’t be doing that. If I don’t make it for the UKIPT, then I’ll be playing the EPT.

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