Dominik Nitsche (born 1990) is a professional poker player, originally from Minden, Germany but now residing in Edinburgh, Scotland. Nitsche began playing poker online in 2006, amassing winnings exceeding $3 million. Dominik Nitsche. The most magnificent and monstrous online poker series ever held on 888Poker has ended with one of their own taking down the Main Event. The $8m GTD Superstorm ended with the treasure reserved for the winner of the $320 buy-in, $1m GTD Main Event going the way of 888Poker Ambassador, Dominik Nitsche. Tags: 888poker, Dominik Nitsche, ICM, Independent Chip Model, poker strategy. Posted on 01 February 2021 by 'T'. In the world of poker, the term ICM is short for Independent Chip Model, and who better to walk us through to this topic than an accomplished poker pro himself, Dominik Nitsche!

One of the fast rising young poker players in the game today is Germany’s Dominik Nitsche, who achieved his greatest tournament success before earning his high school diploma.

Calling Minden, Germany home, Dominik weaned himself on poker through the 21st century equivalent of “fading the white stripe” – online poker. Using the names “JustLuck1337,” “TJCookier” and “Bounatirou” across the spectrum of online poker sites, Nitsche seemed to be a prodigy of sorts in online tournament poker. His first online tournament success came in 2007, a 192nd place finish in a June running of PokerStars’ Daily Fifteen Grand NLHE tournament. For his $11 buy in, Dominik picked up $20.50, with even more success coming since that inaugural tournament cash.

In 2009, Dominik would earn his biggest cash ever for his online career during the February running of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS). He finished in second place in a $200 NLHE event during that online tournament schedule, earning his best online cash to date of $63,098. For his online tournament career, Nitsche has earned a stellar $2.46 million according to PocketFives.com, with a substantial amount of those winnings coming before he had graduated high school.

For all of his online success, the live tournament world – and any adjustments that needed to be made – didn’t seem to faze Dominik. His first ever live tournament cash also earned Nitsche a place in poker history. In April 2009, Dominik was a part of the field for the Latin American Poker Tour’s stop in Mar de Plata, Argentina. With top pros such as Costa Rica’s Humberto Brenes, former World Champions Chris Moneymaker and Joe Hachem and tennis champion/poker player Boris Becker in attendance, it all could have been a bit overwhelming for an eighteen year old, but it wasn’t.

Working his way through the 291 player field to the final table, Dominik demolished his opposition, taking less than four hours to work through the final table. In what was his first ever live event, Nitsche – still attending high school in Germany at the time – took home the championship (becoming the youngest ever LAPT champion as of 2011) and captured his largest ever payday as of July 2011 of $381,030.

While many would have sat back on their success, Dominik has continued to perform at a high level since that championship. He has cashed in tournaments in fourteen different countries, including Ireland, Australia and much of Europe, with two cashes each on the European Poker Tour and the European events on the World Poker Tour. Not old enough yet to venture to the United States for the World Series of Poker, Dominik instead went to Kyrenia, Cyprus in June 2011 and won the $2500 NLHE Main Event of the Merit Summer Open for a $123,366 bounty.

When 2012 came about – and he turned 21 – Nitsche made his impact known on the international poker circuit with a breakout season. At the World Series of Poker, Nitsche took down one of the final preliminary events on the schedule, a $1000 No Limit Hold’em event, for a score of $654,797. Later in 2012, Nitsche would pull down the second leg of poker’s Triple Crown, winning the World Poker Tour’s event held in Johannesburg, South Africa. With those two victories, Nitsche only needs a victory on the European Poker Tour to become a Triple Crown member.

Along with those tournament championships has also come a sizeable bankroll. As of April 2013, Nitsche has earned almost $2.4 million in a short time span. He has neatly broken that success between the United States (winning slightly over a million dollars) and the rest of the world. Along with his success in the online poker world, the 21 year old from Germany has over $4.5 million in earnings from live and online tournament poker.

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As the two Day 1 fields combine, Dominik Nitsche´s first day performance is good enough to hold the overall lead in the inaugural South African WPT Main Event.

As the two Day 1 fields combine, Dominik Nitsche´s first day performance is good enough to hold the overall lead in the inaugural South African WPT Main Event.

The first ever World Poker Tour to be hosted in South Africa kicked off on Monday at the Emperor´s Palace Hotel Casino in Johannesburg and, despite initial reservations about how popular the event may be, a total of 222 players entered (or re-entered) the $3,300 +$300 Main Event. Of those, 114 still remain in the tournament at the start of Day 2 – headed by Day 1A chip leader Dominik Nitsche.

WPT SA Day 1A in a Nutshell

Day 1A of the WPTSA was a day for the old-timers and the new kids on the block. South African Poker legends Hugh Todd – the only South African ever to win a WSOP Bracelet (1990) – and Raymond Rahme, who finished third in the 2007 WSOP Main Event, were both in attendance as were PokerStars ambassadors Chris Moneymaker and Joe Cada (who is 25 in two weeks time, so a relative old-timer).

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Cada was the first of the quartet to bust on Day 1A – running his pocket Kings into the Aces of Evro Psiloyenis during Level 3 – and Chris Moneymaker was to depart before the dinner break after [in his words] losing every flip I´ve played in. Todd and Rahme were both dispatched to the rail by Gideon Scheepers during Level 7 and, although all four players re-entered the tournament on Day 1B, only Joe Cada remains alive.

Just about the time Joe Cada was leaving the card room on Day 1A, Dominik Nitsche late entered into the tournament. Nitsche found himself on a table with Claude Sacks who had been running exceptionally well and who was clear chip leader by the dinner break. However Nitsche was able to build his chip stack when turning trip Kings against Peter Khan and then doubled up against Sacks in the most fortunate of circumstances.

Holding 8x 6x on a board of 8x 4x 2x / Ax, Nitsche moved all-in for his entire stack. Sacks (Ax Qx) made the call, and a Six turned up on the river – giving Dominik Nitsche two pairs and saving his tournament life. The Ax Qx combination came back to haunt Claude Sacks once again towards the end of the last Level of Day 1A – but this time it was Nitsche who was holding it on a flop of Qx 7x 5x. A further Queen on the turn and a Five on the river got all the chips in the middle, with Sacks´ pair of Nines no competition for Nitsche´s tripped Queens.

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With his one-man demolition job on Claude Sacks, Dominik Nitsche finished Day 1A with 225,700 chips – almost double the number of second placed Gideon Scheepers (139,200) with Ryan Price (129,100) and Nick Wilson (123,700) the only other players to finish the day with more than 100,000 chips.

WPT SA Day 1B in a Smaller Nutshell

Day 1B of the World Poker Tour was a much busier than its predecessor and, in addition to the re-entries from Day 1A, the field was joined by such notables as Liv Boeree, McLean Karr, Jerome Bradpiece and Melanie Weisner – who, fresh from her victory in the $1K 6-Max side event – turned a set of Aces to bust out Chris Moneymaker (two pairs) and elevate herself towards the top of the leaderboard.

However, the chip leader at the end of the night was Sunil Devachander, who put an end to the promising run of birthday boy Jason Hartman when betting his pocket Aces intelligently to get all his chips in the middle after turning a third Ace on a paired flop to give him a full house against Hartman´s paired Ace. Hartman finished the day with 52,000 chips after at one point having more than 250,000 in front of him. Devachander finished Day 1B with 215,800 for second place overall.

Devachander was closely followed by Wesley Weigand (212,800) who crippled McLean Karr late in the day, while a number of players crossed the 100,000 chip barrier including Jerome Bradpiece – who turned a Broadway straight to eliminate Lagen Zachary (Kx Jx – flopped top pair) – and Melanie Weisner, who was dealt pocket Threes towards the end of Level 6, had the good fortune to flop a full house (Threes over Tens) and get three streets of value against Bennie Lingenfelder with the chips she had won from Chris Moneymaker.

Looking Ahead to Day 2

When play starts this afternoon at the Emperor´s Palace Hotel Casino, players will be entering Level 11 – with blinds of 600/1,200 and an ante of 200 chips. Re-entries are still available until 2.00pm local time (12.00 noon GMT) so it is not yet known how many entries there will be in total, how much money will be in the prize pool and who is going to get paid.

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Those who will not be worrying about re-entering the tournament include:-

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