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Jachtmann: I publish the biggest German poker magazine with the German speaking market. It’s like Germany and also Switzerland. And we are doing that for more than five years now. We are successful because we don’t have the big English market like Bluff or Card Player translated into Germany -- and we just focus the special German players, and Austrian players. And we do that for probably all magazines in high circulation. That is my business. I’m a semi professional player and semi professional in the marketing of that magazine. I will write something about this tournament, too.

Question: When Pius Heinz won the world championship last year, what was your reaction? Were you excited about that?

Jachtmann: Yeah, I was very excited. It was fantastic for the German market especially because he managed to get on all the big regular newspapers, which never made something about poker. So, he was really big and it was on every mass media. And that is what is good for the whole German market and he was a nice guy and he can talk with the media and that’s good. He just arrived yesterday and he’s here now.

Question: Can you talk about the poker scene in Germany? Do you feel it’s still growing?

Jachtmann: Well I think it’s still on a really high level. So, I think in the United States it’s on a high level. There are not hundreds of thousands of players a month maybe like we had in the poker boom three or four years ago. But definitely it’s regarded more and more as a skill game. Before it was just like, ‘It’s just like every other game of luck.’ Because you know, we regard it as a skill game. There are no bad feelings about poker anymore. It’s a mind game, mind sport, and this is why I think it will stay for a long time. Like we have a lot of chess players and other card games. This is now good. It’s now like every month new players are starting. It’s on a new level.

Question: Can you talk about how you became involved in poker?

Jachtmann: I’ve been playing over twenty years. But first, we started to play private games and then I started to play in casinos. We only had Seven-Card Stud at that time. So I learned that and there was no time for online poker. Online poker I started much time before that. And then, first we had only a few casinos who made a few tables and then the poker boom came mainly from America and then No-Limit Hold ‘em and suddenly a lot of places to play and a lot of people and more tournaments. Now we can play especially in Germany or Europe and can every week have a good tournament. So, it’s like the European Poker Tour or different stuff. You can go to London or you can go to Vienna. A lot of clubs, a lot of places to play poker now. So now, I could travel all year, but actually I’m trying to keep my business.

Question: Now this is the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship. You’d be the reigning champion of Pot Limit Omaha for a year. This is a very exciting thing for a player who’s been around for two decades. How does it feel when you realize you won this title?

Jachtmann: Yes, I came over here especially to play Pot-Limit Omaha. I went into the money, it was my first money -- WSOP money. I won some Europe, a lot of different things, but never at WSOP. It was my first cash. Second, I busted in the 5K, and now it was a dream to reach the final table. And I even get the championship. I t’s great, unbelievable. Pot-Limit Omaha I play for many years and this is my game that I play almost every day. I play cash games almost every day in Germany. It is my best game, for sure.

Question: You entered the final table with quite a few chips, and you just continued to build up throughout. Did you feel like you just carried momentum throughout and were just able to defeat everybody fairly easily?

Jachtmann: The momentum I felt today was when I won against Sammy Farha. I made a risky call at the flop with 6-6- 7-7. And, I played with Sammy Farha yesterday at the same table. He could have anything, doesn’t have to have a 5. So, I said okay, I call him once for 150,000. I still have 800,000. If I don’t hit and if he fires again, I have to fold. But then I hit the 8 for the straight, and I don’t give him the full house. So I risk my tournament life, and I take him out. So he keeps that spot and after that everything runs. I said ‘wow.’ But the crazy thing is that Sammy Farha is one of my absolute idols and I didn’t tell him before. I wanted to tell him afterwards, because I don’t say ‘you’re my idol’ and then he plays differently maybe against me. Because when I was watching television I saw Sammy Farha and I was like ‘wow, he’s a cool guy.’ I really liked his play. I like to play more action games, that is why I like Omaha, then more just to play tight. And this is what I really like. And he’s a really nice guy. Otherwise I feel a little sorry. But then I said ‘Wow. That’s crazy.’ And now, I move on.

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