Ole Schemion: Always Feeling Good
You’re the highest-ranked poker player in the world, selected to represent your country and then chosen as the man to lead them into the final of the Global Poker Masters (GPM) World Cup, but you can’t finish the job off. Today, that man was Ole Schemion.
At just 22 years of age, the German is a superstar of the game having already amassed $7,785,084 in career earnings. As mentioned above, he’s the No. 1 ranked player in the world according to the Global Poker Index (GPI), and came first in the 2013 Player of the Year race before finishing second a year later. It’s safe to say that the last four years have gone pretty well, with little disappointment to worry about.
Germany came into the GPM as one of the favorites and stormed through the playoffs and quarterfinals. They were looking good to make the final and a confident team let Schemion take over from George Danzer in the semi-final six-max match. Schemion had a problem though — he had to get past Italy’s star of the completion, Giuliano Bendinelli. It was a step too far as the German player lost two races on the trot; both with pocket nines, and Germany was out.
Rather than get down on the defeat, Schemion decided to late-register the EPT Malta Main Event Day 1a that was taking place in another room and it was mildly amusing to see him get drawn to the left of German Team PokerStars Pro Jan Heitmann. Schemion was sideways on his chair, on his phone between hands, and chatting away to Heitmann on occasion.
PokerNews asked him if he’d ever lost two flips in a row before: “Of course I’ve lost two flips in a row before!”
“Not really important ones where there’s a lot of money to be won!” commented Heitmann.
“I ALWAYS feel good, man!” he said when asked how he was feeling now sat in the Main Event.
“What about me?” shot Heitmann. “He lost two flips for Team Germany and now he’s been sat to my left – that’s not fair! Actually it’s all good, I can learn something from him.”
Whilst we were watching the table, Schemion played two key hands in one orbit, both versus Niclas Adolfsson and something for Heitmann to study.
With the blinds at 200/400, 50 Schemion raised to 1,000 from under the gun and Adolfsson was the only caller from the small blind. The board ran out 
with Schemion emptying the clip with bets of 1,000, 1,900 and 3,250. Adolfsson check-called the first two bets fairly quickly, but he took his time before calling on the river with the 
. It was good as Schemion opened the 
.
Two hands later Schemion was in the big blind and defended after a raise from Adolfsson. The flop came 
and Schemion check-raised Adolfsson’s 900 continuation-bet up to 2,850. Adolfsson called before Schemion jammed for 10,025 on the 
turn. His Swedish opponent tanked and made the called with the 
but lost out to Schemion’s 
, confirmed after the board completed with the 
.
Schemion had a big smile on his face. Was he playing the two hands in a reckless way, with little care after his team’s defeat earlier? Or were we witnessing an aggressive hand where a lot of opponents would fold top pair (making it a profitable play in the log-run), and a hand where he managed to get a full double up with a thin value shove - a move a lot of lesser mortals would shy away from? Go back and read the second paragraph again and then make your own mind up.
At the time of publication, Schemion had dropped back to 22,000 and had a jersey on over his Team Germany top that was still on display earlier. PokerNews will be keeping a close eye – as ever – on his progress throughout this Main Event.