Poker Teams - The Hitsquad PDF Print E-mail
hitsquadvent40winnerprazbansicredmpdior2006wsop.jpgA Force on the UK Poker Scene

by Chris Hall hitsquadvent40winnerprazbansicredmpdior2006wsop.jpgA Force on the UK Poker Scene

by Chris Hall

In the last couple of years, a new stable of players has begun to dominate much of the UK’s live poker scene – the Hitsquad, a London-based group of friends who have all achieved much success in live poker.
    They are brothers Chaz and Sunny Chattha, the stupendously tall Karl Mahrenholz, James Akenhead (runner-up in Event 2 at the WSOP this year) and WSOP bracelet winner Praz Bansi.
    Here they each talk about where they’ve been and where they’re going, their successes, how they got together in the first place and who else they’d like to see join the squad.

Karl Mahrenholz

So how did the Hitsquad form originally?

We pretty much all met through the Gutshot club in London. Obviously, Sunny and Chaz Chattha are brothers and James Akenhead grew up living on the same road, so they knew each other beforehand. I got to know James first and regarded him as one of the best players at the club. I respected his game a lot and enjoyed clashing with him.
    Through him I got to know the others more. Gutshot used to have a £250 tournament once a month that was their biggest outside of the festivals. We were on that final pretty much every month and this is probably how we ended up close friends. One day James asked me if I wanted to come to a home game with them, a sit-n-go, where the idea was to share hole cards and talk through how and why we had played a certain hand the way we did. That home game never happened, but the group was born. That ethos of learning together has been the foundation of the group ever since.

What did you personally do beforehand and how did you get involved in poker?

I first started playing poker with friends on holiday. When we got back, I discovered the Internet and things snowballed from there. I’d already been watching Late Night Poker, without every understanding what was going on, just fascinated by the characters and the psychology of it all.
    When I finished university I went straight into an investment banking job in the city. It was a very demanding job and didn’t allow for much of a life outside of work, often working seven days a week and sometimes not going home. Whilst poker was becoming an increasingly important part of my life, I didn’t quit to take up poker, I quit to take a break and find something that gave me a better work/life balance.
    I actually went for and was in the process of getting another job, but by the time they came to offer it to me my heart was already made up on giving poker a go (if only for a year), highly influenced by the fact that a lot of my close friends were doing it.

Tournaments or cash games?

For me it’s online cash games (pot-limit Omaha) and live tournaments. I can’t stand the pace of live cash games and usually end up playing bad out of boredom and frustration. I play very few online tournaments – they just don’t give me the same buzz as playing live and as a result I often don’t give them the concentration they need.

What’s been the best moment of your poker career so far?

There are a few moments from the last couple of years that stick out. Obviously Bolton (GUKPT) was a bit of a breakthrough. Although I had been building up a good reputation over the previous 12 months, I hadn’t had that sort of exposure before.
    Ending up heads-up with Praz Bansi was obviously special, especially with it all being televised, and we’ve that to thank for our ongoing relationship with
Blue Square. My run in the WSOPE was probably the biggest buzz I’ve had in a tournament, maybe because it was spread over so many days, and maybe because there were so many great players in it.
    On the flip side, busting out so close to the final is probably my worst moment so far. Finally getting the chance to go on the latest series of Late Night Poker was a bit surreal and brought everything back full circle (even if it was a brief experience – thanks, Ms. Mason!).

If you could recruit one other player in the world to the Hitsquad, who would it be?

I’ve been asked this a few times before. To be honest, our group is not one that either gains new members or loses existing ones. Having said that we obviously have lots of good friends in poker and our close friend Javed Abrahams has sort of been an official seventh member for a while. He has a great poker mind and is someone who I’ve been able to learn a lot from.

Which other member of the squad would you least like to play heads-up?

Praz plays the most heads-up games out of all of us and so he would probably be the toughest opponent. Having said that I do know his game very well as we obviously talk about a lot of the hands and situations that we both get into. So a match-up would be very interesting and I’d relish a chance to get revenge for Bolton!

Praz Bansi

You won a WSOP bracelet back in 2006 and then had a great start to 2007 – how have things gone since?

Since then things have been really good for me, I guess. I won a couple of events here in the UK and signed a sponsorship deal with Blue Square. We’ve been travelling all over the world playing in big buy-in tournaments, and I wouldn’t change doing that for anything else at the moment. I’ve also been playing lots of cash games the last couple of years, which I like, so yeah, overall things have been cool for me.

Last year, after you got knocked out of the GUKPT in Manchester, you decided to dash off to Vegas to play the WPT Championship, which had already started! Tell us the story.

Normally after I get knocked out of a tournament, I just want to get away from the venue and go do something else, so after I bluffed off my chips in the Manchester GUKPT I wanted to get out of the casino, but couldn’t think of anywhere to go. Anyway, one of my friends walked past and said I should go to Vegas tonight and play the $25,000 WPT final. I think he was joking but half an hour later I was in a cab coming back to London (missed the last train) to get my bag and passport...

Do you prefer tournaments or cash games?

Both, I think...Someone said to me at the Vic once that if you don’t play cash games and only play tournaments, you’ll either end up broke or in prison! Maybe he was just trying to make sure I played there on a regular basis...I like both of them, but cash games don’t really give me a buzz unless I’m playing bigger stakes!

What’s been the best moment of your poker career so far?

I think my best moment still is when I won my WSOP bracelet a couple of years ago. There have been a few good moments for us the last few years as a group and individually, but I guess nothing can beat winning a bracelet in Vegas.

If you could recruit one player to the Hitsquad, who would it be?

Bring Jim Kerrigan back...he helps me deal with my tilt and makes us laugh a lot.

Which other member of the squad would you least like to play heads-up?

They are all tough to play in their own way, but if I had to choose one, it would probably be James Akenhead. He likes to make big calls with 10-high and stuff against me, and those are normally good!

James Akenhead

You ended up taking second place in the very second event of the 2008 WSOP for the biggest payday of your life, but it must have been mixed emotions having not won?

After a while I thought I would be over the fact I didn’t come first and appreciate my result, but it still hurts. I think the difference in coming first and second in a tournament like that is much bigger than the $300k pay difference. The bracelet, the recognition and the great sponsorship opportunities are much more
important than the cash, in my mind.

How did doing so well early on in the Series impact your game? Did you feel like you were freerolling from then on? Or did you feel more pressure to do well in the other events?

My result filled me with confidence. It’s easy to play loose and not concentrate 100 percent immediately after a big result, but I went into my next tournament with the intention of winning it, and I had more hunger for it than ever. I actually played better in the tourneys after my result than ever before, making great reads, laydowns, calls, etc. It’s sad that I only got one other result in Vegas, as I think I deserved more.

Are you a tournament or cash-game player?

I look at cash games as my main source of income. They are there around the clock and you choose the hours you play. Whether it’s online or at the Vic in London, I try to play six to eight hours a day six days a week. However, this doesn’t always work out if tournaments get in the way. London has a great weekly schedule of live tourneys with a good spread of regulars filling the numbers. I often start my evening off with one of these and then move on to cash if all doesn’t go as planned.

What’s been the best moment of your poker career?

Without question, my recent second place in Vegas. Being there at the final table, with all of the Hitsquad and friends in the crowd cheering me on, was the highlight of my life. The feeling was great!

If you could recruit a player to the squad, who would it be?

This is an almost impossible question. There are many close friends of the HS. I’m not going to name names but the problem we have is we can’t recruit one and not the rest.

Which other member of the squad would you least like to play heads-up?

This is also a very tough question. I respect all of their games and know it would be tough against any opponent (we all know each other’s games pretty damn well). However, we all have our specialities and if I had to pick one it would probably be Praz, as he plays a ton of online heads-up and whenever we play against each other, I find he causes me the most bother and I think he reads me better than most.

Chaz Chattha

One of your biggest cashes came from a festival event in Blackpool when you got heads-up against your brother Sunny. How desperately did you want to beat each other?

This is probably not the answer you expected, but to be honest I was tired and just wanted to go home after a week of poker, but Sunny wanted to play on. I bluffed him a few times then got it in with a draw and missed. I had won a few comps before and that was his first chance, so it didn’t really bother me. I’m sure if the opportunity came along again I would get the better of him.
    You actually have as many cashes in America as you do in the UK. Do you think the standard is generally lower there or do you just do better playing against people who don’t know you so well?
    The standard on average is definitely harder in Europe. The Americans overplay and overvalue their hands too much. I seem to accumulate chips more easily in America because they don’t know me or my style and underestimate me as a player, often making bad calls and horrible plays.

Tournaments or cash games?

I prefer tournaments by far. I started my poker career playing tournaments. I feel a real buzz when I play in the big live and online events, especially when I get a big score. I feel all the hard work has been worthwhile. On the other hand, when you play a tournament for hours and bubble or just scrape into the money, you don’t feel that great. I go on tilt in cash games and haven’t got the patience for it.

What’s been the best moment of your poker career?

Winning two Bellagio comps in the summer of 2006. In one, around 500 players started and I picked up just over $130k, which wasn’t a bad way to start my poker career.

If you could recruit a player in the world to the Hitsquad, who would it?

We don’t actually recruit players, but if I had to pick one person, it would have to be Alan Cunningham. I have watched him play over the years and he is a different class. He makes great plays and has incredible reads. I was on one of his tables this year and he seems like a nice guy, too.

Which other member of the squad would you least like to play heads-up?

This is a tough one. I am the granite in the group, so all the boys would play an aggressive game against me. I know Praz plays a lot of heads-up online, so he must be the most experienced, so it would have to be him.   


Sunny Chattha

You cashed three times in the WSOP this year, making the final two tables of one of the $2000 no-limit hold’em events. How difficult is it to get that deep given the huge fields and various skill levels of your opponents?

To be honest, making the money (top 10 percent of the field) isn’t that hard. Don’t get me wrong, you have to get off to a nice start and win some important pots, but as long as you have a 25BB+ stack you are fine. Usually, you make the money on Day 1 of these fields and the remaining 10 percent (for example, 150-200 players) come back on Day 2. Getting from this stage down to the final table is difficult. The field gets tougher, the stack sizes get smaller, and it’s mainly just preflop play. This is when you have to take your 50-100k stack to like a million by nicking blinds and winning roughly three or four important showdown coups. You really have to have the mentality of ‘play to win’ because if you just sit back and wait for hands, your stack will get eaten up. Overall, I would say if a good player played one of these 1800+ runner fields 20 times, they should cash around five times and make at least one final table.

After being in Vegas for so long, is it somewhere you could or would want to live? Or was it important to get back home to London?

My first visit to Vegas was in 2007 and I hated it. Not only was I running way below expectation but I was stuck in a hotel room for three weeks and it was awful. This year we decided to get a house, which was away from the whole casino/gambling scene and it was great. Seven weeks flew by and I think this was one of the reasons I performed better this time around. I don’t think I could live in Vegas, because I would miss my friends and family too much, but I could definitely do like three or four monthly trips a year.

Tournaments or cash games and why?

I prefer tournaments, but that’s because that is where I have made my money in the last two years. I didn’t really play much cash before, but recently I have been taking a dabble. I had some nice sessions in the Bellagio $5-$10 game whilst I was in Vegas, and I have to say cash is definitely more relaxing and less stressful, but nothing beats the feeling of going through a field of hundreds or even thousands and winning every chip in play.

What’s been the best moment of your poker career so far?

As a group it has to be when James [Akenhead] was on the final table of Event 2 at this year’s WSOP. All the Brits were there with us and there was a great feeling of camaraderie. I remember when James won a crucial hand against Chris Ferguson and we all went crazy, I don’t remember shouting and cheering so loud since 1999 when Sheringham scored the equaliser against Bayern Munich! Personally, my best moment has to be when I won the main event in Blackpool in 2006. The field was ridiculously tough and I had only been playing a few months and used my whole bankroll to enter (don’t try this at home, kids), making it heads-up with my brother just made things sweeter.

If you could recruit one other player in the world to the Hitsquad, who would it be?

The obvious choices are our good friends who already feel part of the squad, such as Adam Stoneham, Javed Abrahams, Neil Channing, Priyan De Mel, etc., but if I could choose anyone in the world it would probably be someone like Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey or Patrik Antonius who would bring a bit of publicity along with a nice fat wallet. We definitely need a woman who can bring some glamour into the squad, but she would have to be a good player, too, so maybe someone like Jennifer Harman, Vanessa Rousso or Isabelle Mercier?

Which other member of the Hitsquad would you least like to play heads-up?

Bring the cards on!                                     

 

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