For many who take the game of poker seriously, they can point to another player who has had a profound effect on their game.

Whether it’s emerging from obscurity to win the Main Event of the World Series of Poker, pulling off heart-stopping bluffs on High Stakes Poker, or crushing the nosebleed stakes of online poker, some of the best poker players in the world have helped to inspire generations of new players find their way in poker.

We’ve spoken with some of the biggest stars in the game today about who it their poker idols are.

After 15 years in the game of poker, German high stakes pro Dominik Nitsche has become known as one of the premier players in the game. Nitsche started his poker career back in 2006, playing online Sit & Gos. He began to transition to live poker in 2009 after winning the Latin American Poker Tour Mar del Plata Main Event for $381,000, the first live poker tournament of his career.

Nitsche has gone on to amass over $18.5 million in recorded live cashes and his poker resume includes a World Poker Tour title and four World Series of Poker gold bracelets. This includes a victory in the 2017 WSOP Europe €111,111 High Roller for One Drop for which took home a career-high cash of over $4 million.

Nitsche currently spends his time grinding both online and live, when available, and working on his new poker training system, DTO Poker Trainer as well as making appearances for 888poker as one of their long-time ambassadors.

When you first started playing poker, who was the player you admired the most?

Probably Dan Harrington. He wrote some damn good books that helped me win at MTTs. Back when I started playing poker there were barely any resources for tournament poker. I originally played small stakes cash games and eventually moved to Sit & Gos where it was easy to find good content online at the time.  But when I tried to move to tournaments it was really all about Dan’s books at the time. 

What was it about that player that you liked or admired?

See above. His books changed the way I thought about poker! Before I read them I was pretty much clueless about tournament concepts, especially I was unaware of how different they play to the 9 Max SnGs I was playing at the time.

When did you first get to see them play (either on TV, or live)?

I’m not sure I remember exactly. Dan wasn’t on many of the old WSOP shows. Except for the year he went very deep in (2005?!).

Did you ever get to meet that player and what was that like?

Nope. I don’t think he plays very much anymore these days either, unfortunately.

Can you tell us about something either on the felt or off of the felt that you learned from them?

How to beat tournament poker back in 2006. Without his books, I’d have never switched to playing tournaments which in hindsight obviously turned out to be a great decision for me. I was getting a bit bored of the 9 Max SnG grind at the time and I was really looking for a new game to play. Tournaments felt like a natural transition and Dan’s books were a fantastic resource to help me make the switch.

How does it feel to know somebody out there looks at you the way you looked up to your favorite player?

Very strange. It’s something I’m slowly getting used to still. I don’t think before launching DTO Poker many people who’d have picked me as their #1 poker idol but here we are. Especially because poker is a game where a lot of the attention goes to the people who just won a big tournament and it’s actually been a while since I won something. Combine that with the fact there are a lot of German high rollers out there (many who’ve had more success than me in SHRs) and it’s really hard for me to stand out (from a group of super successful high stakes playing Germans my age).

For me, it’s been a fun experience to try to stand out a bit more and I do really enjoy helping people when they ask me for advice.