20 days left to Cash Game Festival Malta – Meet Juha Helppi

Today we are only three weeks away from ”Shuffle up and deal” on Cash Game Festival Malta 2016. If you haven’t already booked your seat it is about time to do that. We can guarantee you that this will be an amazing event to remember!
To get the feeling pumped up a little bit more we are happy to provide you with the latest interview with one of our biggest players that will attend the tables at Malta; Juha Helppi.
Helppi, one of Finlands biggest ever poker players just ended the WPT High Roller Amsterdam on a massive fourth place out of 96 starters. Congratulations from us at Cash Game Festival and see you on Malta!
Now for the interview, made a couple of weeks prior to the just finished WPT Amsterdam, enjoy!
And hey, don’t forget to visit Malta to try and get a hold of Helppi’s latest winnings ?

Name: Juha Helppi
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Age: 39

CGF: Hi Juha! First of all…congratulations on starting the year with a win in Helsinki Freezeout! Must be a nice feeling to kick things off that way…
Juha: Thanks! Yes, of course it feels good even if it’s a smaller tournament. But actually I haven’t played any bigger events this year. I missed EPT Dublin because I was in the US and I’m going to skip EPT Monte Carlo because of tax reasons. But I will go to WSOP this summer, not for the full series, but a few weeks at least. I have never done the whole WSOP and only been for three weeks in a row at most.
CGF: You mentioned tax reasons. Do you have the same situation in Finland as we do in Sweden?
Juha: No, our system is better. We can deduct all our losses and expenses, but we have to pay income taxes. So if you make a big profit/score it can be close to 50% in taxes. But you don’t have to pay only when you win, just from your net winnings. If you lose then you can deduct the losses for next 5 or 10 years (not sure). But it’s still bad and I have had to pay lots of taxes from my wins outside of EU.
CGF: How long have you played poker and what made you start playing?
Juha: I started back in 1998, when I was a dealer in a local club in Turku. I had played some Sökö (Five Card Stud) before, but never Holdem or Omaha, when work colleagues of mine taught me how to play. Next year (1999) I also started playing online, but it wasn’t until 2002 I took a one year break from work to study and play poker, but mainly play. Even though I went back to work a short while 2004 you can say I have been playing poker for a living since 2002. And I have been living in Helsinki since 2004 which made traveling for poker much easier.

CGF: Can you describe your playing strengths and weaknesses? And do you have different styles of playing when it comes to cash games or tournaments.
Juha: My style varies a lot depending on what type of game it is and what opponents I face, so can’t really answer that in an easy way. I would say my main strength is that I rarely tilt, and therefore can play my a-game most of the time. Many poker pros tilt easier and suffer from that more than I do. And I obviously don’t have any weaknesses in my game (laughs).
CGF: Most people might know you as a solid and strong tournament player from TV. How much cashgame do you actually play?
Juha: I have always played a bit more cashgame than tournaments, but I really enjoy live tournaments a lot. I don’t play online tournaments since I find them quite boring and don’t want to be sitting and staring at a computer screen for that long. And I never do Sunday grinds like many of my fellow poker pros. I do play cashgames online at times, mostly PLO. Even though its hard nowadays to find high enough games for me. And often when they are running you are up against most of the really good players, so it hardly makes it worth it. At the moment there are not many good games for me online. I used to like the ZOOM games before when they ran higher ones, but now they are too low.
CGF: Do you have any other game or sport interest as a hobby/profession? And if so, does that interest help your poker skills in any way?
Juha: Well I like most sports and I do a lot of sports betting. I play ice hockey twice a week and both tennis and floorball every now and then. I´m trying to get better and learn sports betting. But it’s tough and I’m not a winning player yet. Maybe one day?!
I don’t know if being interested in sports or betting helps my poker. Maybe rather the other way around, because I understand the part of bankroll management very well.
CGF: Would you say you have any preferred poker destination(-s) and why?
Juha: Well my favorite place will always be Aruba, since it was the first place I had a big score (Aruba Poker Classic 2002 for $50,000). It maybe wasn’t that big in general, but it was a big win for me back then. It kinda started my career, and that’s why it’s important to me and I went back there 4 years in a row. But I haven’t been back to Aruba since 2005 after they stopped having bigger events there. Maybe I will go back for vacation one day in the future.
Outside of Aruba I like Vegas because the games are good. But that’s all and I wouldn’t go there for vacation. Maybe because I’ve already spent close to one year of my life there in total.
In Europe I used to like Paris before they closed the Aviation Club. And I like the tournaments in Helsinki where I live. Even if they are often smaller, they are run very well.
CGF: Do you have any interesting story or situation to tell us about that you have experienced in a live environment?
Juha: I guess one interesting hand was from a televised game in London, some 6 or maybe even 8 years ago. It was a cashgame hand against Ilari Sahamies, where I had pocket tens in small or big blind. There was a raise and a call, when action was on me and I made quite a big re-raise. Ilari was in position and called.
Flop comes 367 and Ilari check-raises me before I move all-in. He has an open-ended straight draw with 89 and doesn’t really get the odds to call, but decides to gamble anyway. He only has the odds if I have like a 7, which is quite clear the way the hand was played that I didn’t have. Pocket tens is the very best hand I can have against his hand and only leaves him with six outs. He hits two of them, first the 5 so I’m drawing dead, and then rivers a 10 to rub it in.
It ended up to be the biggest pot of my life with 145,000, while Ilari ended as the biggest winner of that cashgame. I think that is a hand I will always remember. And I would say Ilari is also the most talented player I have ever met. He has been able to do well for a long time without really studying the game or always playing his A-game.
CGF: So what are your thoughts and expectations on the Cash Game Festival compared to the standard tournament festivals where cash games aren’t the focus?
Juha: Tournaments have a benefit of usually having a lot of online qualifiers, which makes it easier to get players to travel to them rather than to just go for cash games. And usually the cash games in most places are a bit to low for me to just travel for them, but I might actually go to the festival in Malta to combine vacation in the sun with poker. I couldn’t make it to London last month, and hopefully they will get some higher games running on Malta also. Even if they don’t I’m happy to go and have some fun at lower levels.
If you want to have winning trips it’s better to play cash games. In tournaments you score quite rarely, but if you are a good cash game player you usually have a winning trip. That way I think it’s nicer and makes the swings much smaller compared to playing tournaments like EPT’s. Swings are huge on live tournaments.
CGF: Do you have any other trips planned before or around the Cash Game Festival in Malta?
Juha: Yes, my plan is to go to the WPT Amsterdam in May. After Malta I’m going to Las Vegas a few weeks for the World Series of Poker. And then of course EPT Barcelona in August after the Series.
CGF: Thank you for taking time to talk to us and good luck in Amsterdam! We look forward to seeing you in Malta in June…
Follow Juha Helppi online
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Juha-Helppi-142297461573/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/juhahelppi
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juhahelppi/
• HendonMob: http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=2157#