Today we want to take a look at a player who is still new to the world of professional poker and not yet such an established name as a Chris Ferguson, let alone Doyle Brunson. Nico Behling, 23 years of age, hasn’t even seen a third of the springs that Texas Dolly has and yet isn’t one of the myriad of no-name poker players anymore. The young German from Jena managed to end up in the money at the WSOP 2007 (receiving $18,420 for finishing 43rd) and made sure that we would remember his name by narrowly missing the final table of the Aussie Millions Main Event in 2008. However he was compensated with 175,000 Australian Dollars (which equals approximately €88,500).
In November 2008 Nico Behling finally reached a final table in a big international tournament. In season 5 of the European Poker Tour (EPT) he managed to advance to the final table where he would stay until the bitter end. And bitter it was in a sense because he eventually lost to the Portuguese Joao Barbosa – but once again the money probably helped ease the pain. He proved a fair loser as he immediately congratulated the Portuguese and in the course of the following interviews managed to see the good – the amazing sum of €205,270 which he could take home. Yes, winning a lot of money definitely makes it easier to accept defeat.
For the young German who qualified for this event once more online at Everest Poker playing some of the numerous satellites, this was actually his ninth appearance at the heavily contested EPT – and the first one that saw him end in the money. And impressively so. This fact probably also helped accept the second place. We are looking forward to hearing more from Nico Behling in the future. And if he stays active for as long as the ingenious grandfather of poker, Doyle Brunson, we will be able to cover him for more than half a century still!