POKERPLAYER: When you play big tournaments is it hard for you to take the early stages seriously? After all, the buy-in is barely more than the big blind when you play cash.

ELI ELEZRA: When the blinds are 100/200 in a tournament, I play as if they’re 1000/2000. I gamble more at the beginning when other people like to play tight. I play a lot of hands and see a lot of flops. That’s the way you have to play. Look at Daniel [Negreanu] – he raises 50 percent of the hands. You don’t know when he has it and when he doesn’t.