Scotty Nguyen: You Don’t Gotta Be Boring To Win In Poker

As poker instituted itself into mainstream society over the last decade, the game has changed in a variety of ways, big and small. Almost overnight, poker morphed into entertainment and successful players became celebrities. Some players seemed to barely notice their newfound status while others began changing and adjusting to it with varying degrees of success. A select few players seem like they were born to be poker celebrities and have just been waiting for he world to notice: Scotty Nguyen serves a prime example.

While there may be lots of professional poker players in the world, only a few can be called true “personalities” in the game. Among all of them, Scotty Nguyen stands out like a skinny guy rocking rainbow colored clothes in a sea of grey and black…which is basically what you’d see if you hovered above a tournament with Scotty in it.

Born in Vietnam, Scotty came to the United States when he was 14. He ended up living with a host family in California where he was introduced to poker. As with most successful poker players, Scotty instantly fell in love with game and the game fell in love with him just as quickly.
Like many teenage love affairs, the relationship Scotty had with poker was disruptive and troublesome at times. Especially the times Scotty would skip school to play in back room games. Ultimately, Scotty left school and went searching for a way to turn his passion into profits.

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He didn’t immediately find success and took a job as a dealer, an occupation that many pros dabbled in while they were getting started. Scotty used the position as an opportunity to study the way other people played, observing what worked and what didn’t work . Through this study, he also developed greater insight into the way players behaved, reacted and responded at the table.

In addition to Hold’Em, Johnny learned how to win at a variety of games, including Pot Limit Omaha, Stud Hi-Lo, 2-7 Lowball and others. In addition to increasing his earning potential, learning to win at many different games provided Johnny with insight into a variety of playing styles and strategies that could be modified and applied according to his whims.

After years of honing his skills and mastering the cards, Johnny placed thirteenth in a Limit Hold’Em tournament at the World Series of Poker. While not going to the final table, Johnny got noticed for both his play and his persona. Two years later, Johnny won his first bracelet and the world was put on notice to not confuse friendly showmanship with inferior play.

The following year Johnny made good on that notice by placing in three WSOP tournaments and winning the Main Event bracelet.

While winning the WSOP Main Event is a monumental accomplishment that will be written about and discussed widely, Johnny took it to the next level with one of the most repeated quips in poker history. He was sitting behind the leading chip stack, heads up with Kevin McBride at the final table. When the river was laid out, the board showed an eights over nines full house. Scotty reviewed the board carefully and then plopped enough clay on the felt to force Kevin all-in if he wanted to call.

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Having set his multi-stack trap, Scotty was kind enough to warn the soon to be 2nd place finisher: “You call this one and it’s all over, baby!” Responding that he played the board, McBride didn’t hear the trap snap shut around him as he called the hand. He saw the fatal results, however, when Scotty turned his hold cards to display a higher full house and claim the prize. It sounds a bit like the ending to a Hollywood poker movie and that’s one of the reasons the cinematically beautiful final hand became instantly unforgettable.

Coming from any other player, the line could easily have sounded arrogant or incredibly antagonistic. From Scotty it was obviously just humorous teasing and fit perfectly with his larger-than-life persona and fun loving style. While many poker tables are fairly quiet, Scotty’s mouth produces an almost constant fast-paced banter that frequently ends in the word “baby.” His chattiness tends to keep players amused and slightly off their game at the same time.

The Hollywood feel of Johnny’s flashy clothes, gold chains and personality to cement him a player poised to take full advantage of the coming “poker entertainment” craze. The association between the entertainment world and the world of entertainment known as Johnny Nguyen was formalized when he was cast in the poker-themed movie, The Big Blind.

Thanks to the media explosion of poker, millions of people have been exposed to Johnny. Possibly hoping that similar flash would bring similar cash, a number of incoming players have attempted to adopt a similar persona. The results vary from the almost-but-not-quite-successful to the incredibly annoying and no one pulls it off like Johnny.

Of course, that’s because Johnny’s not “pulling it off,” he’s just a naturally exuberant person who likes having a good time and being adorned by colors most people would be afraid to wear. He has extravagant tastes, as evidenced by the expensive clothes and jewelry, to match his extravagant personality. Because it’s all an organic extension of his personality, Johnny’s flamboyance contains a sincerity that can’t be faked.

If you ever find yourself at a table with skinny guy who seems to have set it appearance on “blind” and his mouth on “turbo,” know that you’re in the presence of greatness. When you hear that it’s all over if you call, baby, be aware that you may be setup for an amazing Scotty Nguyen story to tell your friends.

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To your success,

Morrie Finkelstein

Phil Hellmuth: Is The Poker Champ A Few Cards Short Of A Full Brat Pack?

It seems as though nearly every sport in the world has at least one hot headed player and they bring an elevated level of drama, excitement and irritation to the game. While many poker players are hot-tempered and prone to bratty tantrums, you don’t know them because they can’t beat the ten-cent game with Grandma.

Becoming the official “brat” of poker requires the rare combination of temper, outspokenness and the ability to win titles and cash repeatedly. Phil Hellmuth was born to be that brat.
Okay, yeah, opening with Phil’s is cheap, easy and clichéd. If you’re so smart and can do better then stop reading, start writing and quit whining…See, acting like a brat is easy if you don’t mind being dropped and ignored. Throwing a tantrum and acting snotty while remaining popular takes an almost magical innate charisma that Phil has plenty of (and this author clearly lacks).
Seriously though, Phil is a lot more than an emotional volcano and it’s the rare combination of the talent, intelligence and (gasp) friendliness underneath the boiling tip that allows us to enjoy his hot headedness.

Phil started playing poker while in college, at the University of Wisconsin, which is far later than many of the best known poker players who started as children. Even though Phil wasn’t gambling with cards before he rode a bike, he had a natural aptitude for the game and eventually quit school to play professionally.

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Saying that Phil’s parents were not happy with his decision is another obvious cliché, since most parents don’t want their kids to drop out of college with “play cards for money” as their business plan. It’s only worth mentioning in Phil’s story because he turned their negative feelings into elated support the old-fashioned American way…

Frequent and expensive bribes.

Sure, there was probably some family stuff like communication involved too, but the bribes helped. Some people think bribery is too strong a word here so they call them gifts. And the gifts and trips Phil lavished on his parents didn’t actually change their mind about poker. No, it was the fact that they proved Phil could make a good living and enjoy a successful life playing cards. Once they knew this, beyond a doubt, they dropped their concern and started cheering him on. Feel better?

Of the bribes…er…gifts, one trip in particular does bear mentioning both because his dad was almost arrested and it sparked a unique lifelong collection of jewelry. Basically, Phil told his dad to pick a place because he wanted to send him on a trip. His dad decided that he wanted to go to Las Vegas. The date his dad had in mind was an exceptionally busy time in the always busy town but Phil was able to get the trip arranged for his dad.

The trip, of course, was to watch his soon play in the 1989 World Series of Poker when Phil Hellmuth beat poker legend Johnny Chan in the main event, earning his first WSOP bracelet while preventing Chan from earning his third in a row.

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When the final hand ended with Chan defeated, the reactions of the crowd can only be imagined. Phil’s reaction was one of joy and triumph, hands raised in the universal position of a champion. His dad, flushed with excitement and pride, jumped from his seat and raced toward the table to congratulate his kid.

Of course, by the final hand, the WSOP was covered with the prize money of one million dollars, so Phil’s dad was met by some very large and very serious security guards. Maybe they got a tip to look out for somebody pretending to be the new champ’s dad while actually intent on stealing the money, who knows.

Regardless, Phil was able to convince them that his dad was relatively safe and finally get his well deserved congratulatory hug (and his very own Las Vegas security story).
In that one game, Phil laid a powerful foundation for his own legend and legacy. After all, Johnny Chan came into the tournament looking to three-peat and ended up being beaten heads-up by a 24-year-old kid. At the time, Phil was the youngest player to even win the WSOP main event and has since earned 9 more bracelets.

Having 10 WSOP bracelets, the most of any single player, is a feat shared only by Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan which basically makes it the single most exclusive club in all of poker. Even within the highly elite double-digit club ranks, Phil manages to stand out as the only one to win all 10 bracelets playing hold‘em.

Because he frequently and consistently wins money in a wide-variety of tournaments, Phil has become one of the highest earning and most recognizable players in all of poker. While he’s been busy winning tournaments, Phil also served as an official spokesman for UltimateBet.com and published a number of poker strategy books.

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Which brings us back to where we began with the poker brat. Phil is extremely competitive and expresses that drive in some ways that other plays simply wouldn’t think of doing: tirades, tantrums and trash talking at the table. It’s sort of like the game of poker mixed with the entertainment of professional wrestling (thankfully the pretty spandex stays hidden while Phil plays).

He may not be the picture of poker a purist would paint, people do tend to fixate on the world-class hot-heads. It may be the fact that most temperamentally bratty people never make it to the top because they are, well, temperamentally bratty. Since it is so rare, a top-performing brat could be considered a modern day sideshow freak.

Phil’s autobiography is appropriately titled “Poker Brat,” and the persona has pushed his wealth and stardom into atmosphere. It’s an extreme reputation that doesn’t leave much room in the middle: most folks either love him or hate him.

Whichever side you ultimately fall on isn’t really the important point. If you know you can’t stand him then you do know who he is and the recognition helps separate Phil Hellmuth from all of the extremely talented, and much more polite, players whose names you can’t quite recall.
Well, that and the unspoken wish that one day, one very lucky day, he’ll stomp his feet and threaten to take his cards, chips and other toys and go home forever and ever!

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To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Men Nguyen Rides Express Lane To The Peak Of Poker Prowess

Although it may not seem like it at first, the world poker is actually fertile ground in which deeply inspirational stories can grow. The main reason for this is the fact that poker provides an opportunity for people to earn recognition and wealth while competing on a truly level playing field: players are rewarded and penalized based solely on skill regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. Men “The Master” Nguyen is a living legend of poker and embodies the life-changing effect the game offers.

A lot of pros started playing cards while they were children, generally around the family dinner table using buttons or candy as chips. The childhood experiences of Men were quite different, living in Vietnam during extremely difficult political and culture times. At 13, when many pros are sneaking into back rooms or raking in their friends allowance, Men was quitting school and taking a job driving buses to help support the family.

Helping his family was important to the young man and Men did whatever he could for quite awhile. Men continued to grow and learn while the country becoming increasingly volatile. Because of the persecution and unrest of the times, many people were leaving Vietnam by boat, risking everything while hoping of finding a safer life somewhere else. Men was on one of those boats in 1978, along with almost 90 other people, and he was received political asylum in the United States later in the year.

Finding himself in about as foreign an environment as can be imagined, Men studied English and struggled to survive for 3 months before finally getting a part-time job delivering furniture. After becoming more proficient in English, Men found work as a machinist and stayed in that profession for 8 years.

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It wasn’t until 1984 that Men first found his way to Las Vegas and was introduced to American poker via a 7-card stud table. Things were different in Vietnam, where Men had played five-card stud using only 28 cards (eights- aces). Playing in America was basically like starting over completely fresh and he quickly earned the nickname “Money Machine,” which stemmed from his almost ATM like distribution of money. Men made a quick study of his new hobby, however, and the name didn’t last long.

Men won his first poker tournament, at the Bicycle Club, in 1987 and could celebrate both the win and his citizenship, which he had received in the previous year. Fellow players quit calling him Money Machine and Men quit his job so he could direct his focus at the cards.

A year later, Men was in a hold’em tournament and found himself pitted against World Series of Poker champion Johnny Chan. 1988 was the year Johnny won his second consecutive main event WSOP bracelet. In contrast, Men had just started playing the popular poker variation earlier that year. Johnny went all-in and Men called, knocking Johnny out and putting Men into the heads-up finale.

Men later said that he technically should’ve folded against Chan but, at the time, didn’t know enough to realize it. The “mistake” worked out well for Men when his head-up opponent offered a split and Men walked out of the casino $44,000 richer.

Although he’d quit working to improve his game, Men used the money to buy a couple of businesses in Los Angeles. It wasn’t long before Men realized that being a business owner couldn’t compare to sitting at a poker table. Men works extremely hard at whatever he does and the hard work didn’t pay off as well behind a desk. Less money and greater stress allowed Men made his options crystal clear and Men very easily sold businesses in 1990 and Men was playing poker professionally.

Men has won 6 WSOP bracelets, though he hasn’t brought home jewelry from the main event…yet. Beyond the WSOP confines, he’s won tournaments around the world and is one of the top money players in the game. While prolific success and legendary abilities can create an anti-social streak in some people, Men has developed a unique reputation as one of the most open, friendly and helpful players in poker.

He is considered by many to be one of pokers greatest teachers and his nickname, The Master, was bestowed upon him by one of his many students. Although he’s definitely busy winning his own money, Men has made himself available as teacher to many different people. Learning from one of the absolute best, Men’s student have exacting standards to live up to with respect to both mechanics and ethics.

Because he has been so incredibly successful in poker, Men has been able to help people in ways that would’ve seemed impossible as he fleeing Vietnam. He donated a great deal of money to help people in New York after the 9/11 attacks, he built a kindergarten in Vietnam and he regularly sends money to children there.

While he’s extremely generous and charitable as a human being, Men Nguyen doesn’t give or take freebies at the poker table. When sitting with The Master at a table, the closest you’ll get to his charitable side is what he’ll do with your money once he takes it from you.

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To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Joseph Hachem: Down Under Doc On Top Of The Poker World

The World Series of Poker was revolutionized in 2004 as it brought in over three times as many entries as the previous year. The consequences such an increase had on every aspect of the tournament are mind-boggling. Suffice it to say, the ’04 series was a unique transitional event that will probably stand on its own in history. 2005, despite another huge participant increase, benefited from a year of experience and had adjusted a bit to massive changes. As the dust finally settled, only Joseph Hachem remained from a field of over 5,500.

Joseph had been playing poker since his teenage years though he didn’t pick up the game of Hold’Em until he saw the movie Rounders. He enjoyed playing and won enough to keep it profitable, though it was basically a hobby. He was already pursuing a passion professionally, running a chiropractic business, and was happy to keep poker on the side.

His main passion was soon to face a fatal roadblock, however, as Joseph was diagnosed with a rare blood vessel disorder in his hands around the year 2000. Joseph was forced to get out of the business due to his hand problem and focused more seriously on poker, though he also began working a mortgage broker. For a while, his semi-professional poker existed peacefully with the world of mortgage lending.

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Most professional pokers are familiar with the poker bug and know how it can just slowly grow until it’s an obsession. Joseph’s poker bug must have experienced a growth spurt in 2005 as he and a few family members made the trek from his home in Australia to Las Vegas. The World Series of Poker was calling his name and Joseph had to answer.

Prior to big game, Joseph got a seat at WSOP Event 37, a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’Em tournament. Placing 10th, Joseph walked away with over $25,000 and a healthy dose of boosted poker confidence. That confidence would come in handy, since Joseph was walking into what was, up to that point, the largest Main Event ever held and playing for largest prize payout.

In the end, Joseph did what he came to do and took home the bracelet and the $7.5 million prize. As has happened a number of times in large poker tournaments, Joseph won with one of the worst starting hands in the game: 7-3 off-suit. Needless to say, the hand probably doesn’t look as bad to Joseph at this point.

The increase in entrants at the WSOP Main Event has affected the entire tournament in a number of ways. It’s also affected the title of champion in ways that extend beyond the obviously larger prize and the bragging rights. The main event winner used to be considered the “world champion of poker,” as the title implies. Lately, however, many players have begun to look at the bracelet as just another tournament.

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In fact, it’s starting to seem like many of the less successful players will avidly observe the post-tournament play of the champion to see if they’re really as good as they “should be” for having won the main event. This basically means that failure to follow up your WSOP win with more tournament wins, or least high-money places, leaves you open for attacks. They generally begin online but frequently seem to trickle into so-called “respectable media.”

It seems a bit weird to be able to win the World Series of Poker and then have people looking for you to “prove yourself,” but then again life (and poker) can be weird. In 2006, Joseph made it clear to the world, and any Internet writer looking for dirt, that his win was not a fluke or an accident.

For instance, he won a World Poker Tour title at the 2006 Doyle Brunson North American Poker Champions. In doing so, he joined an elite group of players who have managed to snag both the WSOP Main Event and a World Poker Tour title. Only Scotty Nguyen, Doyle Brunson and Juan Carlos Mortenson share the same distinction.

Joseph also entered the 2006 WSOP and, for many players, the year following a main bracelet win can be intense and grueling. The vast majority of players recognize you and your mere presence at the table becomes a challenge to “beat the champ.” In fact, some champions fear a “sophomore slump” with such intensity that they blow hands and fulfill their own worst fear.

While everyone probably dreams of a repeat performance, each player sets their own standards to live up to. Joseph’s results were far from disappointing and most players would be happy to do so well at any point in their career: he made it onto two final tables and placed in the money in four games total, including the main event.

Aside from winning tournaments and raking in pots, Joseph is a generous and caring guy who doesn’t believe in frittering away the fruits of his labor. While many players blow through the cash and go chasing the next win, Joseph is more than happy to simply spend time with his family, comprised of his wife and their four daughters, and make sure they’re healthy and happy. In addition to his family, Joseph believes in giving back to the world and contributes to a variety of charities.

His family travels with him from casino to casino when the kids aren’t in school, which seems to be an annoyance to some people. While difficult to believe, Joseph has been lectured by more than one stranger about the ills of exposing his children to poker. It’s interesting to imagine what things were being exposed to the children of those lecturers while they were busy chastising Joseph.

Having bounced from an unknown contender-among-many in 2005 to a world champion and top money earner in a few short years, Joseph Hachem shows no signs of slowing down. He’ll probably be exposing his daughters to a specialized poker variation (the world-class, high-paying kind) for countless coming years.

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To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Johnny Chan Rides The Orient Express Into Poker History

It’s easy to forget that poker wasn’t always the media cash-cow that it’s became over the last decade, especially for younger players who first caught the bug by watching the world’s greatest on television. While it’s now possible to quickly gain worldwide recognition by catching a lucky river card, players used to grind away for years without much recognition. An elite handful of card players managed to climb the ladder and become respected superstars without the lights and magic of Hollywood and Jonny Chan stands in the front of that crowd.

Johnny spent his youngest years in China, living in Canton until he was six when his family moved to Hong Kong. He was ten when they made the move to America, landing in Phoenix for a time and finally settling down in Houston to open a restaurant.

Being ten years old can be challenging enough without having to deal with the cultural shift of moving around the world but Johnny did his best to get into the swing of American life. The entire family was involved in the restaurant operation, which took a fair amount of time from them all, and Johnny spent a lot of his free time at a local bowling alley.

Bowling wasn’t the only activity taking place around those Houston lanes and, in a back room, Johnny discovered a poker game. Bowling was fun, poker was better and Johnny was hooked. Johnny started winning regularly at the nickel-and-dime bowling alley stakes and soon graduated to a more lucrative game at the family restaurant.

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However, the group soon asked Jonny to stop coming to the games because they grew tired of losing all the time. Soon after that, Johnny did what any 16 year old poker junkie would do: he went to Las Vegas.

A legal poker game is subject to the same age restriction as other gambling activities but Johnny managed to get on a table with $500 and turn it into $20,000 in one night. As you can imagine, Johnny was back the next night to see how much he could that $20,000 bankroll into.
The answer was zero, zilch, nada as Johnny was kind enough to redistribute his new wealth to the other players. While most people can’t imagine winning twenty grand one night and losing it the next, Johnny made that sort of thing a habit early on.

The fact that he could regularly win large amount of cash at the table was obviously a motivation to keep playing. It proved he was skilled enough to win. If he could just fix the small problem of losing it all back over the next few days, he could probably make a decent living.

His family wasn’t thrilled with the professional poker player concept, and it’s easy to imagine why as they worked hard all day to earn a living from the restaurant. Poker seems like easy money and Johnny’s family obviously understood and respected working hard to earn a living. Accordingly, Johnny did attend college in Texas and studied restaurant and hotel management in preparation to take over the family business at some point.

Most players know, however, that once the poker bug bites a person it’s awfully hard to get it out of your system. At the age of 21, Johnny quit school and moved to Las Vegas to enjoy the brand new experience of sitting down legally at a poker table in the city built on chips and cards. After all, Johnny had been regularly winning when he was sneaking onto the table so that part was covered; he just had to hang onto the money.

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The poker crowd of Vegas welcomed Johnny with open arms that first year. After all, even the grumpiest player will warm up and be nice if the new guy looks like easy money. His Asian ethnicity contributed to this perception because there weren’t a lot of Asian gamblers in Vegas at the time and even less successful ones.

It would be nice to write that Johnny took advantage of the prejudice against him, but it wouldn’t be true. Johnny routinely lived up to the “easy money” expectation when he sat down and began giving chips away like he was allergic to them.

Needless to say, the initial welcoming attitude grew and players were eager to sit with him because he played poker like a gambler and not like a poker player: he’d be looking for a miracle card and, when it didn’t appear, he’d chase the losses all over the table until he sat behind nothing but empty felt. Johnny become known for having a short temper and not having the foggiest idea when it was time to get off the table.

To continue working as a professional gambler, Johnny had to take up various side jobs. He worked as a chef, dealer and floor manager. These gigs gave him a steady paycheck which he could turn around and give away to whichever players were lucky enough to be sitting at a table with him. Johnny had no doubt that he was going to be a great poker player and he was dead-set on continuing his journey, even if he had to pay for it.

Most folks would find this concept a bit strange. A job is supposed to pay you, after all, so if you need side jobs simply so you have enough money to pay for your main job something seems off. Of course, these same folks don’t give a second thought to dumping tens-of-thousands of dollars on a college education which is one way of looking at Johnny’s early professional life.

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While he may not have been looking at his losses like a tuition, Johnny was observing and learning a great deal around the green-topped classes in poker rooms. Aside from learning the game, strategy and opponent-study, Johnny also learned about the ethnic prejudice other players held. He could see that he was wildly underestimated time-after-time and people would pay to see his hand more often than they did with anyone else.

In many situations being immediately judged as inferior because of your race creates justified feelings of anger and frustration. In poker, it creates a powerful edge if the player being judged can take advantage of it. Johnny had that advantage and it was even stronger because of the time he’d spent paying to reinforce the perception of him as a weak player.

In 1982, Johnny made some major lifestyle changes, earned his poker nickname and started using the prejudice to his advantage. Smoking, which he did to the tune of four-packs-a-day, was gone and was replaced with healthier eating and exercise. A similar change, at least equally as healthy, was made to his poker playing as wild losing streaks were out and replaced with taking other players chips. Lots of other players chips.

Johnny entered The America’s Cup of Poker in Vegas that year and was dubbed “The Orient Express,” by Bob Stupak. This was after Johnny spent 30 minutes knocking out 13 of 16 players…that translates into approximately one new loser every two-and-a-half minutes courtesy of The Orient Express. Not surprisingly, Johnny also went on to win the tournament.

Winning was better than losing and Johnny kept going. Since that first tournament win, Johnny has won countless smaller tournaments and 10 World Series of Poker bracelets. His double-digit bracelet collection earns him a spot in a highly-elite club with just two other members: only Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth have won 10 bracelets and nobody has won more.

Johnny has another unique claim-to-fame in the WSOP, because he won two of his bracelets back to back in 1987 and 1988. He got painfully close to three in a row in 1989, but lost in the final head-to-head moments of competition against Phil Hellmuth, who was relatively unknown at the time.

13 years later, a $2,500 no limit tournament at the WSOP provided a rematch of sorts. It may not have been the main event, but it was the same game and it once again came down to Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. The biggest difference between the two matches was the outcome, as Johnny won his 7th bracelet by knocking Phil off the table.

Johnny Chan has undeniably earned his reputation as masterful poker player and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2002. Among his other accomplishments, Johnny is also responsible for the…strategy…of bringing lucky fruit to the table.

Because Johnny is known for bringing an orange to his matches, superstitious players worldwide began bringing their own fruity luck charms. In reality, Johnny’s orange served as an natural air freshener, replacing the stale smoke smell that was once common in poker rooms with a more pleasing fruity aroma.

Hollywood provided him with their own version of high honors in the movie Rounders which introduced The Orient Express to the world outside of poker. Johnny makes a cameo appearance in the movie, but it was footage recorded in the 1988 that provided outsiders with an idea of his prowess.

The footage was from his 1988 match against Erik Seidel, when he won his second main event bracelet in a row and the dialogue of the scene ensures that everyone watching the movie, poker player or not, understands the incredibly skill of Johnny Chan. The Orient Express may sound like a nice ride but it’s bumpy and dangerous for those who take a chance with a ticket.

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To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Is Jamie Gold The Most Hated WSOP Poker Champion Ever?

In addition to prize money and a bracelet, winning the WSOP Main Event used to come with respect and honor. The poker world changed when the number of players skyrocketed in 2004 and continued increasing greatly since. The title seems to pass from unknown player to unknown player, with massive prizes and instant celebrity status. Jamie Gold won in 2007 and received more negative gossip and press than any other WSOP champion ever.

Even before he completely dominated the final table at the World Series of Poker in 2006, Jamie was accustomed to the life of a celebrity. He came into the WSOP as part of a celebrity team sponsored by Bodog.com. As a talent agent in Los Angeles, he’s worked closely with some folks you’ve probably heard of: Jimmy Fallon, Lucy Liu and Kristin Davis, among many others.

Jamie graduated from the University of New York at Albany with honors and came west to study entertainment law at UCLA. Jamie had served as an intern at the J. Michael Bloom & Associates Talent Agency in New York and knew, coming to Los Angeles, what he wanted to do.

He rose quickly through the ranks of L.A. talent professionals, working at various high profile agencies, co-founding an agency and then opening his own firm. In other words, he had a lot on his plate working in one of the busiest cities in the world and succeeding in Hollywood, one of the busiest and fastest changing industries imaginable. Despite all the balls he had in the air, Jamie managed to work poker regularly into his routine.

Gambling was a part of Jamie’s childhood because his mom played poker and his grandfather was a gin rummy championship. In addition to living in the atmosphere of card players, Jamie is a poker book-a-holic who reads voraciously.

Knowing Johnny Chan, whom Jamie met through his entertainment work with the poker industry, probably doesn’t hurt his poker education either.

Surprisingly, Jamie doesn’t play a great deal of online poker. Before his world championship win Jamie, frequented a number of casinos around and outside of Los Angeles, playing real live poker with real live people. After his win, he’s played in a number of high profile tournaments…but we’ll get back to that.

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The win in 2006 was the biggest win in poker history (and will probably stay that way until the 2007 WSOP) and it shot Jamie, briefly, into the limelight of the poker world. All champs get that limelight but Jamie had one strapped to his head. Part of that reason was the fact the he held the tournament chip lead steadily for many days and completely dominated the final table.
Coming into the final showdown, against much better known Paul Wasicka, Jamie had been personally responsible for excusing 5 players from the final table. After knocking Wasicka to the wayside as well, Jamie won $12 million, a highly coveted bracelet and a ticket to the easy life, right?

Not really.

The glow of a $12 million paycheck for 8 days of poker couldn’t have lasted too long, especially after Jamie found out that he was being sued for half of his winnings. Bruce Crispin Leyser filed the suit, claiming that he and Jamie had made a deal to split the winnings to compensate Leyser for his help in filling up the rest of the Bodog.com celebrity team. Jamie had a different take on the situation, obviously, but the lawsuit has been settled for an undisclosed amount.

With the lawsuit out of the way, Jamie could begin focusing on repairing his tarnished image and playing poker as newly crowned world champion.

The image work is necessary for a number of reasons, some fair and some not. Sitting on the top of a highly competitive field like poker is always going to bring its share of detractors. He’s been criticized on nearly everything, from his persona and demeanor to his playing style and table etiquette. His critics have a point on that last note…

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

When you spend 8-days playing poker with the best (and worst) poker players alive and beat them all, you’re gonna get under some skin. Jamie added insult to injury by flashing one of his cards to another player at the table which is universally frowned on (to put it mildly.) Had it been seen by the WSOP, Jamie would’ve had to sit out of the game for 10 minutes while the blinds ate away at his chip stacks. They didn’t see it, he wasn’t penalized.

It was a dumb mistake but nobody was ready to accuse him of cheating necessarily; at least not until the next dumb thing Jamie did during the tournament. In a pot with a friend who went all in, Jamie basically announced his hand and his friend mistakenly replies that he has the same hand.

It appears like Jamie was looking for a sign regarding the strength of his friends hand. Jamie himself has stated repeatedly that he announced his hand to try and keep from busting his friend out. His buddy did not, in fact, have a matching hand and Jamie did bust him out of the tournament.

Despite being captured for all eternity on video, as per the link above, WSOP officials again weren’t around to catch this indiscretion. After the fact, the WSOP opted not to penalize Jamie for his errors, understanding his explanation (being caught up with excitement) and accepting partial blame for not having caught them at the time.

The official judgment was that they were mistakes and not attempts at cheating, which is interesting given Jamie’s own statements about why he announced the hand. It smacks of collusion but, then again, most people who cheat at poker try to do it quietly and invisibly while this all occurred in front of television cameras.

It’s water under-the-bridge at this point, though it will be interesting to see what kind of reception Jamie gets at the 2007 event.

Aside from those two glaring errors, the majority of ill-will towards Jamie seems to come from misunderstandings, assumptions and (of course) human stupidity. Despite having held the chip lead in the tournament from day 4 on, and despite having personally dispatched nearly every final table opponent people at the final table, Jamie’s playing style has been heavily criticized.

To some people, Jamie Gold must be the single luckiest poker player on the planet. There’s no other way to explain the type of dominating display he put on during the tournament if, as many people contend, his skill level wouldn’t let him play his way out of a poker-themed paper bag.
Then again, most of the loudest critics have never even been to the WSOP…wouldn’t last 10 minutes in the main event…and would only get to sit at the final table if they slipped a security guard $100 after hours.

Of course, in the publicized tournaments in which he’s taken part since he won, Jamie’s performances have been much closer to “dismal” than “dominating,” which hasn’t done much to shut his critics up.

Neither has the fact that, honestly, he just hasn’t been around that much. Aside from one tournament, as a favor to Johnny Chan, Jamie kind of disappeared for 3 or 4 months after he won the main event. This has unleashed tireless babble from people about how unworthy he is to be the ambassador of poker.

During much of that time, Jamie was spending time with his dying father. Having survived with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) for five-and-a-half years, when most don’t survive past the first year or two, Jamie knew that his time with his dad was fading. So, he focused on his parent instead of on poker, publicity and press releases.

The result of his focus was negative press and completely botched handling by the people he’d entrusted with handling his image. The crappy handling resulted in more negative press in a nightmarish public relations cycle. Jamie has set out recently to undo some of the damage and provide poker with a much more attentive and positive champion.

At least until the next tournament, which begins on June 1, 2007. Unlike like last year, Jamie wants to enter more than just the main event…but he’ll definitely be in the big one. Whether or not he even makes the final table, all eyes will be on Jamie Gold to see if he’s really got chops or if he did have a weeks worth of supernatural luck.

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Howard Lederer: If The Poker Professor Is Presiding, Think About Skipping Class

Though poker tables are frequently found in huge casinos, successful player will tell you that the game has very little in common with other casino games. The other games are all based around the casino having a statistical edge which the player must overcome with luck. An element of skill enters into some of the games, but luck dominates. If it can really be compared to any other game, then poker is much more like chess. Those similarities help explain the fact that Howard Lederer is extremely talented at both.

While many players are loud and flamboyant, Howard plays with a quiet, analytical style that separates him from the other noise. This style has earned him his nickname, “The Professor,” and makes him seem more like a chess player than a poker professional. Two bracelets from the World Series of Poker, and a number of other large tournament wins, clearly denounce that misperception.

Both his demeanor and his high-caliber play have their roots in his New Hampshire upbringing. After all, having award-winning author and college professor like Dr. Richard Lederer as a father is bound to instill an academic view of the world and style of thinking.

Young Howard began developing his poker skills while playing cards with his siblings and parents. A lot of parents play cards with their kids without raising a professional card player. The Lederer family, however, produced two highly-talented players; Annie Duke, a skillful and respected professional, is Howard’s sister.

If Howard wanted to beat his dad, and what young boy doesn’t, then he had to get good at the game and actually beat him. His folks never “let” the kids win which was probably a pivotal fact in the development of professional chops. Most kids get to win a game here or there (or all of them), so they don’t really learn the game and never feel like they actually accomplish anything while playing. Howard loved the feeling of beating his dad, because had to work and earn it, so he continually improved so he could win more often.

Despite the family affinity for academics and playing cards, Howard decided to put off college when he was 18 and play chess. Considered by many to be the most intellectually challenging and strategically difficult game ever invented, chess appealed to Howard’s analytical mind. He found a favorite chess club in New York but soon discovered that the backroom of the club was a poker room. Chess slowly began to take a backseat to the backroom and Howard played cards like he was possessed. For a year or two he could be found sitting around a table for 70 or 80 hours a week.

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Playing a lot doesn’t equal winning a lot, however, and Howard ran errands for other players every day to earn his stake in the game. Most of the time he went home with absolutely nothing and was back the next day running more errands. After spending a lot of time in his childhood honing his skills, his inability to win for real could be both frustrating and confusing.

Any confusion cleared up when Howard considered the effect his lifestyle was having on the game. Playing poker each week for the equivalent of two full-time regular jobs was sabotaging his play. He discovered this by cutting back on his playing time and watching his success improve almost instantly.

Apparently, Howard actually needed to sleep every now and then.

New York City provided and interesting backdrop for a budding poker professional and Howard found the Mayfair Club. The Mayfair was famous as a bridge and backgammon club, but in the mid 1980s they decided to bring the game of No-Limit Hold‘Em to town. Howard hooked up with a small group of players and, because the game wasn’t well-known in New York before the Mayfair brought in, they were all new to the game.

The whole group was learning which made everyone helpful and friendly. There is no doubt that the comfortably competitive atmosphere of the group helps explain the future success of its members: Dan Harrington, Erik Seidel and other current pros were honing their Hold‘Em chops with Howard at the Mayfair. Those games at the Mayfair, generally lasting from about 4 p.m. until about 2 a.m., allowed the players to serve as both teachers and students of the game simultaneously.

As the 1980s moved towards a close, Howard used that teaching experience as he began mentoring his sister Annie, who was honing her skills in daytime games. After the table dispersed, she and Howard would discuss how the game had gone, what sorts of plays were made, how they could have been improved and countless other details. While Howard was obviously helpful, there is no denying the natural skill Annie Duke displays at the table. Howard encouraged her to join him at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and they have each done quite well at WSOP events.

Howard and Annie will forever be in poker history books as the first brother and sister to sit opposite each other at a final table in the WSOP. Annie knocked her brother out, as she’s also done at two other WSOP tables…you can’t help but wonder if Howard thought, even for a fraction of a second, that maybe his mentoring had been too good.

The historic sibling poker moment took place in 1994, one year after Howard had officially moved to Las Vegas. He had this crazy idea that living in Las Vegas would expose him to a greater variety of games, limits and players so he moved all the way across the country into the middle of the Nevada desert so he cold focus on improving his poker skills.

Luckily, a number of decades earlier, some folks built a bunch of casinos in the middle of the Nevada desert. Clearly, they knew Howard would be wanting to make the move and decided to create a city that would feature dozens upon dozens of games going on all day long, great food and world-class entertainment. Howard took full advantage of Vegas and, in addition to the annual WSOP, spent most of the next decade picking the chips off opponents in cash games around town.

The Professor has proven that a quiet, intelligent guy can make a killing at the poker table amidst the barking bravado that tends to float around the game. If you sit at a table with the man, just remember that chess players tend to think at least three or four moves into the future. In fact, Howard Lederer probably knows what you’re going to do before you do and he’ll prove it by taking your king, your queen and all of your chips.

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Free Rolls

Free Rolls are free entries into real cash money tournaments that many poker sites offer daily. There are so many free rolls on any given day it is truly amazing. What is more amazing is that thousands upon thousands of people every day are playing in the FREE section of a site where there is no possibility of winning anything other than play chips. At the exact same time another site is giving away $3000 for anyone smart enough to sign up and test their skills.

There are different types of Free Rolls. For instance some require that you have accumulated a certain number of action points. You accrue these action points when you play a certain amount of hands played with real money. But we are really only going to get into the Free Rolls that cost absolutely nothing to enter.

Why would a poker site just give away money many ask? Think of this for a second. How many times have you had a long distance provider call you and offer to give you a free month of long distance if you would switch over to their service? Most of us have had these calls. Poker rooms are like phone companies, and every other company out there. They are willing to give up a bit of cash to receive much, much, much more in return in the long run.

Many sites offer Free Rolls to encourage new players to come to their site, as well as to reward players who frequently play there. The sites are making so much money it is in their best interest to give some of it back to appease the losers, and to attract new potential customers.

There are so many Free Rolls out there, and they are always changing. Therefore, you must check the Poker room’s web site to get the most current information on which Free Rolls are going on at that moment. Currently Paradise Poker is running a promotion for a $1,000,000 Free Roll tournament. Yep, that’s One Million Dollars.

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

The trick with Free Rolls is finding sites that have a minimal amount of entrants. Right now Prima Poker has 2 great $1000 Free Rolls every day, but it is almost always maxed out at 3000 players or more. Good luck beating that many people. Remember though, these tournaments will pay out more than just first through third place. These 3000 player tournaments pay the first 75 finishers a cash prize. Obviously placing 75th is not going to pay much, but it sure beats placing in 76th place for nothing. This is the key if you are broke. You need to build a bank.

Every single penny counts. Even if you only win $2.00, you’re ready to roll. You can parlay $2.00 into $200 in no time if you are good enough. Trust me. I’ve done it plenty of times when I was starting out.

Ideally you would like to win some more cash than $2.00, but don't take for granted how hard it was to beat out all those players for that $2.00. I got started by winning a 341 player $250 Free Roll at Poker World. 1st place paid about $72. I had to play a required amount of raked hands (ring games with minimum blinds of .25c) before I could withdraw the $72 from Poker World. By the time I played my required amount of hands for withdraw, I was up to $175. I built $175 from nothing in three days with Poker World.

My first customer who bought my first poker course, won $79 at Poker World in his first 3 hours. Remember that if you win money and the site requires that you have to play a minimum amount of raked hands, you usually will not get credit for hands played in multi or single table tournament games. You must play at the live ring tables to accrue these bonus points.

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

Occasionally there will be times that there are 3 Free Rolls going on at once from different sites. While I don't encourage you to play at multiple tables with real money too often as a newbie, you should take advantage of the chance to win any free roll available. This allows you to play multiple games and decide which one that you should continue to focus on.

You can compare your chip stacks from the other tournaments and figure out which one you want to put all your attention towards. Now you can loosen up on the other tables that you are not so concerned with and start making huge bets. If you lose, it's ok, because you are still in the other tournament that you had a better chance of winning anyways. If you win, you win big, and might reconsider which tournament to actually stay in.

Personally if I am playing in multiple Free Roll Tournaments, I will play very loosely making huge bets, and hope that one of them is successful. If not, O well, it was a Free Roll. Now if I am playing in just one Free Roll, I play very tight, and I play to win that tournament and that tournament only.

For the rest of you, who have little experience or are on a tight budget, if you are not able to implement my system and make cash without ever spending a penny, then you should really thank me for saving you a bunch of cash. You have no business gambling with the big boys, and losing your hard earned money if you cannot succeed within my free roll parameters.

You will know when you are ready to make the leaps into bigger games when your bankroll can justify it. If you are losing, then you just need to practice and study harder. Read, read, and then read some more about poker. For every six hours that I spend gambling, (which is not really gambling, because it was never my money) I spend one hour studying the game. I study everything available, random forums, web sites, books, etc. etc.

I have been gambling my entire life. Whether it be pool halls, or bingo parlors, sports books, casinos, or poker rooms, I have frequented them all for a significant amount of time. My goal within this course is to help you win real cash. It is not my intention to just make a few bucks off of my product, and then leave you in the dust like many other scumbag online vendors do. No I am here for you, to help aid you in every way to succeed.

Most importantly, we are going to make sure that you do not lose a wad of cash. In fact, if you follow my very easy free roll methods, it is literally impossible to lose a single penny. Yes you cannot lose, because you will never risk anything but your time.

Many of you won’t want to fiddle around with the free roll tournaments. You are ready for the big cash games now. While this is not recommended for the novice player, inevitably I understand many will just want to get to the real money action. That’s ok, we understand. But please remember, you must build some kind of poker foundation. It is essential that you play a few thousand hands to have a adequate feel for the game.

Hey if you can afford a few leisure dollars for play, well sweet, let’s double up, but even if you don't have a single cent, I'll help you build a bank. My system encourages you to start from scratch and earn every penny. I'm not joking, I don't deposit any of my money, and I won't ever, because I am confident that I don't need it. I'll use the casino's cash and other avenues that allow me to play on some other person's bankroll.

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Why Will Doyle Brunson Never Be Able To Retire From Poker?

We’ll assume you’re familiar with Doyle Brunson because, if you’re not, you’re not really a poker player. Regardless of how many pots you take down, how many bluffs you pull off and how long you can sit at a table without a potty break: If you don’t know Doyle Brunson, you don’t know poker.

In many ways, the story of Doyle Brunson is the story of poker…as well as being the quintessential American-dream story of a “small town boy done good.” Doyle made a career out of playing poker long being it became cool or even socially acceptable. He was playing poker for a living before half of the current top players were even born. Despite all that success, however, it looks like Doyle will never be able to retire…

Born during the depression in Longworth, Texas, Doyle Brunson shared his town with about 100 other people. He was an accomplished athlete during his youth and, after finishing college, he was drafted into the NBA by the Minneapolis Lakers (a team that has since found a sunnier place to reside).

However Doyle was born to dominate a felt-covered table and not a well-polished floor. A knee injury forced him out of basketball and he got a job selling office equipment. Having paid his way through college playing poker, Doyle was less-than-impressed with his first paycheck and quit to play poker professionally.

He’s never had another job since.

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While the average American kid now watches poker on television and can imagine a career playing cards and pulling pots under television lights, Doyle started playing in a very different America. It wasn’t uncommon for a poker game to be the target of cops and robbers (and sometimes they were the same folks) and Doyle saw his share of firearm-based action.

One table left Doyle Brunson with an unforgettable memory and, sadly, it had nothing to do with a monster pot. Instead, the player sitting next to him caught the ultimate “bad beat” when he was shot and killed during the game. You don’t see that much in an Internet poker room, eh?

Doyle himself had a brush with the reaper, though it happened in a hospital and not a card room. In the 1960s, a tumor in his throat was found to be cancerous and the tumor was declared incurable because it had spread so much. Doyle’s wife, Louise, was pregnant at the time and the doctor’s believed an operation would keep him alive long enough to see his baby born.

The surgery was successful far beyond their wildest expectations and Doyle was declared cancer-free afterward. Oddly enough, Louise herself was soon diagnosed with a tumor and had her own surgery planned. The doctors began the surgery but then found that the tumor had disappeared on its own. Doyle is obviously lucky in a lot more than just poker.

By this time, Doyle was married with kids and had to do what any other father of the time did: earn a living. The difference, of course, is that for Doyle it meant playing poker which was something other fathers only did on the weekends.

For years, Doyle roamed the Texas landscape with mentor Johnny Moss and fellow legends Amarillo Slim Preston and Sailor Roberts. After awhile, however, the four of them were considered basically unbeatable high stakes players.

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There are positive effects and negative effects of a reputation like that and, in the mid-seventies, Doyle decided that he’d won enough Texan money.

The family moved to Las Vegas which was a town in which you could poker legally…which must have been a nice change. Aside from all the legal games you could find in casinos along the strip, Las Vegas also had something else Doyle couldn’t find in Texas. The World Series of Poker.

Just because Doyle couldn’t find that particular event in Texas doesn’t mean he didn’t play in it, of course. In fact, he was the first WSOP event in 1970 which was invitation-only. While it bears the WSOP moniker, the early years of the tournament were very different from what we watch today. That first game only had 7 players and the winner, Doyle’s mentor Johnny Moss, was decided by a vote among the players.

Aside from his amazing track record at the tables, including 10 WSOP bracelets, Doyle also published one of the greatest poker books ever written. The book, Super/System, is a thick and heavy volume which is considered by many to be the Poker Bible. First published in 1978, it actually contains contributions from many other legendary poker players and should be required reading for any player.

Doyle has proven, time and time again, that he can walk the talk laid out in the 600-plus page book. Having won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets puts him in a very elite club with only 3 members: only Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth have won as many (no one has won more).

Two starting hands in Texas Hold’em are named after Doyle (though he wishes one of them wasn’t). The first hand, ace/queen of any suit, earned his moniker because he wrote in Super/System that he never plays that hand. The other hand is 10/2 of any suit which is generally considered a weak starting hand. While he’s not in love with having such a weak hand carry his name, it’s probably worth it considering the explanation:

The hand is named after him because he won back-to-back WSOP championships with a full-house, tens over deuces. Not a bad finish for a crappy starting hand when you think about it.
Aside from a few other books (including the recently released sequel to Super/System), Doyle has focused primarily on winning poker games and spending time with his wife, two daughters and his son who is also a professional poker player. The fact that Doyle has managed to keep his family together after decades of playing poker professionally is a feather in his cap as well.

With DoylesRoom.com, Doyle ventured out into the wonderful world of online gaming. He does sit in on the games himself which gives the average player the ability to be beat by a legend. Recent changes in U.S. laws have made life a lot harder for online poker room owner, but the site is still up and running.

Worldwide success, legendary poker status, bestselling books, a historic bracelet collection and a happy family are only a few of the achievements Doyle can count when he looks back over his life. He’s now in his mid-seventies and most people his age are busy enjoying their well-earned lazy Golden Days. Doyle, however, is still at the table and can still there taking money for 15 or 20 hours if he wants to.

When asked about retiring, Doyle Brunson has frequently replied that he’ll only retire when he quits winning. Since he’s been making a living as a poker player for 5 decades, give or take, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

To watch some custom Doyle Brunson videos, sign up for the Black Hat Poker Coaching program and you'll get full access to all the videos.

To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein

Daniel Negreanu The Smiling Poker Professional Who Can Read Minds

The World Series of Poker began its “Player of the Year” program in 2004. The award is based on points earned by the players as opposed to actual wins/losses. Daniel Negreanu, turning 30 that year, both lost and gained a place in history that year. His record as the youngest player to win a WSOP bracelet was taken over by a 22 year old but Daniel was the first player to ever receive the Player of the Year award. And that record can’t be taken away.

So, what’d you get for your 30th birthday?

Daniel was born in Toronto a few years after his parents moved from their home in Romania. He was attracted to gambling early on in life and spent a lot of his teenage time shooting billiards but fell in love with poker. Demonstrating the kind of courage that’s necessary to sit at a world-class table, Daniel left college and moved to Las Vegas…Despite the fact that he only needed one more credit to receive his degree.

He won his first WSOP bracelet when he was 23 (and has since added two more to the collection), ended up in the money more times than most folks can count and written a weekly syndicated poker column: it seems like his decision has worked out well enough.

Had you been watching Daniel play right after he hit Vegas you’d never believe that this was his future. He’d spent time, and made money, touring Canada as a rounder before making the move, but Vegas was different. He had some difficulties beating the middle limit games that were so prevalent under all of the neon.

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Daniel began to study the successful players intensely and studied poker as if he were obsessed (which, in some ways, he probably was). In the World Poker Finals at Foxwood, in 1998, Daniel Negreanu received the paycheck for all of that studying. Winning two events worth over $130,000, Daniel was also named the best all-around player at the tournament.

That win kick started his career and Daniel soon found himself sitting at the tables of the World Series of Poker. In 1998 he proved that the Foxwoods feat wasn’t an isolated event by winning almost $170,000 in Pot Limit Hold’Em to win his first bracelet, mentioned earlier.

Daniel’s success came at a perfect time in poker history as it basically coincided with the meteoric rise in public consumption of the game. It became very uncommon to see a poker tournament on television without Daniel’s friendly face in there behind a table somewhere.
That face is almost always sitting above a hockey jersey (Toronto Maple Leafs) and wearing a pair of headphones which pump relaxing and natural music into ears while he focuses on taking the other players chips.

It’s an ensemble that seems to work quite well as he won two World Poker Tour tournaments and picked up his next to WSOP bracelets in short order.

At the WSOP in 2006 Jamie Gold, the winner of the main event, said Daniel was the only opponent he faced that he was utterly unable to read. The reverse, however, wasn’t true and Daniel lightened the load of Jamie’s chips a bit when he saw right through a bluff.

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

Daniel set up a site devoted to poker in 2005. The card room on the site allows players worldwide to get in on a game with Daniel himself, who frequently plays there. In addition to online gaming, FullContactPoker.com also features Daniel’s blog, a poker forum and a player contest with a twist.

In 2006 Daniel announced, through the site, that he was looking for a protégé. The goal, of course, was to have Daniel help a player get into world-class shape. The winner of this first contest, Brian Fiddler, received personal instruction from Daniel and four $10,000 buy-ins staked by the masterful teacher. A 2nd place finish for Fiddler in a 2006 WSOP circuit event seems to indicate that Daniel’s teaching works.

Daniel held the contest again, looking for a 2nd protégé, and recently announced that Anthony Mak was the winner.

Aside from pulling down pot-after-pot at the table, Daniel is also an accomplished and successful writer. His blog is frequently updated with thoughtful posts about topics about poker and life. He’s written columns for Card Player Magazine and was a contributor to Doyle Brunson’s Super/System 2, the recently released sequel to Doyle’s historic Super/System.

Daniel has published a book of his own, Hold’em Wisdom For All Players, and has another book, Power Hold’em Strategy, in the works for early 2008 publication. In the newest status-symbol available in our world, he was featured in his own video game called “Stacked With Daniel Negreanu,” which provides strategies and suggestions along with the game play.

Despite all of this activity in his professional life, Daniel still had time to marry Lori Lin Weber in 2005. The couple lives in the Las Vegas and Daniel is frequently seen at tables around town and looks at side-games as his real “job,” as opposed to tournaments which he does for fun.

While many folks could’ve doubted Daniel’s chances for success while watching him struggle through games upon arriving in Vegas, Daniel never did. He is intensely competitive, very goal-oriented and highly driven. These three traits, along with an almost supernatural insight into human nature and other players, has allowed Daniel to become one of the most respected and successful players alive.

Unlike many of the other successful professional players, many of whom were accustomed to living a quiet life because they weren’t known outside of poker, Daniel Negreanu has been very open publicly about himself, his play and his life. The elite poker player is very willing to discuss his opinions and outlooks on life but don’t think you’re going to get into his head at the table…Besides, he’s already in yours so don’t bother.

http://tinyurl.com/6enuc9

To Your Success,
Morrie Finkelstein