The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King

by Michael Craig

  Andy was on his own for figuring out that percentage. But what should he do once he figured it out? If an opponent would fold in this situation 40 percent of the time if he raised, then he would raise 40 percent of the time. Should this hand be in that 40 percent?

  He used a special pocket watch as a random number generator. He would glance at the watch and, based on the position of the second hand, would determine whether this was one of the 40 percent of the times when he would raise, or one of the 60 percent when he would call.

  He ordered several of these pocket watches from a friend. They had very clean white faces. He then had the second hand calibrated so that it would hit the minute and hour markers exactly and therefore be easier to see. Finally, he had the minute and hour hands clipped almost completely off so they didn’t interfere with reading the second hand.

  He attached the pocket watch to a large binder clip so it would stand upright. He would place it on his left and glance at it whenever he needed to make a decision based on a certain percentage that he could estimate.

  The World Poker Tour debuted on the Travel Channel on Sunday, March 31, 2003, then began appearing on Wednesdays at 9:00 P.M. Steve Lipscomb was right: The hole-card camera turned a poker game into an exciting reality show. After the first few episodes ran, the tour wrapped up its tournament schedule with the WPT Championship, which became the finale of a new Bellagio tournament, the Five-Star. Although there were only a few weeks of ratings to judge the public reception to the tour on TV, poker players had responded enthusiastically with their bankrolls: The tour not only spawned new $5,000 and $10,000 buy-in events, it was also creating demand to support tournaments around the big buy-in events.

  The Five-Star, which ended as the World Series of Poker started, consisted of twelve events, ending with the WPT Championship. The high-stakes players supported the tournament. Barry Greenstein finished in second place in the first event, $1,500 buy-in Limit Texas Hold ’Em (and donated the $59,000 in prize money to charity). Phil Ivey, a young tournament star increasingly playing in big cash games, won twice. Ivey, another successful player influenced by Barry Greenstein, had to live with “the Tiger Woods of Poker” as his nickname because, like Woods, he is a man of color. In addition, his aggressive style, outer cool, and habit of dominating tournaments with multiple wins invited the comparison. Howard Lederer won the penultimate event, $2,500 buy-in No-Limit Texas Hold ’Em, winning $220,000 over a field of 212.

  The WPT Championship required a staggering $25,000 buy-in, though several entrants got in based on their finish in earlier events and the Bellagio held satellite tournaments during the Five-Star. As a result, 111 players entered. Doyle Brunson and Ted Forrest both made the final table, finishing fourth and fifth. Phil Ivey capped off an incredible Five-Star tournament by finishing third. Retired stock analyst Alan Goehring finished first, winning over $1 million, and Kirill Gerasimov, from Moscow, finished second.

  As the Thirty-fourth World Series of Poker kicked off at Binion’s Horseshoe in ever shabbier downtown Las Vegas, poker players had plenty of reasons to be optimistic. The live version of the World Poker Tour was a success and the televised version received early good reviews. Legends Brunson and Reese were playing more tournaments, and high-stakes stars Greenstein and Lederer were making their mark as well, following the success of Jennifer Harman when she decided to play more tournaments a year earlier. The rest of the cash game players were following suit.

  In fact, Doyle Brunson decided he was not going to restrict himself to a ceremonial appearance in the main event. He had won eight World Series bracelets, and Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth were right behind him with seven apiece. Hellmuth, in particular, publicized his quest for World Series superiority. Doyle told his friends he was going to try for number nine this year. Naturally, someone suggested a bet.

  Plus, Andy Beal was thinking of coming to Las Vegas to play some poker.

  8

  JENNIFER HARMAN’S WAKE-UP CALL

  APRIL 2003

  David Grey had been playing Andy Beal all morning and he needed to take a break. Grey had been a member of the group from the beginning, but this was his first session against the amateur.

  The forty-four-year-old professional gambler was not considered a hold ’em specialist. His strongest game was Seven Card Stud, in which he won a World Series bracelet four years earlier.

  The other pros considered Grey’s strength not one particular game but consistency. He didn’t go on tilt or let his ego get in the way if he was in a game that turned out to be especially tough. He often played more conservatively than his fellow pros and played all the games competently.

  Despite his conservative style and appearance—he was bald and heavyset, but not big enough for gastric-bypass surgery like his now slimmed down colleagues Howard Lederer and Chip Reese—Grey had a mischievous streak. About five years earlier, at the Mirage, several players at the high-limit table were talking about dares they would take for $10,000, a conversation just begging to get someone in trouble.

  David’s friend Howard Lederer, then a vegetarian for about six years, said he would probably eat meat for $10,000.

  Grey separated two flags from his stacks of chips. “Order the burger.”

  Once it was clear this was an actual bet, Howard went to poker room supervisor Donna Harris and asked her to order him a cheeseburger.

  In many places, poker rooms offer food service. This tends to occur at venues where the poker room is a prominent part of the property, like in the Los Angeles casinos. The poker areas were built to accommodate food carts in the aisles, though watching poker players wolf down entire meals between (and during) hands is always a startling sight, no matter the locale.

  In Las Vegas, the poker rooms are generally too crowded to allow food service and the casinos would rather have the players stroll through the gaming areas and work up an appetite on the way to a meal, preferably in some game where the house made more money.

  The Mirage, and later the Bellagio, catered to the high-stakes players, both literally and figuratively. They could order from room service or any restaurant on the property. This kind of service doesn’t come cheap, but the pros in these games had at least $20,000 in front of them, often much more, and a well-documented indifference to money.

  Howard ordered the cheeseburger and told Donna to make sure they put on a lot of pickles, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. Maybe he could convince his stomach it was a salad.

  While waiting for the food to arrive, Howard tried to talk David out of the bet. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t want the burger, but I’ll do it for $10,000.”

  When the tray arrived, Lederer repeated his offer to call off the bet. David wouldn’t budge.

  As Howard ate the cheeseburger, Grey said only, “I hope you get the worst case of diarrhea of your life.”

  Howard says, “To this day, David hates it that I didn’t get sick.”

  This kind of thing was part of the texture of their friendship. Knowing that David despised olives, Howard gave his friend a chance to recover the ten grand by eating two of them. The offer still stands, unaccepted, but not unacceptable.

  “If I’m ever down on zero street,” he has told Howard, “I know where I can get ten thousand.”

  Once, when they were at a party that featured a relish tray loaded down with the hated olives, instead of blanching, David nudged Howard.

  “There must be a million dollars’ worth of olives on that tray.”

  When David Grey got up to take a restroom break, Lyle Berman moved over from the game at an adjoining table and sat in his seat.

  Berman, the wealthy venture capitalist-casino operator-World Poker Tour founder, was a member of the group for the first time. He had a lot in common with Andy Beal, but they had never met. Both men were gamblers who had followed their instincts and curiosity, rather than conventional wisdom, to become successful in many different businesses.

  Berman, in town for the World Series of Poke
r and the side games (now as high as $4,000-$8,000), bought a share of the action when Andy Beal came to town a week earlier. Lyle had heard the stories of how much the group had won and thought it seemed like a good investment. More important, it was something else he could do with his friends. He enjoyed the camaraderie at the poker table and this was an opportunity to participate further. He had recently failed to get Brunson or Reese interested in investing in his poker venture, and this was a chance to invest in something together.

  David Grey was gone just long enough to run to the bathroom in the sports book and back. He didn’t even know Lyle was taking over during that time.

  Berman played four hands, two of which he immediately threw away, forfeiting the blinds. He lost $900,000.

  Grey returned and saw Lyle sitting in his seat. His eyes traveled to the stacks of chips, now lighter by almost a million dollars. Before he could react—and he had a reputation for not mincing words—Doyle Brunson piped up from the next table.

  “So, Lyle, did you have fun?”

  Even Andy Beal, stone-faced behind dark glasses and his ears covered by noise-reducing headphones, started cracking up.

  Lyle grinned sheepishly, as players at the adjoining table joined Brunson in a laugh.

  Such good-natured moments among the players, so common during their 2001 battles with Andy Beal, were becoming few, far between, and (in this case) expensive.

  After nearly six months of preparation, Andy Beal thought he was ready. He asked Craig if he wanted to come along to Las Vegas to keep him company, be on the lookout for potential cheating, help evaluate his play, and let him know if he was playing too many hours or letting his concentration slip. Craig accepted in an instant.

  They arrived in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 27, 2003. It had been an enjoyable and exciting World Series for the high-stakes pros and followers of the tournament poker scene. To the amazement of participants and tournament staff, Doyle Brunson started showing up for preliminary World Series events. Brunson had bet Chip Reese $25,000 that he could win an event this year, and Reese gave him 10-to-1 on his money. Brunson finished out of the money in his first event and finished eighteenth in his second event.

  On April 23 and 24, he grabbed his ninth World Series of Poker bracelet, winning a $2,000 buy-in event known as HORSE, where players alternate half-hour rounds of hold ’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, Stud, and Stud Hi/Lo. The event, also won by a Table One pro the year before (John Hennigan), attracted 113 entries, and won Brunson $84,000 (plus the $250,000 Chip Reese owed him from their bet). Media director Nolan Dalla’s press release described the scene after Brunson’s victory:

  “The audience stood and watched in awe as Brunson fielded questions and reflected back on his fifty-plus years in poker. He told stories of his early days and conveyed what the game of poker (and the World Series of Poker) meant to him. Brunson closed off his shining moment in the twilight by saying he is determined to win a tenth gold bracelet. ‘I’ll retire when I stop winning,’ he said. For all fans of the game of poker, and for anyone who was there inside Binion’s Horseshoe on this day to witness history being made, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

  Just four days later, Doyle was talking with Andy Beal, who was in town and ready to play a big game. On Monday, April 28, Beal had money wired to the Bellagio and asked the poker room to contact Doyle Brunson. They spent most of Monday negotiating over the stakes.

  Andy wanted to play as high as possible to take the pros out of their comfort zone. Brunson explained that the players were busy with the World Series and their regular games, and suggested they play $20,000-$40,000. Andy wanted to play $50,000-$100,000. By the end of the day, Beal thought they had an agreement to play $30,000-$60,000. According to Brunson, however, the pros merely conceded that they were not inflexible about the stakes. Among themselves, they decided to make every effort to hold the stakes down, at least until they got ahead. But there was no reason to give in at the beginning. Andy was already committed to playing and they were “the biggest game in town.” They would go up to $25,000-$50,000 to start, but even then, only if they couldn’t get Beal to agree at the table the next morning to start at $20,000-$40,000. Doyle wanted to be called if they couldn’t get Andy Beal to play at $20,000-$40,000 or $25,000-$50,000.

  Brunson would have to scramble to get the players on board and coordinate the bankroll issues. The task was made much more complicated by Beal’s timing.

  There was no problem raising enough money for a $30,000-$60,000 game, $8-$10 million. Despite the close call at the end of 2001, investing in the top pros against Andy Beal was still a good investment. In fact, they would have the opposite problem. Smack in the middle of the World Series of Poker, every high-limit player in the world was in Las Vegas, and organizing that group would be difficult.

  Andy Beal had always known that to beat the professionals, he would have to grab every conceivable edge. They were just too good at too many things—several of which he could not hope to match—that he couldn’t overlook anything relevant to the game to find his advantage.

  Giving as little advance notice as possible was part of that plan. He was correct that it helped him, but not for the reason he expected. Andy did not want to give the pros time to prepare for the particular demands of a high-stakes heads-up hold ’em match.

  He didn’t have to worry. The pros would not have done anything different if he gave them a month’s notice. It had nothing to do with the stakes (which were large, but that had less of an effect on them than Beal thought) or his ability (which they considered substantial).

  A common characteristic of high-stakes professional poker players is a confidence bordering on arrogance. Playing against other pros and skilled amateurs night after night was so competitive that players would crack under the constant pressure unless they truly believed that they were better than everybody else.

  A story from the folklore of the first World Series of Poker illustrates this point. The 1970 event bore no resemblance to today’s extravaganza. There were just six players, they played a variety of forms of poker in cash games for a week, and then voted on a champion. Supposedly, each of the six voted for himself. Only when Benny Binion told them to vote for the second-best player was the deadlock broken and Johnny Moss chosen as champion.

  Eric Drache insisted this kind of arrogance was one of the many protections against pros teaming up to beat outsiders. “If you’re going to be playing five pros and you somehow knew in advance that you were going to lose a million dollars, each pro is going to think their win will be more than $200,000.”

  The pros didn’t practice. They played. Their preparation was the tens of thousands of hours they put in at the tables facing every conceivable situation. Andy was correct that they played by instinct rather than superior knowledge of fundamentals (though those instincts plus experience led to a deep understanding of the fundamentals), but they didn’t develop or refine those instincts through study. The game with Andy may be different from what they faced yesterday, but yesterday’s game was different from the game of the day before, which was different from the game before that . . .

  Nevertheless, chaos reigned as Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson tried to organize the group. Beal had not planned this, but his timing could not have made the situation more stressful for the players.

  Andy had reached Doyle Brunson during the $5,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Championship (with rebuys). This was the event in which Howard Lederer and Jennifer Harman had both won bracelets. It was also the event most frequently played by the big cash game players, though nearly everyone was playing more World Series events this year.

  Brunson and Reese made the rounds of the Horseshoe and the Bellagio and called anyone they didn’t see. Many of the players were in the tournament; some had already been eliminated and were returning to the Bellagio for the side action sure to start by that evening. Noon being an ungodly early time for a poker player to be at work (all World Series events started at noon), some had gone
home or to their hotels. Those skipping the event were doing whatever poker players did when they were waiting for a game.

  More important, the size of the group was sure to expand. Two years earlier, gathering the bankroll meant doing little more than asking around the table and having the players walk forty feet to their boxes to get the chips.

  Getting players to join was no longer based on the likelihood of them walking into the game on their own, as Ted Forrest had done two years earlier. At the stakes Andy wanted to play, at least $20,000-$40,000 and probably higher, the universe of players who would buy in on their own was small to nonexistent. The minimum buy-in would be $400,000 to $500,000 and it would be courting disaster to start with less than $1 million. Few poker players in the world had a playing bankroll that large, and Forrest might have been the only one willing to bet it all in one game. There was, however, a slight possibility that some group of excluded players could pool their money and form a second group.

  That was unlikely. Despite the hectoring of a few critics who think the pros team up against opponents, poker players are not team-oriented. In fact, most of them chose poker because they wanted to avoid the interdependence of conventional work.

  Howard Lederer’s explanation of what he liked most about being a professional poker player was representative of his fellow pros. “The thing I really like about poker is the lack of politics. You just sit down at the table and you’re competing mind against mind. There’s no pretense about it. There’s no office, no backstabbing.” According to Chip Reese, “If I wanted to work for somebody or let outside influences decide how hard I work, I could have done a lot of things with my life. But I like to do what I do, because I’m my own boss.”

  Ironically, playing Andy Beal as a group had put the players in precisely the situation they became poker players to avoid. The players repeatedly rose to the occasion in 2001, putting their common interests ahead of their individual ones, but it was far from clear whether they could do it again.