The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King

by Michael Craig

  SEPTEMBER 2003

  The massive young man at the end of the table raked in another pot. He didn’t say a word, dividing his attention among the cards, his cell phone, and the video monitors in his line of sight. His bearded face was expressionless. His brown hair was straight and neat, but a two-and-a-half-foot ponytail ran down his back.

  The next night, the same man was at the center of the action. “Am I the only redneck at this table?” he asked. “If the Jews and the Arabs can agree on anything, it’s how to take the redneck’s money.” He kept up the patter, deftly making fun of his opponents, but mostly himself. The only thing similar about Todd Brunson on these two evenings was the growing pile of chips in front of him.

  Brunson was an enigma, even to most of his colleagues. Maybe this was part of the deal: You could succeed in the same business as your famous old man, but where everybody else thought they knew Doyle, nobody got to understand Todd.

  On one thing, the high-stakes pros could agree: Brunson could play. He was a superb hold ’em player, especially in short-handed games. For some reason, however, before the 2003 World Series, Todd’s position in the group was precarious. He missed the group’s first go-round and became a member in December 2001 only because Andy Beal drafted him, asking if he could play Todd. Brunson then lost a million dollars in record time, albeit on a miracle river card making Beal an improbable full house. Granted, none of the pros put any stock in the results of one session, but it was not a good experience, and it didn’t help that Brunson tried to pull players from the next table to show off his bad beat.

  Then, during the World Series, he was in the middle of the fight over whether to limit membership in the group. He got in, but only after his father insisted.

  That was the last thing Todd needed. At thirty-three, he was the youngest member of the group and almost always the youngest at the table in high-stakes games. He had dealt with the curiosity and the pointed questions about his father since he started playing professionally a decade earlier. He had developed a thick skin on the subject, especially because his peers knew that he was his own man and had made it to the top on his own. In a way, that made the disagreement during the World Series worse, because it came from his colleagues.

  Although no one questioned Brunson’s ability, most players would be surprised by his dedication to his profession. When Andy Beal came to Las Vegas in the spring, he did not let the pros know he was coming until he was already at the Bellagio. He did this to keep the pros from practicing, something they wouldn’t have done anyway. But Todd Brunson practiced. He and Ted Forrest got together one day and played two freeze-outs with play chips, each taking a turn playing as Beal would.

  Interestingly, “Andy” won both times. It was excellent practice for Brunson, who, like Howard Lederer in 2001, became a convert to Ted Forrest’s way of thinking. Brunson usually believed in playing a very aggressive heads-up game but decided to follow Ted’s advice to let Beal be the aggressor. “Andy’s going to win generally. I’ve got to take advantage of the hands where he’s going to screw up. He’s so aggressive I just let him keep coming and keep coming.”

  It was also a reminder to both Forrest and Brunson that Beal could win.

  After Jennifer Harman, Todd Brunson was the big winner against Andy in the spring. He was not wearing himself out playing World Series events, or wringing every bit of action out of the big cash games. (On any given day, Todd might tell you he was pacing himself or lazy.)

  Brunson was the player who drove home to Andy the fruitlessness of his blue-chip abacus system. As Beal kept the tallies on the various piles of chips, Brunson silently followed the pattern of the movements with his eyes. As he figured out what the different stacks represented, he watched the hands where Andy would consult the stacks before acting.

  When Todd realized that Beal was consulting the chips to decide if he would fold in response to a bet or raise, he started smacking Andy with raises after he looked at the stacks, both skewing the statistics and forcing Beal to fold hands where he had mediocre cards but expected to make money by inducing a fold. Those losses tended to be expensive, because they were pots that had been fattened by pre-flop raising and Beal had bet or raised after the flop. Brunson seemed to have a unique gift for taking advantage of his lapses in play.

  As Beal stayed longer in Las Vegas and played more hours in May, it was harder to maintain his focus. He started compromising the rituals so carefully developed and rehearsed, sometimes just rushing through to play the hands, and play them even more recklessly as losses piled up. Todd seemed to sense those moods and take maximum advantage.

  Todd Brunson had finally established himself as a player on the team. But the go-to guy?

  The summer of 2003 was a momentous time for both Andy Beal and the poker community. Beal Bank continued expanding its business, finding what seemed like an endless supply of deals where it could pick up good debt at a discount. For the twelve months ending June 30, 2003, Beal Bank reported net income of $249 million, on assets of over $5.4 billion. The bank had paid cash dividends to shareholders (i.e., Beal) of $87 million. Andy could easily afford to take more lessons from the Las Vegas pros. In fact, with the money he had, it was increasingly questionable whether the pros, even with their edge, were playing a smart game by engaging Beal at his stakes.

  The risk Andy Beal posed to their livelihood was the furthest thing from the minds of the Table One regulars during that summer. Poker, it seemed, had exploded onto the public consciousness. The World Poker Tour was turning into a TV phenomenon, on its way to becoming the highest-rated show in the Travel Channel’s history. By the end of the year, five million people would watch it per week. NBC agreed to run a special WPT “tournament of champions” against Fox’s Super Bowl pregame show.

  Howard Lederer was the breakout star of the first season. By summer, both episodes featuring his victories had aired. He was becoming a celebrity outside the cloistered world of poker, as his careful, analytical approach contrasted with the growing audience’s stereotype of a gambler.

  As previously described, Howard also had a background that could sustain more than the allotted fifteen minutes of fame. Between his sister Annie’s appeal outside the poker world and his other sister Kathy’s August 2003 book chronicling their family’s exploits and eccentricities, the idea was spreading that Howard Lederer and poker players in general could be unusual, exceptional, attention-worthy people.

  In addition, the poker world was itself rapidly expanding. The outside world was gradually learning that Internet amateur Chris Moneymaker parlayed $40 into $2.5 million. This, in turn, fed the frenzy to sign up and play poker online. Part of this was due to the excellent and expanded coverage of the main event rolled out by ESPN during the summer. Even when ESPN reran portions of the seven hours of coverage after midnight, ratings remained significant. The combination of the World Poker Tour’s and ESPN’s coverage made casino poker so much more accessible that new players flocked to poker rooms. In particular, the new players wanted to try what they saw on TV, so no-limit hold ’em tournaments expanded to accommodate the demand. A lot of these players also stayed for the cash games, swelling attendance at long- stagnant poker rooms.

  An expanded fall East Coast swing developed around the World Poker Tour and the attention. The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City had hosted the U.S. Poker Championships since 1996 at the end of the year. For 2003, they moved the date up to the first half of September. The Omaha and stud events drew the same number of contestants as 2002 but entries doubled in the preliminary $500 and $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold ’em events.

  Ted Forrest, who had struggled in the biggest cash games throughout 2003, led the championship event, $7,500 buy-in No-Limit Texas Hold ’Em—not his best game, after the first day but was eliminated. Forrest had decided to play more tournaments, and spent some of this part of the year on the East Coast visiting his teenage daughter.

  The Borgata, a new Atlantic City casino developed by MGM Mirage and
Boyd Gaming, hosted a World Poker Tour event as part of the tour’s second season. Starting on September 20, immediately after the U.S. Championships, Jennifer Harman entered and almost won. She started in fifteenth place on Day Two, finishing in seventh, just one place from making the final TV table.

  For Jennifer, it was almost a sweet ending to a disappointing and harrowing summer. In July, after getting off an airplane, she took off her shoes and noticed her ankles were swollen. Because she had had a kidney transplant twenty years earlier, she was trained to recognize this as a possible warning sign. She had a test done that indicated the transplanted kidney was not functioning properly. She spoke with doctors at the UCSF Medical Center, who changed her medication, but her kidney was beginning to fail.

  At the stakes Jennifer played, it would not take much of a distraction to cause a six- or seven-figure swing in her bankroll. She managed to keep her head above water in the cash games while doctors tried to figure out how to save her kidney. Both the distraction and the physical discomfort made it difficult for her to maintain her focus. In retrospect, she was lucky to break even for the second half of the year.

  The Tropicana in Atlantic City also jammed a poker tournament into the schedule that concluded on September 23 and 24. Barry Greenstein capped off a busy summer by winning the $3,000 buy-in stud event. A week earlier, he finished second in a $500 buy-in no-limit hold ’em event at the Taj. The two-week haul allowed him to give another $65,000 to charity. He was going places and doing things he would not have considered doing in the past—entering a $500 buy-in tournament in Atlantic City?—but it felt good to spend at least a little of his time in poker toward a greater purpose. He was becoming actively involved in some children’s charities and using the experience to teach his own children some valuable lessons.

  If I could win one of these TV events, he started thinking, it would not only mean more money for charity, but could also encourage other people. Barry was not interested in trying to convert poker players or others to his way of thinking, but it would be certain to get some positive publicity. He didn’t especially like the travel or the time away from his family (or the cash games) but he would continue.

  Andy Beal had been working on his game throughout the summer. He was sure he was on to something, but executing it proved more difficult than he expected. During his last two trips, he had started out winning. His aggressive style and understanding of the fundamentals made him competitive. He felt his problem was that he was letting the pros get to him. With nothing else to do but play and no set times to finish or go home, he was staying too many days, playing too long, and losing his focus. Once he became fatigued, he was easier to read. He knew he was becoming careless in many little ways: holding his cards differently, moving his body and head differently, ignoring his signals to slow down and randomize some decisions.

  One of the things he mentioned to Craig Singer before the last trip was for Craig to let him know if he was playing too many hours or getting sloppy. Craig did exactly that, but Andy ignored him. “Just another half-hour,” or “Just a few more hands.” He was learning the game, but he had not yet learned to manage himself. He would work harder on that, but it was not something he would be able to practice.

  He continued to practice. A lot. During the spring and summer, he had numerous amateurs come to Dallas and play on the second floor. He and Craig continued to play as often as they could. As he played thousands and thousands of hands he felt that he was getting better control of his emotions. Or, more accurately, he wasn’t experiencing those emotions to the same degree. The randomness of individual hands, of good and bad cards, was starting to matter less to him. At random intervals, he would try to conjure up the feeling of having aces in the hole, and then play his cards as if he had a very strong hand.

  Despite all the planning, he made the decision to return to Las Vegas in late September on the spur of the moment. He had some open time in his schedule, so he came out, wired money, and called Doyle Brunson.

  Again, Andy fortuitously had chosen a time that insured maximum chaos. Doyle resisted Andy’s demand that they play a $50,000-$100,000 game. A lot of players were on the East Coast. A $20,000-$40,000 game might be the most they could get together.

  Andy rejected playing for less than they had on the previous trip. He had yet to leave as the overall winner of these heads-up confrontations. How could they lower the stakes when they were ahead?

  While they haggled over the size of the stakes, Andy told Doyle that, if he didn’t get to choose the stakes, he would get to choose his opponents. Doyle rejected this out of hand. He wouldn’t say this to Beal but he was good enough, and needed to be taken seriously enough, that their ability to switch players—finding different styles, removing fatigued players not used to starting their day at 7 A.M.—was an important part of their advantage. More important, Andy had no one he could substitute for himself. If he got tired, bored, or careless—an area where he was at a disadvantage to the pros, because they had spent years getting used to long, frustrating sessions where nothing seemed to go right—he had no choice but to play on in that condition.

  Of course, he could always stop playing. But Brunson knew that the urge to gamble was tremendously strong. It could overcome an intelligent man’s common sense. Professional poker players worked on controlling that urge, so it was unlikely they would “go off.” Even if they did, they had a whole team to call on to take over, or to step in and remove them.

  Andy Beal had only himself.

  Craig had not accompanied him on this trip. Andy decided only at the last minute to come out and Craig was swamped with work. When Beal called him after he was in Vegas, Craig had to beg off. He came out toward the end of the trip, but could stay only a few days.

  Beal and Brunson finally worked out arrangements. They would play $30,000-$60,000. Brunson and the group could play who they wanted and switch players when they wanted, with two exceptions. Andy would not play Todd Brunson or Jennifer Harman, the two players with the most success against Beal that spring.

  With several members of the group still traveling back to Las Vegas, Andy Beal finally started playing on Wednesday, September 24, 2003. His first opponent was Chip Reese, who had not gone to the New Jersey tournaments. They played a close match at Table Three for several hours. Both men were in command of their games. When they stopped for the night, Andy was ahead by less than two bets. In a game with so much betting and so many hands played, it was a dead heat.

  A dead heat with the most respected, best all-around big-money professional in the world? Not a bad start to a trip begun with so little preparation. Of course, he had been preparing to play at this level since the previous December. So what if he couldn’t get the stakes as high as he wanted or impose more limits on his opponents? The game was what counted, and he was in control of his game.

  A few days later, Beal did not feel like that control was worth very much. He had trouble with Chau Giang, but beat Barry Greenstein again. Andy had played Barry three times and always played well.

  He saw Barry in the top section after that and asked, “Barry, when are we going to play again?”

  Greenstein could accept the ribbing at his expense. “I don’t know, Andy. They won’t let me play you again for some reason.”

  Barry was fine with Beal winning, even rubbing it in a little in jest. As long as the group won in the end, it was good that Andy felt he had a chance and was having a good time. Besides, this freed Barry up to play in the cash games. Those games weren’t as big as during the World Series, but if he was going to stay in town and not play Beal, he might as well try to win some money. Andy’s high stakes and aggressive style were almost contagious. In the spring, everyone was playing higher and looser. The prospect of winning all that money from Beal had made some of the local pros seem less concerned about losing to Greenstein at Table One.

  Andy also struggled against Howard Lederer. At one point, he had Howard down a couple million dollars, but that was
not very much at these stakes. Lederer, who was near his thirty-bet limit, this time had no intention of stopping. He had been thinking about Beal’s improved play and how to adjust. He was sure he still had the edge in skill, especially in making decisions after the flop.

  Did luck make skill academic? Or, consistent with the Branch Rickey quotation at the top of Chapter Four, did luck magnify skill? Howard Lederer got hit by the deck, making three consecutive full houses. He wiped out the deficit and left with a seven-figure profit.

  Andy still felt confident. He was behind for the trip, but the money was secondary. Was he playing his best poker? He had to say he was at least close. Would his best poker give him a chance to win?

  If his best poker wasn’t good enough, there was no sense continuing. Yes, he believed, he could conceivably beat the best players in the world if he continued to play optimally. Lederer had played well, wringing the most bets out of his rush, but before that, Andy was the one wielding the club, and he also took a lot of bets.

  Beal resumed his attempts to raise the stakes to $50,000-$100,000. Doyle Brunson wouldn’t budge, so Andy tried a different approach.

  Losing for the trip and low on funds, he refused to wire a large amount of money to the Bellagio. Over the first weekend, he played a series of the group’s pinch hitters for relatively smaller stakes. The pinch hitters were high-stakes players who played mostly hold ’em. To play at the $1,000-$2,000 level and above, you had to be proficient in all the games. Below that level, however, there were many excellent players who stuck with their best game, usually hold ’em but sometimes stud or Omaha.

  Andy Beal played heads up against some of these hold ’em specialists over the weekend, starting at $1,000-$2,000 and gradually moving up to $10,000-$20,000. Brunson contributed some of the group’s bankroll to these players, though neither Beal nor most of the group knew the exact arrangements.

  Andy generally mowed through these excellent hold ’em players. He had all his tools working: aggressiveness, control of himself, experience, and potentially intimidating stakes. The last two elements bear examining.