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I asked 18 high stakes poker players to name their top 3 movies. Some did this; others could only choose one or two. All found it a tough challenge.

(Full List Below)

Of the 36 movies selected, a top ten emerged, and the reasons why these movies still echoed around the hearts and minds of the high stakes players was incredible to hear.

Henrick Hecklen is one of Denmark’s top high stakes exports, and for him, science-fiction held a charm.

Here he is to explain why.

“I’d probably pick Interstellar, Arrival and The Matrix in no particular order,” said Hecklen. “They’re all somewhat different, yet they all make you ponder the great existential questions. “Can we survive as a species?” “Are we alone?” “Is this all a simulation?”

“These questions challenge you to think in ways you don’t think like in everyday life. As a funny side note, in the early days of my poker career, when I was feeling down because of a particularly bad session or a downswing, I’d always watch stuff about how the universe works to remind myself how small and an essentially non-meaningful thing it is to have a bad session of poker when you look at it from a perspective of how vast the cosmos is and what else is out there besides irrelevant monetary losses..”

Antonio Esfandiari liked movies that inspired him and singled out Braveheart and Forrest Gump in that regard.

“Braveheart was about sacrificing your life for the bigger cause, and that touched me,” said Esfandiari. “Forrest Gump has every aspect of life in a single story: love, fear, wealth, poverty, hatred – everything you could imagine. It’s a beautifully inspiring well-written story of how amazing and sad life can be.”

The former Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) winner, Brian Rast, also picked Forrest Gump as one of his top movies.

“I learned a lot of lessons from it, despite it not being a Top 10 movie,” said Rast, “especially watching him overcome obstacles in life, and how naturally and effortlessly he did so. It’s easy to be cynical and jaded because of the way of the world, but it’s ok to be innocent. As long as you’re sincere and try your best, you can hold your head up high, and succeed.”

Rast wasn’t the only poker player whose choice of movie fits in with the flow of current political and cultural unrest. Daniel Negreanu chose two films that dealt with issues of racism.

“American History X is a powerful movie that had me in tears on repeated watches,” said Negreanu. “It was a raw look at race and how racism can be indoctrinated from a young age. I also love ‘Remember The Titans’. I love anything with Denzel Washington. Similarly to American History X, the movie dealt with race and proved that much of it comes from ignorance. If you out people together without the noise, they will find a lot more in common with each other than they may have previously thought.”

Negreanu’s third move choice, Good Will Hunting, left a permanent indention in his limbic system, because it reminded him of his childhood, and he wasn’t the only one whose younger life mirrored or was deeply affected by a movie.

Sosia Jiang is a confessed student of life, who plays high stakes poker when she has the time. Jiang chose ‘The Dead Poet’s Society’ as her favourite movie.

“I first saw Dead Poets Society as a young teen struggling to find my own identity,” said Jiang. “The themes of navigating pressures of conformity and parental expectations yet finding your way and “carpe diem” very much resonated with me at the time and I would say helped shape my attitude even in adulthood toward crucial life decisions.”

Sam Trickett selected ‘Gladiator’ as his classic underdog story, and ‘Rocketman’ as it drew similarities to his out of control hedonistic lifestyle at the peak of his poker powers. Still, it was another movie, seen in his youth, that would guide Trickett later in life.

“I’ve watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, more than any other film in my life,” said Trickett. “I had it on videotape and loved the idea of helping people without money. It inspired me as a young boy. I grew up 10-minutes from Sherwood Forest too. so I was always pretending to be Robin Hood in my childhood.”

Throw that man a pair of green tights.

Before I give you the rankings, here are some interesting insights.

Only one of the 18 players chose a poker movie as a favourite with ‘Rounders’ taking the honours. Still, a gambling movie did make the Top 10 with the Blackjack inspired’ 21′ surviving the bubble.

Of the four favourite protagonists that emerged from the data, three of them play poker (Edward Norton, Matt Damon and Leonardo Di Caprio), and two of them starred in Rounders.

While there was a lot of love for an epic motion picture, it seems our high stakes poker players are not fans of hobbits, dragons or superheroes.

Finally, only one poker player was that good; he could choose a movie named after him – Wiktor ‘limitless’ Malinowski selected ‘Limitless’ as his top pick.

The Top Ten Movies

1. The Matrix

2. Gladiator

3. The Godfather Part I

4. The Godfather Part II

5. Good Will Hunting

6. Shawshank Redemption

7. Braveheart

8. The Arrival

9. Forrest Gump

10. 21

The Top Protagonists

1. Edward Norton

2. Leonardo Di Caprio

3. Matt Damon

4. Russell Crowe

The Top Directors

1. Christopher Nolan

2. Francis Ford Coppola

3. Martin Scorcese

4. The Coen Brothers

Genre

1. Drama

2. Thriller/Action

3. Sci-Fi

4. Epic

The Full List of Movies

1. The Matrix

2. Gladiator

3. The Godfather Part I

4. The Godfather Part II

5. Good Will Hunting

6. Shawshank Redemption

7. Braveheart

8. The Arrival

9. Forrest Gump

10. 21

11. Fight Club

12. Armageddon

13. Inglorious Basterds

14. Rocketman

15. Interstate 60

16. Almost Famous

17. Goodfellas

18. Fargo

19. Remember the Titans

20. The Prophet

21. Rocky

22. There Will be Blood

23. Dead Poet’s Society

24. A Beautiful Mind

25. 12 Angry Men

26. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

27. The 300

28. Inception

29. Interstellar

30. The Empire Strikes Back

31. Rio 2096

32. Rounders

33. The Departed

34. Limitless

35. No Country For Old Men

36. American History X

Once Triton cancelled its Super High Roller Series in Jeju, tour operators in that region had no option but to do the same. The pandemic has since spread across the globe, with Europe the epicentre, and those spores found beneath the microscope are now forcing live tour operators to fold away their tables and ditch their filthy chips.

The Coronavirus is highly adaptable, making the leap from Pangolins and bats to humans. It will continue to evolve, and we place our hope in the brightest scientific minds in the world, that we develop at a faster rate.

Companies that rely on live tournaments for EBITDA will also have to evolve, and right now, the best possible solution is to shift their flagship events online. The law makes the switch more challenging than a decade ago, but it’s more than a viable move for online poker operators; it’s a valuable opportunity.

Not only can the likes of PokerStars and partypoker pivot by creating online alternatives of their beloved live brands, but live tour operators with no ability to offer an online product will be keen to partner with the best in the business.

It’s also a long term positive for the online poker community as the live tour operators have to include in their risk assessment mitigation for future pandemics of this nature, and that could lead to a more competitive online poker landscape.

partypoker: The Role Models

partypoker is currently leading the way when it comes to creating a virtual world that we can call home, and is an inviting prospect for live tour operators.

The online poker operator excels when it comes to creating value-laden partnerships thanks to its sterling work with partypoker LIVE, putting them in a fantastic spot to leverage those relationships post COVID-19.

One of those partnerships is with the World Poker Tour (WPT), and for the first time, that partnership is moving into the virtual realm in a big way. The pair have coupled-up to host online satellites to live events in the past, but the forthcoming WPT Online Championships is the first sense that Adam Pliska and the gang are prepared to put a whole leg into the virtual waters, and not merely dab a toe.

The series runs on partypoker, May 10-26, with $30m in GTD prize money. The $3,200 buy-in, $5m GTD WPT Online Championship is the blaze in this fire, but there are plenty of other hot coals.

The WPT500 brand hits the online market for the first time when between May 10-18, players invest $530 per bullet throughout ten Day 1’s in this $1m, GTD feast of fun. The WPTDeepStacks brand also moves online for the first time with a $1,600 buy-in, $1m GTD event scheduled for May 25-26.

As you would expect, high rollers get to have some fun with a $25,000 buy-in, $3m GTD WPT Super High Roller Challenge on May 21, a $10,300, $2m GTD High Roller, May 24-25, and a wide variety of $5k buy-ins to boot.

The series also traverses the live world with the winner of the WPT Online Championships Main Event earning a seat into the $15,000 Tournament of Champions should the event go ahead as planned.

Here is the full schedule – https://partypokerlive.com/en/event/wpt-online/overview#wpt-high-roller-schedule-7125

Another partypoker alliance involves the Irish Poker Open. The oldest event outside of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) celebrates its 40th year on the partypoker platform with a €1m GTD Main Event. The schedule will follow shortly.

Then Future

If the WPT Online Championships is a success, then why not allow it to breathe once COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror? While it doesn’t make sense to do this for the Irish Open. It does make sense for the WPT to have an online leg, with the winner securing a seat to the TOC, and there’s no reason why a coveted WPT Champions Club spot shouldn’t also be in the goodie bag.

partypoker recently held their first MILLIONS Super High Roller Series in Sochi, Russia. If we have seen the end of live tournament poker this side of 2021, then Rob Yong’s already indicated his willingness to replicate that event online, and that’s in addition to the MILLIONS Online leg that is currently in situ.

PokerStars are keeping their powder dry for now. But, what would stop them adding themed online European Poker Tour (EPT) stops to their online offerings, or expand the World Championships and Spring Championships of Poker idea to fill in the blanks.

Elon Musk wants to terraform Mars, knowing that at some point, human beings will make Earth uninhabitable. Maybe, we don’t have to venture that far. Perhaps, the movie ‘Ready Player One’ has the answer, and humanities future exists in a virtual world. If that’s the case, then online poker isn’t dying; it’s preparing for all-out domination.

This picture taken on December 31, 2019 shows firefighters struggling against the strong wind in an effort to secure nearby houses from bushfires near the town of Nowra in the Australian state of New South Wales. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)

Australia is in crisis.

Mother nature has torched the country like no country has been torched before. Flames from the 130+ fires have reached 230 feet into the sky, with temperatures rising to 1,000 degrees Celcius.

The smoke is destroying air quality, and firefighters have to contend with a new phenomenon as the fire creates thunderstorms and lightning strikes, fire clouds and ember attacks.

Help is needed.

The Aussie Millions is the most prestigious poker tour in the Asia-Pacific region and the first significant event of 2020. In November, hosts, the Crown Melbourne, and it’s owner, James Packer, donated $1m to help bushfire fighting services and provide community support. This week that donation rose to $5m.

Speaking to the press, Packer said:

“Australians are digging deep to support each other in these tough times; it’s truly inspiring. My family and Crown are eager to do more, and the best way we can help is to significantly increase our donation.
We hope these funds play a small part in helping our firefighters and easing the suffering of people who have lost their homes and the poor wildlife caught up in the blaze. We just want to do our bit.”

The money will go to areas where Crown properties exist such as New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, and here is a breakdown of fund distribution:

N.S.W. Rural Fire Service – $1m

Victorian County Fire Authority – $1m

Western Australia Bush Fire Brigade – $500,000

Australian Red Cross – $500,000

Victorian Government Fund in Conjunction With Bendigo Bank and the Salvation Army – $1m

Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service, Zoos Victoria – $1m

Aussie Millions News

The Aussie Millions consists of 23-events with buy-ins ranging between AUD 1,500 – 100,000, and Dzmitry Urbanovich is the first player to experience the comfort blanket feel of a win.

The Pole defeated Julien Sitbon after close to five hours of heads-up action at the boiling point of Event #2: AUD 2,500 H.O.R.S.E. Urbanovich collected AUD 28,755 (USD 19,964) for the win, after agreeing upon a heads-up deal.

It’s Urbanovich’s thirteenth live career title, and his second in H.O.R.S.E. after winning a 30-entrant $500 buy-in event during the 2017 partypoker MILLION in Sochi, Russia.

The partypoker pro’s Aussie Millions experience has resulted in 7 in the money (ITM) finishes, including 3 in 2018 along with a runner-up finish to Kenny Hallaert in an AUD 1,200 No-Limit Hold’em (N.L.H.E.) Shot-Clock event. Urbanovich has now earned more than $6m playing live tournament earnings and is the Polish All-Time Live Tournament Money Earner.

The 2018 Aussie Millions Main Event attracted a record 822-entrants, and Bryn Kenney won the AUD 1,272,598 (USD 914,617) first prize – launching himself into the year of his life.

What’s Short-Deck Poker?

Poker has a problem.
Short-Deck is the answer.
Also known as, Triton Hold’em, Short-Deck has its roots in Asia, where successful businessmen, and poker lovers, Paul Phua and Richard Yong, experimented by removing a few cards from the standard 52-card deck, increasing the likelihood of strong pre-flop hands.
Out went the 2s.
Then the 3s.
Then the 4s.
Finally, the 5s.
The net result, was a 36-card deck – a Short-Deck – and the outcome was incredible.
One of the problems that amateurs have when playing superior players, especially professionals, is they play with a broad range of starting hands because their primary focus in the game is to enjoy themselves, and you can’t do that if you fold. The better player begins with a narrower range of hands, and this disparity means the amateur ends up with the worst of it more often than the pro.
Folding isn’t fun.
Neither is losing all the time.
Paul and Richard found that by removing the lower half of the cards, they increased the likelihood that an amateur would receive two very playable starting hands.
As the former World Series of Poker (WSOP), Player of the Year, Ben Lamb, mentions during his first experience of Short-Deck during a 2018 Triton Poker Series in Jeju, South Korea.

Ben Lamb - Short-deck at Triton Poker Series Jeju 2018 — Ben Lamb at Triton Poker Series Jeju, South Korea (July 2018)

“The first thing you notice when you sit down to play Short-Deck is the equities run much closer than No-Limit Hold’em.”

And the closer you get, the more often a weaker player wins, and the more likely he or she is to remain in the game. At a time when poker’s ecosystem is under pressure from advancements in technology and available poker resources, with players getting improving at a rate never before witnessed, Short-Deck is fixing a leak that is in danger of drowning the game.

The Rules of Short-Deck Poker

The variant featured in Triton Poker Series events is called Short-Deck, Ante-Only. There is no small or big blind, and instead everyone has to post an ante that increases each level in the same way blinds do in a standard game of No-Limit Hold’em. The player on the button posts a double ante.
Each player begins with three bullets.
Stack sizes can vary, but in the early events at Montenegro and Jeju in South Korea, each bullet was worth 100,000 in chips. And loading these three bullets into the chamber is important, as Ben Lamb explains.

“You have to put your stack in more often than the other games. That’s why they give you three bullets, that’s smart.”

Like No-Limit Hold’em, the player to the left of the button begins the action by calling the size of the double ante, raising or folding. The action continues in sequence as per No-Limit Hold’em rules. Post flops actions plays the same.
Here’s Ben Lamb again to give you a few tips.

“You need to see a lot of flops. There are more passive ways to play the game, like limping, but this an action game. Stay away from dominated hands. Recognise the difference between shallow and deep-stacked play.”

During the early action, you can be forgiven for thinking you have walked into a game of deuces wild. All-in and calls are common, the action is crazy fast, and there is a lot of laughing and joking around the tables. But once the game gets deep, you need to switch gears, and this is why the game suits both skilled and weaker players alike.
And the best thing about Short-Deck is it’s a new game. It’s perfect for local home games where you can experiment with the rules and formats, while keeping an eye on the Triton Livestream to see how the Godfathers of the game continue to evolve.

Short-Deck Poker Hand Ranking (Best to Worst)

Royal flush
Straight flush
Four of a kind
Flush
Full house
Straight
Three of a kind
Two pair
One pair
High card
It’s important to remember that a flush beats a full house. That’s the only hand ranking difference when compared to No-Limit Hold’em.
One of the features of Short-Deck, is unlike Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) where players have to learn to use four hole cards, Short-Deck is more suitable for people who have grown up playing the more familiar No-Limit Hold’em.
A few things to note:
Pocket aces come along 1 in 105 hands, not one in 220, but they are cracked way more often.
Straight draws arrive on the flop 48% of the time, not 31%.
The odds of flopping a set are 18%, and not 12%.
The other change to be aware of is the role of the ace. As in No-Limit Hold’em the ace plays both low and high when creating straights, meaning it becomes a five when 6,7,8,9 is on the board.

Triton Poker Series Spearheads Short-Deck Poker Trend

After playing Short-Deck in their local home game, and seeing the improvements in sociability and joy firsthand, both Paul and Richard decided to test the new variant at a professional level.
The Triton Poker Series was born.
Taking place in some of the most salubrious destinations around the world, the Triton Poker Series is a high stakes series that pits some of the wealthiest amateurs against the very best professionals in the game.
In 2018, at the Triton Poker Series at the Maestral Resort & Casino in Montenegro, Paul and Richard hosted a HKD 250,000 (USD 32,000) and a HKD 1,000,000 (USD 127,000) buy-in Short-Deck, Ante-Only event, put the word out, and hoped they would come.
Come they did.
The most feared and respected poker player in the modern game, Phil Ivey, beat 61 entrants to win the HKD 4,749,200 (USD 604,992) first prize in the HKD 250,000 (USD 32,000) version, and Jason Koon defeated 103 entrants to bank the HKD 28,102,000 (USD 3,579,836) in the HKD 1,000,000 (USD 127,000) version, in only his second ever Short-Deck event.
Not only did the amateurs love the game, so did the pros, and so did the poker community, who tuned in to watch the livestream in their droves. There had not been this much buzz over a format of poker since the Texas Road Gamblers decided to add the words ‘All-In’ to the game of Limit Hold’em.
Paul Phua and Richard Yong had achieved the remarkable.
Short Deck became the antidote to a game that was in danger of turning into a robotic, emotionless, and dull experience.
“People who fold too much are going to get eaten up, you have to be prepared to gamble,” Ben Lamb.
But how do you play this game?

The Future of Short-Deck Poker

The Triton Poker Series Livestream numbers show that this is a variant of the game that the poker community adores. It turns quite a boring spectator sport into one of the most illuminating.
All sports and games have their magic moments.
The goal.
The punch.
The all-in and call.
There are more swings than a kid’s playground, and for this reason, Short-Deck poker is going to be here to stay, but where does it take it’s seat in poker’s landscape.
Back to Ben Lamb.
“It will grow, especially in America. I am going to try and help that happen by running games at ARIA and my local game in LA,” says Lamb, who played the variant in Jeju, for the first time, and fell in love with it. “It fits a niche. Amateurs want to enjoy themselves. Pot Limit Omaha cash games tend to be more fun for amateur players, but Short-Deck takes it to another level. More gambling. More fun. The edges are smaller, and that’s a great thing for the long term ecosystem of poker. Just because your a pro it doesn’t mean you don’t like to gamble. I love to flip and gamble.”
Poker’s purpose is to enthrall, enlighten and entertain.
Somewhere along the way we forgot that.
Short-Deck won’t let us make the same mistake twice.
Suddenly, it feels like poker has no problem at all.

Paul Phua Poker picks five more terrific quotes about poker, and explains how they can improve your game

Read part one of 10 useful poker sayings

“Texas Hold ’Em: the game that takes five minutes to learn and a lifetime to master”

Perhaps the most famous poker saying of all was coined by Mike Sexton, the former gymnast, US paratrooper and ballroom dancing instructor who became a highly respected poker pro and commentator. Like so many simple sayings, it holds a profound truth. When climbing a mountain, what appears to be the peak above you often turns out to be just the top of a foothill, with a long climb still ahead. In the same way, whenever you think you have perfected poker you always discover there is more to learn.

It is striking how many of the top poker pros interviewed by the Paul Phua Poker School say they are still learning from their peers. For instance, watch Dan Colman’s video interview in which he says: “The guys that are very math based, game theory orientated, I always want to pay attention to what they are doing and try and understand the reasoning behind it.”

“The smarter you play, the luckier you’ll be”

This is a favourite poker saying of Mark Pilarski, the casino industry insider turned lecturer and author. It even adorns his website banner. Really it’s a variant on pro golfer Gary Player’s maxim, “The more I practise, the luckier I get.”

You may suffer some bad beats in poker, but over a long period of time you will get as many lucky breaks as unlucky ones. Pilarski is saying that the players who appear to be lucky, and winning all the time, are the ones playing smarter. Just as a brilliant golfer who practises hard is more likely to hit a seemingly lucky hole-in-one, so too is the smart poker player more likely to end up with the winning hand.

“Money is simply the way of keeping score”

The full saying by the British journalist Anthony Holden, author of the classic poker memoir Big Deal, is as follows: “Poker may be a branch of psychological warfare, an art form or indeed a way of life – but it is also merely a game, in which money is simply the means of keeping score.”

It’s the final part of the quote that resonates. Poker players necessarily have a bizarre relationship with money. Players who would not normally spend money on fancy restaurants or other luxuries do not hesitate to shove hundreds or thousands of dollars into a poker pot. But they must strike the right balance. Players who are entirely contemptuous of money may end up losing it on quixotic bets and long-odds draws. Players who care too much become “scared money”, folding the best hand rather than risking their cash. In the end, the best way to look at money in poker is as chips: a way of keeping score, and the only way to really know if you are a winning or a losing player.

This thought is also eloquently expressed in the classic poker movie The Cincinnati Kid: “To the true gambler, money is never an end in itself, it’s simply a tool, as a language is to thought.”

“Hold ’Em is less a card game played by people, than a game about people that happens to be played with cards”

Phil Hellmuth is unquestionably one of the greatest poker players of all time. He won the World Series of Poker Main Event aged just 24 (read more), and has since amassed a record 14 WSOP bracelets. One of his strengths is a skill at reading people that is so uncanny he calls it “White Magic”.

It’s for this reason that Hellmuth says Texas Hold ’Em is “a game about people”. Most hands, after all, do not even reach showdown: what really dictates who folds and who rakes in the pot is what they think your hand is, and what you think their hand is, based on your respective reads.

“Poker is a hard way to earn an easy living”

This is such a long-established saying that it’s hard to work out who first said it. But again, it contains a profound truth. You look at the poker pros sitting at a card table or computer screen all day, raking in the cash, and it doesn’t exactly seem like hard labour.

But pros will tell you they studied hard, sacrificed social and family time, weathered hard times in which they lost everything and built it all back up again. Though you need some natural talent to become a poker pro, it’s more craft and graft than art. But if you can master it… then, yes, it can be the best living in the world!

There are so many great quotes about poker, and all of them will help you be a better player. Paul Phua Poker picks 10 of the best

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em”

This saying was popularised by the country singer Kenny Rogers in his 1978 version of The Gambler, though the song was written and first recorded by 23-year-old Don Schlitz two years before. It’s one of the simplest and yet most profound lessons in poker.

Too many people hang on to their hand when it’s obvious they are beaten. How many times have you heard a player sigh and say, “I know you’ve got me beat, but I’ll call?” Like many things in poker, it’s a lesson with wide applications in life and love.

“As long as you’ve got ‘a chip and a chair’, there’s still hope”

This means that in tournaments, you should never give up until you’ve lost your very last chip. Many are the times when someone has fought back from near-obliteration to double up, then double up again, then go on to cash or even win the tournament. The saying originated with Jack “Treetop Straus”, and his extraordinary comeback from a single chip to win the WSOP Main Event. Read more

“If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker”

This quote is from Rounders, the greatest of all poker movies. It’s a film that cares so much about authenticity that its climactic hand is copied from Johnny Chan’s famous winning hand at the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1988.

It is famously good advice. When you sit down at a new table, observe the other players. Are they betting too big, too often? Conversely, are they calling stations who don’t raise to protect their hands and allow you cheap draws to a winner? In short, can you spot players worse than you, the “suckers” whose money you will be raking in by the end of the session? If not, move tables if it’s a cash game; and if it’s a tournament, where you can’t move, sit tight and wait for a premium starting hand.

“Don’t tap on the glass”

You know how the bad poker players who are likely to be donating their money to the rest of the table are called “fish”? And you know that in an aquarium you are told not to tap on the glass as it scares the fish? This saying is a kind of code from one poker shark to another.

Let’s say one is berating a fish for sucking out on him with a bad play that got lucky. “Don’t tap on the glass” would be said as a reminder to keep the fish happy instead – at least for long enough to lose the money back again! This saying is also included in the Paul Phua Poker School Dos and Don’ts of Poker Etiquette.

“You call, it’s gonna be all over baby!”

So famous it’s printed on T-shirts, this is what the irrepressible Scotty Nguyen said to Kevin McBride in the final hand of the World Series of Poker in 1998, when he bet out on a board showing 89988.

The taunt was well judged: McBride made the call, saying “I play the board”. Nguyen held a 9 to make a bigger full house, and it was indeed all over baby. Read 10 more memorable events in WSOP history

Look out for five more great quotes in part 2

**In the sixth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School profiles the only woman to reach the final table at the World Series of Poker**

Poker is a male-dominated world. Some estimates put the proportion of female players in live tournaments as low as 5%. There are many possible factors behind this, but the fact remains that only one woman has ever reached the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.
It’s for this reason that, although poker guru Dan Harrington won the WSOP championship in 1995, the most notable performance that year was arguably Barbara Enright’s.

Who is Barbara Enright?

When asked to name a female poker pro, you might immediately think of Annie Duke, Vanessa Selbst, or Liv Boeree. But to players of an older generation, Barbara Enright’s name would roll first off the tongue.
Barbara Enright started playing poker with her elder brother at the age of four, and began playing in poker rooms in the 1970s. It wasn’t long before she gave up her jobs as a hairstylist and cocktail waitress to turn pro. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, in 2007, and the first to win first two, then three WSOP bracelets. And she is still the only woman to have reached the final table of the WSOP Main Event – though Annie Duke came close, finishing in tenth place in 2000.

Barbara Enright’s final table in 1995

With two WSOP bracelets already to her name, Barbara Enright qualified for the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event through an online satellite that cost just $220 to enter. She asked a previous backer to stake her for 50%, but he declined – a decision that would cost him £57,000!
Enright fought her way through not just to the final table of nine, but to the television table of six. The competition was tough: the other five players were Chuck Thompson, Hamid Dastmalchi, Brent Carter and Howard Goldfarb, as well as Dan Harrington.
In the end, however, the poker gods decided it was not to be. It was not bad play that brought an end to Enright’s championship dream, but bad luck. She was knocked out in fifth place when her commanding pocket 8s were outdrawn by Carter’s meagre 6-3 suited, which flopped two pair.

Women Poker Player Magazine

The veteran poker commentator Mike Sexton has called Enright “the most dominating, relentless, aggressive woman on the tournament circuit”. The poker writer Al Moe has said she is “like a heavy rock on a steep hill”.
Inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame the same year as Phil Hellmuth, and made Editor-in-Chief of Women Poker Player Magazine, Enright continues to play to this day, 40 years after she began testing herself in the male-dominated cardroom environment. Her heavy rock is still rolling: in 2017 so far she has cashed in four tournaments, including the skill-testing $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. at the World Series of Poker.

Who is Barbara Enright? Poker player profile

Barbara Enright started playing poker at the age of four, and has played in cardrooms since the early 1970s
She has won three WSOP bracelets
She was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2007
Barbara Enright is the only woman ever to have reached the final table in the WSOP Main Event
Mike Sexton has called her “the most dominating, relentless, aggressive woman on the tournament circuit”

Read part 5 of our WSOP blogs on the youngest ever World Series of Poker champion.
Or come back tomorrow to read about when Stu Ungar wons a historic third world championship.

In a single year, poker prodigy Dan Colman won $22.4 million in live tournaments and four major titles – aged just 23. He rarely gives interviews, so Paul Phua is delighted to introduce this latest video

The latest video interview for the Paul Phua Poker School is with Daniel Colman, who has one of the most extraordinary rise-to-riches stories in all of poker. He was talent-spotted as a teenager by poker pro Olivier Busquet, after Colman kept calling out his hands while watching him play online. In 2013, Dan Colman became the first online hyper-turbo player to win more than $1 million in a year – what’s more, he managed it in just nine months.

“I don’t see poker as being a sustainable source of income a few years down the road,” Dan said modestly in an interview at the time. It must be one of the only times in his poker career that Dan has been very, very wrong!
The very next year, Dan Colman won the $1m-entry Big One for One Drop tournament, besting Daniel Negreanu heads-up at the end, to win $15.3 million and his first WSOP bracelet. He was just 22 years old.
As if to prove this was no fluke, that year Dan Colman also won the EPT Super High Roller in Monte Carlo for $1.5m; the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Main Event for $1.4m (beating 1,500 players); and the WPT Alpha8 Main Event in London for $950,000; as well as making numerous other final tables. He was named Player of the Year 2014 by Bluff, Card Player and All In magazines.

Drawn to the dark side

Unusually for a player so thrust into the limelight, Dan Colman turned down pretty much every interview request (which makes me extra-excited he agreed to do video interviews with the Paul Phua Poker School). He posted a very thoughtful explanation for this online. He said that though he loves playing poker, he doesn’t like the fact that for him to win, someone else must lose a large sum of money.
“I am conflicted,” he wrote. “I capitalise off this game that targets people’s weaknesses. I do enjoy it, I love the strategy part of it, but I do see it as a very dark game.”
He still loves to play. “It is a beautiful game when you think about it,” he says in this new video interview with the Paul Phua Poker School. “Just everything matches up perfectly where there are straights, flushes, what beats what.”
But he also still cautions players to be careful with their money. In my previous video interview with Dan Colman, he warned of the dangers of online poker for recreational players. And in this new video profile, he admits that he himself lost money for his first five years of playing – which may give hope to anyone still struggling to master the game!
“I had poor poker bankroll management,” he admits in the interview, and he went boom-and-bust several times before hitting his stride. [Discover my tips on bankroll management here.]

A DIY style of poker

The other interesting thing about Dan Colman is that he is mostly self-taught – with a helping hand from mentors such as Oliver Busquet. Phil Ivey recently said in our video interview that players nowadays have it easier: he learned by trial and error because there was less advice out there on strategy than there is now. Dan went down the same route, but in his case by choice rather than from necessity.
Even now, as Dan says in our video interview, “I’m definitely a field player. I don’t use much math, game theory. I’m very intuitive but, that being said, the guys that are very math based, game theory orientated, I always want to pay attention to what they are doing and try and understand the reasoning behind it.”
Whatever Dan Colman is doing, it’s working. He’s made another $2m-plus in live tournament earnings just this year alone. He’s also one of the nicest, brightest and most articulate people one could meet.
And he is still only 26 years old!
More videos from the poker pros will be going live weekly on the Paul Phua Poker YouTube channel. Subscribe if you don’t want to miss out. It’s free!

**The latest Paul Phua Poker School video interview is with French poker pro Rui Cao. Paul Phua explores the lessons to be learned**

Rui Cao, the subject of this new video profile for the Paul Phua Poker School, is recognised as one of the best poker players in France. I first played against him six years ago, when he came to Macau to play in the high-stakes cash game known in poker circles as “the Big Game”. Rui Cao is an aggressive, risk-taking player, and he loved the excitement of these huge pots. Anyone who can thrive in such a high-pressure situation, where even the most experienced players can be at risk of losing their bankroll, deserves respect.

In his previous video interview for the Paul Phua Poker School, discussing aggression in poker with myself and Wai Kin Yong, Rui Cao admitted that he sometimes plays a little too loose: “It’s an ego problem,” he said. So this time we asked him what he considers the most important attributes for success in poker.
“I think being smart is a good point,” Rui Cao says in the new video interview, “and being able to learn fast is similar, to adjust fast to the game. Other than that, some human factors as well like discipline, patience, the ability to control ourselves, I think mostly.”

How not to go on tilt

I very much agree with him on this last point. In fact, I wrote a blog about this a few months ago. Even if you have total mastery of poker strategy and poker odds, you will still be a losing player if you don’t have the patience and discipline to apply the theory in practice. What is the point of knowing the best starting hands, for instance, if you get bored of folding and start to play everything you are dealt?
Part of not going “on tilt” is developing a philosophical attitude to the game. Yes, you got unlucky this time. But the longer you play, the more luck evens out. You get unlucky sometimes, you get lucky sometimes. If you make the right decisions, over time you will be a winner. So don’t let temporary setbacks affect you.
When asked in this interview how he deals with losing, Rui Cao says, “Quite OK. I just sleep for 15 hours and try to forget!” The swings in poker, he says, “are just part of the game”. The one thing you can do, he adds, is to examine whether any of the hands you lost were the result of bad play rather than bad luck. “I try to improve my game and losing is part of the game, I would say.”

An epic struggle with Isildur1

Rui Cao originally made his name playing Omaha, which can have even greater swings than Texas Hold ’Em. Asked which of his many matches was the most memorable, he recalls one marathon PLO session against Viktor Blom, better known under his online name “Isildur1” as one of the most skilled, aggressive and feared online players of all.
“We were four-tabling,” Rui Cao recalls in the video interview, “and maybe at one point I was down 30 buy-ins or something, and two hours later I was up like 30 buy-ins, and it was a pretty crazy upswing. We were, like, playing crazy, and it was a really, really fun session to play in.”
I like the way Rui Cao considers this game his favourite not because he bested one of the world’s top players, or because he made a lot of money, but because it was “really, really fun”! We poker players talk a lot about strategy, and discipline, and improving our game. Of course that’s important; in fact, it’s fundamental to the Paul Phua Poker School. Without it, we would lose money. And if we lose too much money, we can no longer play.
But let us not lose sight of the reason we all took up poker in the first place: it’s just a really, really fun game to play!
More videos from the poker pros will be going live weekly on the Paul Phua Poker YouTube channel. Subscribe if you don’t want to miss out. It’s free!

**The Paul Phua Poker School chart of common poker odds will dramatically improve your game. Paul Phua gives tips on how they should affect your strategy**

In my last three articles in this mini-series on poker odds, I explained why they matter; how you can calculate them with a simple magic formula; and how to apply the odds in your play using a nut flush draw as an example.
But in the heat of the moment, you may not have time to calculate the odds, even using the magic formula. So be sure to learn this list of the most useful poker odds. I promise it will revolutionise your game.
I have added playing tips to each one, to show how knowing the odds can improve your strategy.

Odds of getting these cards dealt pre-flop

Pocket Aces: 1 in 220

If you are so tight that you will only play with Aces, you will have a long wait! You’ll be dealt pocket Aces – or Kings, or Queens, or any specific pair – just 1 in 220 hands. That’s no more than once a day in live play. You’ll get AK, however, once in every 82 hands.

Pocket pair: 1 in 17

It’s rare to be dealt a pocket pair, so don’t waste them. A large pocket pair (QQ, KK, AA, plus JJ or 10-10 depending on previous bets and your position) should raise or re-raise pre-flop, then bet the flop unless an overcard hits. A smaller pocket pair should usually “set mine”, ie call if it’s cheap, and hope for a set on the flop.

Two suited cards: 1 in 4

Suited cards look pretty, but can quickly drain your chips. It’s best to play them only when they are high cards in their own right, or when they are connected to give you an additional chance of a straight draw. Relax: now you know you are dealt them every four hands, you can afford to wait for better ones.

Odds of hitting the flop

A pair: 1 in 3

If you hold unpaired cards pre-flop, your chance of making a pair on the flop is just 1 in 3. The good news is that any single opponent is also unlikely to have hit.

A set from a pocket pair: 1 in 8

If you are dealt a pocket pair, your chance of hitting a set on the flop is about 1 in 8. Even so, it’s often worth “set mining” even with a low pair, as you can often win much more than 8x your investment if you do hit a set.

Odds from flop to river

Flush draw: 1 in 3

If you have a flush draw on the flop, your chance of completing it by the river is slightly higher than 1 in 3. If you can only double your money, eg you’re against just one other player, it usually doesn’t make sense to keep calling and chasing the draw.

Flush draw plus another draw: 1 in 2

As explained here, a flush draw with an overcard such as an Ace, or an inside straight draw, is a much stronger hand. Be alert to the extra outs that make flush draws much more profitable.

“Open-ended” straight draw: 1 in 3

An “open-ended” straight draw is where you hold four consecutive cards, so a card at either end would complete the straight. This gives you 8 outs: slightly worse odds than a flush draw. Beware too of someone else drawing to a flush. You then have only 6 outs, as two of your cards would also complete their flush.
“Gutshot” straight draw: 1 in 6
An inside straight draw, nicknamed a “gutshot” or “belly buster”, is where only one middle card will complete your straight – eg you have 5689 and need the 7. This is a huge leak for inexperienced players: you almost never have the correct pot odds to call with this hand. Look out for the “double belly buster”, where two middle cards could make you a straight, eg you have 467810 and need the 5 or the 9. This is nearly 1 in 3.

A full house from a set: 1 in 3

If you’re unlucky enough to flop a set against a straight or flush, you’re still in better shape than you might think. Your chance of getting a full house with the final two cards is 1 in 3. Your chance of two pairs becoming a house are, however, just 1 in 6.

All-in pre-flop: who wins by the river?

In the late stages of a tournament, short stacks are often forced to shove all-in with less than premium hands, and are then called by a player with high cards. As the following set of odds shows, there is always hope for the underdog (these odds will change slightly in different circumstances, eg if cards are suited or have straight draw potential):
Pocket pair v overcards, eg 55 v AK: 54%
Highest card v next two best, eg A6 v K7: 60%
Highest card v second highest, eg A9 v K8: 65%
Both cards higher, eg A9 v 72: 68%
“Dominating” your opponent by duplicating their kicker, eg A7 v K7: 74%
Higher pair against lower pair, eg KK v 88: 81%