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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

May 22, 2004

Bravado: The Essence of Tournament Poker

Over the past couple of years, we've seen many new faces at the final tables of major poker events. We've also heard many new names called out as winners. While the pros still manage to win their fair share of events‹ here we mean those players who have been making stops on the tournament trail for a decade or more‹and are still getting a good share of prize money, their names are not dominating.

This sudden change of direction should come as no surprise to anyone. Much of the new results can be attributed to the sudden growth in popularity of tournament poker and to the ease of finding action‹specifically on the Internet. It's a simple fact of life that the more people firing bullets at you, the more likely you are going to be hit‹and the pros are feeling the impact.

But there's a much more subtle undercurrent of change going on in poker that also plays a big part in the proponderance of new names in the winners circles. By having an opportunity to watch the big matchups from around the world, we now can see that a skill shift is definitely apparent.

Take this more-or-less new kid on the block, Antonio Esfandiari. While he's not giving away anything reagarding the strength of his hand, his entire body language indicates his love of the game. Whether he's a good ring player or not, we can't say since our only exposure to his style has been in tourney action and what exposure that is. He has defeated some of the best poke players in the world‹much of the time because these players can't figure him out!

Like Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 World Series of Poker champ, Esfandiari has a quality that confuses other players. He's not afraid of the big guns; he's not afraid of losing; he has the confidence it takes to win. And because he has these three things going for him, he can play whatever two cards he wants to. If he chooses to go all in with a couple of dinky cards, most of his opponents will fold. They don't know if he's holding aces or deuces! Sometimes he shows his dinky cards and sometimes he show his power. And sometimes he doesn't show anything. Maybe he's read the books but he's not necessarily playing by them.

When Phil Hellmuth comes to the final table with opponents such as Eric Seidel or Howard Lederer, or Johnny Chan, or Annie Duke, he has a fairly good idea how they're going to approach various starting hands. And they have a fairly good idea how Phil's going to play as well because of their constant playing exposure to one another. But when someone like Esfandiari shows up with what deceivingly looks like a devil-may-care attitude, the pros encounter trouble.

To drive home the point, Gerry Drehobl, a Spokane, Washington resident was quoted as saying this about the pros: ³I took a lot more chances than they would. Why risk all their chips on one hand when they can grind it out?² This in reference to his $365,900 prize package for the $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at thie 2004 World Series of Poker. Drehobl finished ahead of three major names in the business: John Juanda, Daniel Negreanu and Paul Phillips after winning a sattelite and after only a few months of poker experience.

This in addition to the fact that the 9th event in the Series saw nine non-professionals hoping to win the final pot ... all of whom figured they had as much chance as anyone else in a competition that often begs for favors from Lady Luck.

While it's nothing like base jumping, playing tournament poker requires some bravado and at this time, nobody needs more of it than the pros. I think most of them will rise to the occasion but I also believe some will eventually give up the ghost.

More on this topic next week.

On another note, congratulations are in order to the Imperial Palace here in Las Vegas for bringing back the poker room. Once one of the most popular low-limit card rooms on the Strip, this mainstay closed its doors in favor of slots several years ago, sending their players to what is now Harrah's, until that company shut down its room. (We believe the latter will soon have a small venue on the property again.)