Plus, win a racehorse at the poker table! And, who is the Robin Hood of Poker?
LOWDOWN ON SHOWDOWN! The real life drama of the billionaire Banker Andy Beal versus the Corporation (as Brunson’s team of professionals like to call themselves) has completely captured the imagination of the poker world. I’ve dealt with the general pattern of the games whereby Beal selects one of the Corporation at a time to play against for exotically high stakes but in recent meetings Andy has calmed down his ultra aggressive game with some interesting results. I’ll illustrate what I mean by describing the outcome of an actual game played between Beal and professional Ted Forrest in a recent contest. The community cards had delivered four-four-ten-five-ace and Forrest held queen-four. Forrest recalls, “Andy had limped in on the button and I figured that three fours had to be good against him. But he had three tens! I thought I was playing the super aggressive Andy Beal of old. But he’s a new player now. He has a solid, conservative game. That makes it harder to win a lot of money from him.” Clearly Forrest’s idea of “not a lot of money” is a little out of whack with what the rest of us might consider “not a lot”. The professionals wound up $3,000,000 ahead of the billionaire banker this outing. Everything is relative ...and I wish Beal was a relative of mine.
NAGGING DOUBTS Not quite sure how poker players will react to the latest oddball idea from Ladbrokes. Their regular poker players are in with a chance of winning “part” of a racehorse named appropriately “Laddies Poker”. The mount in question is a two year old scheduled to begin racing during the Flat season and was purchased for seventy seven thousand pounds by the excellent Ladbroke bloodstock team from the famous Geoff Orby Million sales in Ireland. The horse is an extremely well bred grey and two hundred shares will be available valued at $1,000 each. All you have to do is win one of Ladbroke’s scheduled online tournaments. This four legged investment vehicle is likely to make its first outing over six furlongs in July and all shareholders will take an equal dividend from any amassed winnings. All stabling and vet costs etc will be the responsibility of Ladbrokes themselves. Nagging doubts? Depends which bit you end up owning, I guess. Knowing me it’d be the horse’s arse!
POKER’S ROBIN HOOD Barry “Robin Hood” Greenstein is so nicknamed because of his habit of donating all his poker tournament winnings to charity. In particular the “Children Incorporated” charity where Barry is obviously trying to ensure the kids get a better “deal” from life. A true poker legend with over $4,000,000 deserved winnings so far.
ALL THE ACES poker column: Friday, April 28, 2006: Andy Beal's Poker Showdown
