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#1
04-30-2005, 01:53 PM
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million dollar maniac
Following are exerpts from a WSJ article that some might find interesting. This is mostly FYI, IYC, but I do have one question at the end about something said.
The dude, Andrew Beal, is a billionaire investor/bank owner in Texas. Article is column 1 page 1 on 1/13/05. [ QUOTE ] Mr. Beal has other interests in Las Vegas. Since 2000, he has been visiting casinos to play marathon sessions of Texas Hold 'Em poker against some of the world's top gamblers. Participants say Mr. Beal sits practically immobile for hours. He wears sunglasses and headphones to shut out voices, so he won't inadvertently betray a clue about his hand by making eye contact or chatting. Other players say he lost several million dollars in these games, though a winning spree last spring brought him close to break-even. Mr. Beal doesn't dispute that account. He is known for blasting away with big bets even if he has bad cards, sometimes inducing opponents with better hands to fold. "It's almost as if he's playing with disdain for the value of money," says one opponent, Doyle Brunson, a former poker world champion. Mr. Brunson, a legendary bluffer in his own right, calls Mr. Beal "a very difficult person to play against." ... Mr. Beal says he is through playing high-stakes poker, in part because he and the professional gamblers can't agree on terms for a rematch. [/ QUOTE ] What does that last part mean, do you think? What kind of terms do they mean? Can't you just walk into Bellagio and sit down? Of course, they WERE talking elsewhere in the article about 50K/100K stakes, so maybe you have to line up those games in advance - but what kind of terms would the pros be asking for that he doesn't want to meet? It can't be stakes. 
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#3
04-30-2005, 08:09 PM
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Re: million dollar maniac
Hmmm, interesting. It seems last May 12/13, Beal beat the pros for about $10 million playing 100K/200K heads up. Prior to that, Beal had been a big loser over several games, losing net more than that $10 million but claiming to have beat the majority of the 16 players opposing him. Doyle's son Todd claimed to have won $20.5 million off Beal, although there were questions about that number. The two sides negotiated over an $80 million winner-take-all match but never agreed on terms, but just about a month ago Beal made another proposal that seems pretty close to Brunson's terms, see this link. So maybe there's still a chance.
Here's another article from Beal's side that puts the overall history in some perspective.
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#4
05-08-2005, 03:56 AM
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Re: million dollar maniac
Don't believe EVERYTHING you read. Even the players in the game don't always get it right. I spent a year running down the story of the Andy Beal games and I'm finding, even now, details I didn't know and disagreements over matters I once took as fact.
Todd Brunson's claim of $20.5 million in wins is, if not accurate, very close. Over two days in October 2003, he won $13.5 million. (The players' group was down $3.5 million in a $10 million freeze when he started, and he actually lost some more before going on a two-day tear.) He won $1 million during the first day of the $100-200k games in May 2004 and $5-6 million at $30-60K ten days later. Andy Beal disputes some of this but I have multiple sources for all of it. (Despite Todd's record of success, there's actually one player Beal wants to play even less than Todd.) In fairness to Andy, he did win the most in one day and at the highest stakes. He definitely proved that there is a level at which even the best players in the world are concerned about the stakes. And he also proved he was a formidable opponent to the best players in the world. I also recommend that you consider the results beyond the stakes: Is it really a surprise that the pros are better than Andy Beal? They are, after all, "the pros," and the best in the world. But Beal didn't set out to teach them a lesson or clean them out to prove some point. He wanted to prove to himself whether he could teach himself the game, learn some of its finer points, and using his abilities and his money, cut into some of the advantages they had. If this was a tournament, the only way to judge the outcome is by looking to see who had all the chips in the end. But this was also an experiment by Beal. Did he succeed? You can really only judge by understanding the games as a whole. Of course, I wrote an account of those games, THE PROFESSOR, THE BANKER, AND THE SUICIDE KING (Warner Books, June 2). Michael Craig
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#8
05-09-2005, 10:14 AM
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Re: million dollar maniac
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] He won $1 million during the first day of the $100-200k games in May 2004 [/ QUOTE ] A whopping 5BB's!!! [/ QUOTE ] That makes me feel a little queasy...
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