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We’re the Card Sharks of Poker
Published: 2005-05-13
 We’re the Card Sharks of Poker
By Emil Amok, May 13, 2005
We all know Asians love to gamble. Any game. Whatever the odds. The higher the better. The suckiest of sucker bets, we’ll take a piece of that action. We have undying faith in the cards, the dice, the horses, the ping pong balls.
We believe.
So it’s good to see a few of us win every now and then in the skill games. It’s even better to see some go beyond winning to a level of superstardom.
It’s happening to Asian Americans in the latest sports craze in America — poker.
Yes, poker. And not just any old poker. Forget stud, draw, Omaha. Lo-ball. Hi-ball. Pai gow.
Texas Hold’em is the variation du jour, and the money game on the poker circuit. If you haven’t been bitten by the poker bug yet, then you haven’t been channel-surfing on cable lately. There’s poker everywhere: Bravo, ESPN, Fox, the Travel Channel, and starting May 1, NBC with its National Heads-up Poker Championship, where players go one-on-one.
TV has shown the grand-daddy of poker tournaments, the World Series of Poker, for years. But it wasn’t any fun looking at guys hide their cards and act in the secrecy of their own minds.
The breakthough occurred two years ago, when producers developed a hidden camera that would allow the TV audience to see all the cards as they were dealt. It was pure genius, because it made the viewers poker gods. They could play along and know exactly what everyone had. They weren’t capable of a wrong move. And then ordinary folks, including Asian Americans like Noli de Castro and David Pham started winning hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It’s encouraged everyone to play poker. Especially Asian Americans, young and old.
Guess what? We’re dominating.
If you really want to know where Asian Americans have a leg up in the sports world, it has nothing to do with balls, just “the nuts.” (That’s poker lingo for the best hand). Poker’s the sport where all the running around takes place between the ears, inside the head, where messing with an opponent’s head is part of the game.
We’re good at it.
Go to any list of top finishers in tournaments big and small and you’ll find Asian names: David Pham, John Phan, Tuan Le, Scotty Nguyen, Johnny Chan, Men “The Master” Nguyen, John Juanda. And women Mimi Tran, Evelyn Ng.
World class players all.
Chan was lionized in the Matt Damon movie Rounders. But the rest of those Asian American players have become famous by their appearances at the final tables in major poker tournaments — all of which have been televised.
Most all of them were at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe last weekend competing in a World Series of Poker Circuit event, practically a who’s who of Asian American poker stars.
There I bumped into Pham, 38, who didn’t look like a man who has won millions of dollars playing poker. No fancy clothes. No bling. He looked like a guy you’d see at your friendly neighborhood pho parlor.
In other words, like many Asian Americans, who don’t speak with the best accents, who don’t exactly cut an imposing profile, you would tend to underestimate their considerable ability.
And that would be a big mistake.
I asked him why he thought Asian Americans were among the top poker pros.
“Asians gamble a lot you know,” he said in a heavily accented English, meaning that with more of them gambling, there’s just a greater chance of seeing top players from the group.
But then he added: “I think the Asians are more tricky than the Americans.”
Then he said it again for emphasis: “Tricky.”
Pham said Asians play aggressively. “They read the hand,” he said. “But sometimes they don’t play the cards, they play the player.”
That’s how the winners win. It’s not the math, the odds, or the cards really. It’s the feel you have when you’re in direct confrontation with other players.
Pham said he learned his tricks from Men Nguyen. “He’s my cousin,” said Pham, “And my teacher.”
He spoke of Nguyen with a reverence. “He’s got a real talent to play poker.”
When Pham said that, I knew exactly what he meant. Poker success is all about skill offsetting luck and vice versa. When you’re up with one and down with the other you might break even. When you are up in both, you crush your opponents and take their money.
But there’s something else at play. You can read all the books and know exactly how to play every hand you’re dealt properly. You’ll still lose if you don’t have IT.
By IT, I mean that special poker instinct, that gift that helps one make the right decision at the right time, amidst an artful act of deception that confounds opponents.
David Pham has it. So does Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen. All the Asian Americans have IT.
Maybe it’s tied to being an immigrant, or refugee. You’ve already gone for broke and won the biggest gamble of your life.
After all of that, what’s a hand of cards?
Reach Emil at emil@amok.com.
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Pair of 10s Wins Longest World Series of Poker Final
Published: 2005-05-13
 Pair of 10s Wins Longest World Series of Poker Final
13 May 2005
NEVADA – As reported by the Tahoe Daily Tribune: "In the longest final table in circuit history, the World Series of Poker wrapped up at 3:15 a.m. Thursday at Harveys Casino Resort with the top prize of $542,360 going to a 39-year-old property investor who had a pair of 10s.
"Jeffrey Lisandro battled against Phil Ivey for 2 1/2 hours in a 12-hour, 35-minute game, edging the 28-year-old who looked like he might take the grand pot with bluffs and persistence, and a pair of deuces in the end.
"…Steven Schorr, who holds the lengthy title of manager of poker, keno and the sports and racing book at Harveys, was also surprised at how the No-Limit Texas Hold 'em Championship event turned out.
"…Both Lisandro and Ivey checked out of their rooms early at Harveys, but the excitement was still in the air as the casino hosted the fourth stop of one of the most well-known and televised tournaments…"
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