The Banker, The Boss, The Junkman, & The Warrior Queen: The Return of the Richest Poker Game of all time.
On Saturday night, Andy Beal was tired but upbeat. His $50,000- $100,000 heads-up poker game with a rotating cast of the world’s best highstakes pros had just concluded its fourth day. He was behind, but not significantly, and had played some excellent poker, winning on three of the four days.
His secret plan had been to leave after playing on Sunday, February 5: Super Bowl Sunday. But he would stay as long as he was enjoying the experience and playing well. He had been playing very well.
Would he stay beyond Sunday?
“I don’t want to say, but chances are that I will.”
The next morning, however, a dark cloud hung over Beal as he sat with his back to the wall in a corner of the Wynn poker room.
“I just want to tell you in advance, Michael, that I’m losing my enthusiasm. I’m missing my family. I’m at the point where I should go home and I’m not. It’s absolutely not the day I should be playing.”
Poker players have a unique facility for thinking rationally, then behaving irrationally. Therefore, I believed Andy Beal.
As if to prove it to me, he lost $1.2 million in the next seventeen minutes.
The stakes in the poker games between Andy Beal and the professionals who opposed him are, and have always been, sky-high. The money is more important to the pros than to Beal, but both sides are trained, by profession and temperament, to focus on making smart decisions, not on the money riding on the outcome. What they contest transcends money, encompassing achievement, reputation, intellect, skill, nerve, compulsion, ego, greed, and fear. Plus there was $25 million on the table.
Yet in this most personal combat – so intense that I sometimes found it hard to look at Beal or his opponent following a reversal of fortune – there was camaraderie, class, dignity, and a spirit of fun.
I was lucky enough to play a role in arranging the game, and watch nearly every hand played over nine days – 4,000 hands of poker. I can’t say I know everything about this game, but I know a lot.
I have a great story to share with you.
PART 1
Wynn Las Vegas Poker Room Wednesday,Day 1 1:53pm – He Took a Face from the Ancient Gallery
The world’s richest poker game will resume at Table Three in the back corner of this room after a 619-day hiatus. Andy Beal sent me an email thirteen days ago, saying, “You are welcome to watch the game as my guest.” But he never told me the starting time, so I am pacing in front of the poker room when I see Andy arrive with Craig Singer, his employee and poker buddy. The Wynn dispatched a limousine to pick up Andy and Craig at McCarran, but Beal, famous for eschewing the perks of the rich life, found a cab on his own.
He is wearing what has become his poker uniform: white dress shirt and tan dress slacks. He is fifty-threeyears- old and the first thing I notice is how thin he looks. I am used to Andy Beal being a big man. He claims to be 6’1,” but actually seems taller. He is long-limbed, with broad shoulders, and a face with almost as many right angles as Dick Tracy’s.
“See You in Two Weeks”
This series of poker games started in 2001 when Andy Beal, the wealthy and publicity-shy owner of Beal Bank, began playing high-stakes poker in Las Vegas. I told the story of the game in The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time. Initially to accommodate Beal’s interest in playing heads-up, and eventually because the stakes became so high, the best poker players in the world combined bankrolls and took turns playing Beal in Limit Texas Hold’em.
In 2001, they played $10,000/$20,000. During the initial heads-up matches, Andy was clearly overmatched. He returned in December 2001, however, and thrashed the pros for five straight days, winning $5.5 million, and forcing most of the Las Vegas high-stakes community to borrow money to build the bankroll needed to continue. Ted Forrest and Howard Lederer won back the money, and sent Beal home with a small loss.
Andy Beal vowed never to play poker again. He stayed away for sixteen months, returning in the spring and fall of 2003 for two sets of matches. Stakes ranged from $20,000/$40,000 to $50,000/$100,000. During each game, Beal went on a tear and put the fear into the pros, but they prevailed on both occasions, wearing down the amateur in as many as fourteen days of poker games.
During the 2004 World Series, Beal returned. Even though Howard Lederer beat him for $5 million, he succeeded in getting the game he wanted: $100,000/$200,000 limits. In a single day, he won $12 million against four of the best poker players in the world. Unfortunately for him, he came back less than two weeks later and lost it back at lower ($30,000/$60,000 and $50,000/$100,000) limits. After a losing session against Todd Brunson and another against Howard Lederer, Andy decided he was through with poker.
When he returned to the poker room and told Lederer and David Grey, another high-stakes pro and member of the group who was watching the game, David shook Beal’s hand and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Andy. See you in two weeks.”
Grey may have underestimated by a factor of forty, but it was hard to argue with his logic. There are no former poker players
1:59pm – The Boss
While Andy meets the Wynn poker room staff, Todd Brunson appears. Everyone missed him coming in and he waits silently until Beal and poker room director Deborah Giardina finish their talk.
To say Todd Brunson is a big man completely misrepresents his physical presence and demeanor. Todd is light on his feet, unimposing in manner. In fact, his sly sense of humor is easy to miss.
Todd Brunson does, however, convey mass at the poker table. Crouched above his cards and chips, with his chair turned backward, chin resting on a forearm slung over the back of chair, he peers downward at the table, he looks like a linebacker.
2:09pm – Jackpot Hand
At Table Three in the back corner, the cards are in the air. Todd Brunson sits in Seat Two. Todd removes the chips from two of his four racks and sets them up as a fortress. Andy Beal sits in Seat Four and Craig Singer takes the seat to Andy’s left. Beal keeps nearly all his chips in their racks, stacked in front of Craig. The brown $25,000 chips are the only denomination in play. A velvet rope cordons off the table from the rest of the room and a security guard in a purple blazer is posted as a sentry.
Will the opening hands reveal anything about the direction and destiny of the match?
You judge: the flop for the very first hand is 7-7-7.
Surely, that has to be a good omen, but for which side? Every hand of poker makes someone unhappy.
Todd bets and Andy folds. Brunson has just won a $100,000 pot, the minimum possible unless the small blind folds.
Easy money.
3:03pm – Hat Trick
For Andy Beal to compete with the best poker players in the world, he has developed a number of shortcuts, all of which he has working today. First are the giant Dior sunglasses. Think of Darth Vader or a really stylish welder. He also wears earplugs and headphones, connected to an MP3 player programmed with “elevator music.”
To further mask his expressions, he wears a hat. Today’s model, which I saw last year when we played in Dallas, is a maroon baseball cap left over from his Bellagio games. The cap has one bizarre modification: he has crudely cut out the crown, creating a ragged homemade visor.
“When I wore it, my head got hot. So I cut the top out, and it was more comfortable.”
Andy owns up to being both an innovator and a cheapskate, but this get-up looks less Ross-Perot-practical than Howard-Hughes-eccentric. During the 3pm break to change the decks, I race to the gift shop, inspired to buy Andy Beal a new visor. Breaks are not long in this game, or frequent. I remember Andy telling me, with pride, that he loved the games so much that he ate his meals at the table, between hands. One of his ambitions has been to play at a casino that would supply two dealers, so he could play without stopping between hands.
I saw all that, and more: Andy and his opponent, wolfing down meals while they played; bathroom breaks taken at a trot; Andy calling out, “Deal ’em,” as he raced the last ten feet to the table.
3:28pm – Hand Opera
Both players are inscrutable. Todd Brunson, halfway between bored and expectant, goes long periods moving just one hand (to turn up the corners of his cards or to move a few chips a few inches forward) or even just one finger (to check). Andy Beal, with his Mount-Rushmoreready expression, sits ramrod straight and rarely says a word.
They don’t speak, they barely move, and they rarely show their cards. Does that make the game unexciting?
Far from it. In a game this long – Todd and Andy play about 300 hands, and I estimate that Beal and the pros played over 4,000 hands during the nine days – the identity of the cards during any one hand means little.
In fact, seeing all the cards would detract from the bigger drama. Staring into these men’s faces and looking at the smallest of finger movements and the most insignificant habits, I feel like I am tuning in to a deeper understanding of how they play and how the match is going.
Todd Brunson has three different finger motions when he checks. Could each subconsciously signify a particular level of strength or weakness? Andy Beal has a very precise routine for placing his chips in the pot. Does he ever vary that routine and, if so, why?
4:25pm – All or Nothing at All
Of course, some hands are good old-fashioned slugfests. Andy Beal takes the lead by winning two consecutive pots totaling $1.6 million. On the first hand, he wins a $900,000 pot after getting stuck (K-3 versus Brunson’s KT, after a flop of 4-5-K), only to be bailed out by a deuce on the turn and a six on the river for a straight. Then, holding 7-5, Beal flops trip fives and picks up a seven on the river, for a $700,000 pot.
Brunson hangs in by picking up blinds and betting his amateur opponent out of hands on the flop. But Todd has to win a lot of small pots to overcome Andy turning 2-2 into a set on the flop, getting Todd to check-raise, and getting in a check-raise of his own on the turn. That was a million-dollar pot.
Beal wins another million-dollar pot with A-T, on a board of 8-Q-7-T-A. Todd is a little annoyed, mumbling “Jesus Christ” as he mucks. In this match, and in all the others, luck rears its head for both sides in many spots, and Andy is not shy about embracing it.
“I’m sure glad whoever made Texas Hold’em, made it a seven-card game.”
But the luck doesn’t run all in one direction. Beal aggressively plays A-2 against Brunson’s K-2, but a king falls at the end to make two pair for Todd. A lot of the hands are close and in heads-up play, it doesn’t take much to display strength. A big pot doesn’t require a strong hand so much as it requires someone who likes his second-best hand.
Hard Bargaining
The period between the games between Andy Beal and the high-stakes pros has, since 2004, been marked by hard negotiations (often in public) and Beal and the pros taking entrenched positions. Once both sides agree to play, however, the momentum of the game takes over. Discussions are more friendly and informal.
For example, near the end of Day 1, Andy Beal asked Todd Brunson, “What time do you want to start tomorrow?”
Beal wanted to start early, but he offered Todd the choice of starting times.
“How about eleven?” To Todd Brunson 11am is early.
“Not ten?”
Todd suggested ten-thirty a fraction of a second before Andy, so they instantly agreed.
Craig Singer, behind his hand, told me, “Andy really wanted to start at ten-thirty.”
Todd, not hearing this from across the table, said, “I really wanted to start at ten-thirty.”
Andy gets stuck on a second-best hand, which is good enough to build a huge pot and propel Todd Brunson to the lead. They went for four bets before the flop. Beal bet both the turn and river and was raised on both by Brunson. The board was a thrilling, or sickening, combination of possibilities: 8c-2c-4c-6c-5d. After Andy called the river raise, he asked (knowing the answer), “You got the ace?”
Todd nodded, silently and solemnly, and turned over Ac-9c. Andy Beal mucked his losing flush, conceding the $1.4 million pot.
5:44pm – Flush and Flushed
Andy retook the lead in the match on a semi-bluff, when Todd Brunson had a real hand and refused to fold. Unfortunately for Todd, he did not have a diamond, and Andy’s 9d-7h took down a million-dollar pot when the third and fourth diamonds appeared on the turn and river.
Brunson looked a little disgusted as he slowly mucked his hand. He picked up his own lucky pot, $800,000, when he hit his inside-straight draw on the river.
At 5:25pm, I decide to gauge the action by keeping track, for the next thirty hands, of the winners, raises, and pot sizes. After eighteen hands, with only five pre-flop raises (two of them by the big blind after the small blind called) and no pots over $400,000, I wrote, “Has it been this un-aggressive all day? Almost no button raises.”
What happened to the crazy betting and giant swings I wrote about in Suicide King?
On hand #19, as if on cue, the game explodes to life. After a flop of 6s-Th-Ts and a nine of spades on the turn, Brunson and Beal go to war. An eight of spades hits on the river and I wonder if this has put a bad beat on somebody. Todd has led the betting and is clearly capable of betting a draw all the way though, especially with an in-suit ace and a card matching the board.
Todd bets and Andy calls. Brunson turns over 4s-7s for a straight flush, winning the $1.2 million pot and drawing even for the day. For everyone at the table but Beal, who doesn’t even twitch, the straight flush sucks all the air out of the room.
Even though it is a big pot, however, Todd Brunson was looking for more: “I wish you had the ace.”
5:51pm – Last Lead Change
Translated into numbers of bets, the swings of $1-$2 million signify a very close match. Andy Beal takes the lead for good, winning a million-dollar pot with pocket aces. The board of 9h-J-Qh-2-K was a minefield for a pair of aces, and Beal, acting first on the river, takes a long, long time: maybe thirty seconds, which is eternity to make a decision in this game; before checking. Is he hoping for a check-raise? Or is he afraid that Todd could have a straight or two-pair with almost any two high cards?
Brunson checks and mucks when Beal shows the aces. Andy Beal wins the next six hands, Todd not even finding a situation worth a bluff.
7:00pm – The Fight to the Finish
Beal is ahead by $1 million at 6pm, but extends the lead to $2.75 million in the next half hour. When I return after missing a few hands, Andy gives me the thumbs up.
“I’m outplaying him by waiting for the river card.”
Todd smiles weakly. Without his own good luck, the margin would be bigger. He hits an inside-straight draw on the river to win a $700,000 pot. Then, with T-4, he wins $600,000 on a board of T-K-x-x-T. After Beal checked the turn and Todd bet the river, he calls and asks, “Did you river the ten?”
Todd flips over his cards and raises his arms in the air like a referee following a field goal. Right through the uprights.
Brunson then picks up several pots by betting or raising after the flop, forcing Beal to fold. By 7pm, Andy has decided he doesn’t want to play much longer and asks for security to bring a cart to take his chips to the main cage.
Todd has recouped more than a $1 million of his losses in the last hour, but Andy is looking for a fast finish, winning several pots and lifting his leading margin above $2 million.
7:15pm – Never Surrender
Todd wins $800,000 on the last hand of the night with Q-2, catching a deuce on the flop and a second on the river. Andy Beal turns his chips over to security –$13,625,000, for a first-day win of $1.625 million.
Then we all go to dinner.
I heard later that there was some concern over this first-day win by Beal. This was not the start many members of the group expected, especially against Todd Brunson.
Some of the distress, however, was because of a miscommunication. When Brunson was behind $1.9 million, someone misunderstood and thought Todd was stuck nine million dollars.
Thursday,Day 2 11:00am – Early Bird Special
Waiting at Table Three for Jennifer Harman to arrive, Andy looks the same as yesterday: white shirt, dress slacks, all business. But he tells me that he did not sleep well last night. He ate too late, he decided, and he woke up several times.
“If I have that kind of night for two more nights, that’s it. I’m going home.”
I am not rooting for either side, but I will root for Andy to get a good night’s rest. Of all the outcomes, I don’t want to see this match called for lack of sleep.
But that seems to be the theme of the day. Today’s opponent is Jennifer Harman, the only woman in the highest-stakes cash games, the only woman with two open-event World Series bracelets, and not an early riser. Jennifer has taken over the duties of organizing the group. Doyle Brunson begged off from that thankless, nonpaying job because of his travel schedule.
Harman looks sharp and focused, wearing blue jeans, a matching denim jacket, and a black T-shirt. After the second hand, she puts on a sleek pair of gold-mirrored shades. But she is not well rested either. She is yawning and complaining about having to go to bed at 1:30; she later tells me that she, too, had trouble sleeping.
After a few hands, she tries to rouse herself by stretching and twisting. She is as lean and lithe as a dancer. That’s when it occurs to me that there are six men at this table staring at this woman as she wakes up.
Jennifer notices us noticing her. “Hi, guys,” she says, grinning sheepishly.
At such moments, Harman oozes charm and charisma. Several times in the first hour, we make eye contact and she shoots me a wink or tight-lipped smile.
We aren’t more than ten minutes into the game when Andy Beal announces his interim plan to restore his body’s rhythm: we are going to take a dinner break at 3:30pm.
Jennifer stifles a laugh. Always the professional, she lets the visiting outsider have his way. It won’t always be like that, but she can concede the dinnertime issue.
11:10am – Fast or Slow?
Andy Beal has a keno ticket folded in half and propped in front of him. Printed on it in large letters is one word: “SLOW.”
Either Andy isn’t reading the note or he hasn’t shared it with Jennifer Harman, because the match starts at breakneck speed. Harman has a reputation as one of the most aggressive Hold’em players in the group. With Beal’s more measured aggressiveness on Day 1, I wonder if she will adjust by speeding up and trying to seize control early.
It doesn’t take long to find out. Jennifer raises out of position on the very first hand, turning over 3-5 at the showdown; her trey paired on the flop. Andy, with pocket sixes and three overcards on the board, called her down and takes the first pot.
Harman maintains her aggressiveness on the next hand with a board of 9-3-3-8, but Beal’s K-T wins $700,000 when he catches a king on the river.
11:30am – Goddess of Wisdom
Beal takes an early lead. His cards are good enough to withstand Harman’s aggressiveness and some luck helps him out of a few potentially expensive hands. Andy won a million-dollar pot with J-4 after going to war with Harman on a flop of J-6-7. A pair of deuces on the turn and river gave him two pair, which he didn’t realize he needed. Harman, mucking her hand after Beal shows, says she had 6-7. The next hand led to another $1 million pot, and she again had the edge – K-T versus K-9, with a flop and turn of A-K-K-4 – but the queen of spades on the river salvaged a split pot for Andy.
The queen of spades was designed by the French, according to Anthony Holden’s Big Deal, based on Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Jennifer Harman, as a professional poker player, knows she can’t do more than sagely allow the run of luck to pass and, hopefully, find one of her own. She occasionally looks disgusted, but she also takes a moment during the dealer change to pat the exiting dealer on the arm and thank her.
12:34pm – Goddess of War
Athena is also the goddess of war, and Jennifer Harman is ready for battle. She erases Beal’s early lead by betting him out of several hands after the flop and taking him to the river when she flopped a set of eights.
Craig Singer returns from an absence to bring Andy a FedEx envelope. He immediately empties the contents on the table, a single note card.
“My good luck charm.”
He shows the card to Jennifer and I catch a peek. It looks like miniature graffiti. Written in different colored inks and different sized writing are a series of short messages, all of which remind Andy of the same thing: “Slow down,” “Take your time,” “Don’t rush.”
Just when it looks like he has halted her advance, Harman turns up the pressure and takes control. In one sequence of eleven hands, she picks up $1 million, showing down just one hand, the first. Including a few hands after this sequence, she raised on her button eight straight times.
1:30pm – Five Showdowns
There are two ways to combat an aggressive opponent: playing back with nothing, and playing back with a good hand. Theoretically, the pros prefer the first method. It avoids giving away anything about the strength of your hand, and it can be employed any time.
But if you get the cards, the second way makes more money.
Whether by choice or circumstance, Andy Beal chooses the second way and turns a $1.5 million deficit into a $1.1 million lead in less than an hour. During one stretch of 21 hands, there are five showdowns, with Andy picking up four wins and a split pot. In several of those showdowns, he wins by the smallest of margins, or with unimpressive hands. He also throws some of his own aggressiveness into the mix. Just a few hands after Harman’s run, he calls a raise and, after an ace hits on the flop, check-raises and makes it four bets before Jennifer folds.
How Jennifer Harman can Make $100,000 Per Minute
Showing down only one hand, Jennifer Harman made $1 million during a ten-minute period on Day 2. Hand #1: Harman raises on her button and Beal reraises. On a board of 3-4-T-A-Q, Beal bets the flop and turn. Harman calls on both streets. They check the river. Harman wins with pocket nines over Beal’s pocket sixes. Hand #2: Beal folds on his button. Hand #3: Harman raises her button and is called. She bets the flop and the turn before Beal folds. Hand #4: Beal folds his button. Hand #5: Harman raises on her button. Beal calls but folds when she bets the flop. Hand #6: Beal limps on his button. After a flop of Ac-Qh-2h Harman check-raises. Beal folds when Harman bets after the queen – yes, the queen of spades – turns. Hand #7: Harman raises on her button. Beal calls and bets after a flop of Js-Qd-Ks. Harman raises. Beal folds. Hand #8: Beal folds on his button. Hand #9: Harman raises on her button and Beal folds. Hand #10: Beal raises on his button and Harman folds. Hand #11: Harman raises on her button. Beal calls but folds when Harman bets after a flop of 6-6-4.
3:34pm – Lucky Lady
Harman has shifted gears or is conceding more readily to Beal’s shows of strength, because his advance stalls. He clings to a small lead as the 3:30 “dinner break” approaches.
On back-to-back hands, however, Harman hits inside straight draws on the river to win pots totaling $1.7 million. After the first straight, Beal says, “Nice suck out, Jennifer.” Who knows what he is thinking after it happens again on the next hand?
Andy is going to eat at Red 8 at 3:30, but at 3:26 he declares, “We’re not breaking for dinner until I win six chips.”
If he is joking, it is only by degree.
“What if I want to go eat?” Jennifer asks.
But she isn’t going anywhere. She increases her lead to $1 million when Andy finally gives up at 3:34pm.
5:15pm – Ted Forrest Arrives and Brings His Mystique
Every member of this group is, by definition, an excellent poker player at high stakes. Ted Forrest, even among the other top players, is something of a mystery. He has won everywhere and under every circumstance: every form of poker, every kind of stakes, casinos all over the U.S. and around the world, private games, tournaments, in 1987 and in 2006, and every year in between.
But no one can explain how.
The reputation Ted brings to the table is that he can play any two cards and win in the most unlikely ways. Opponents who expect this or develop this opinion are beaten before the cards are even dealt.
It takes one hand to recognize that this is going to be a very tough session for Andy. Forrest starts out making trip jacks out of J-6 when two jacks come on the flop. A few hands later, he bets an eight-high flop and gives a little nod when another eight hits on the turn. How is that for confidence? He signals that he has an eight and still gets called on the turn and river. Of course, he shows 5-8.
5:58pm – Will-o-the-Wisp
Ted Forrest has won a million dollars from Andy Beal in the past half hour in some bizarre showdowns. Forrest’s card sense is remarkable, even for a world-class professional.
In a space of six hands, he calls down Beal and wins the following showdowns:
Forrest raised before the flop and called when Beal took over the lead and bet the flop and turn. (They both checked the river.) On a board of 2s-4h-6h-4d-8h, he wins $500,000 with A-Jo.
Forrest raised and called a reraise. He checked the flop of J-T-3 but bet, and was called, on a turn and river of 3-5. He won the showdown and the $700,000 pot with 8-3.
Forrest called Beal all the way down with T-3 for a pair of tens, third pair, on a board with possible straights and flushes. Beal was bluffing, so Forrest won the $700,000 pot.
Ted Forrest seems to know exactly where he is in every hand, and has the uncanny ability to know when a weak hand is strong enough to win. For Andy Beal, who played well against Todd Brunson and Jennifer Harman, this must be like trying to catch a puff of smoke. Andy is in for the fight of his life.
7:10pm – The Banker Can Forage in the Trash,Too
Remarkably, Andy Beal erases $1.75 million in forty-five minutes. On two occasions, he gets Forrest to pay him off all the way when he makes trips. He starts playing back at Ted, who frequently tries to pick up pots after garbage flops.
This close match is almost finished for the day. Ted Forrest has a small lead and, barring a miracle or some of Andy’s trademark stubbornness about concluding a losing session, he should end with it.
7:13pm – Hand of the Week
A miracle happened!
There was already $900,000 in the pot when the ace of diamonds came on the river, completing a board of 4c-8h- Tc-4s-Ad. Andy bet $100,000. Ted raised, making it $200,000. Andy re-raised to $300,000. Ted made it four bets and Andy made it five.
Looking at that board, I thought, if this were the Old West, someone would get shot after this hand. Ted spent some time thinking and just called, so it was apparent he didn’t have quad fours. Andy Beal turned over pocket tens, making the second nut full house, and he did it reluctantly, asking, “You have aces?”
Ted mucks, telling me a little later that he had Q-4.
Andy raked in a pot of $1.9 million, and immediately said, “I’m going to call it a day.”
In that one hand, he turned around the day’s loss as well as the session loss to Ted Forrest. He won about $500,000, and ended the day with exactly four chips more than he started with, $100,000. (He had won about $500,000 against David Grey, who filled in for Forrest for eight minutes, nearly all of it on one hand where Grey made two pair but Beal hit his flush draw.) He was now ahead for the trip by $1.725 million.
Of the three pros, only Ted Forrest had managed to keep Andy from finding any kind of rhythm or equilibrium. Beal had a winning session nonetheless, but I couldn’t help thinking that Andy was in peril.
Friday,Day 3
Revenge of the Junkman
Despite the high level of skill of every opponent Andy Beal faced, he appeared to settle on a strategy and comfort level against each. Against Forrest on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, it seemed impossible to develop a rhythm.
Every professional poker player changes gears. With Ted Forrest, however, it was maddening to figure out which gear he was using, even when his hole cards were exposed.
On Friday, Ted Forrest and Andy Beal fought all day over the garbage. With neither playing what would be considered an aggressive heads-up style (except when Ted would shift), there were a lot of junky flops where the player presumed to have the worst hand going in would be expected to benefit.
Who goes in with worse hands than Ted Forrest?
One of the most impressive aspects of Andy Beal’s game was that he did a reasonable job neutralizing this. Andy would bet (or raise, or even check-raise) on the garbage flops a substantial portion of the time. During some periods, it seems the worse the flop, the more action there would be.
Late on Friday morning, Forrest called on the button from the small blind and Beal checked. The flop came A-3- 8. Both players checked. Another eight came on the turn. Beal checked. I expected that Ted would bet and he did. When Beal raised, Ted folded. There were many, many hands like that where the players fought to credibly represent junk hands. It was a fight that Ted Forrest is considered a master at winning, but one where Andy Beal fought with great skill and judgment.
There was also the matter of Forrest’s skill at gauging where he is in a hand. When conceding the edge in aggression, Ted has historically had success against Andy Beal because he has been able to pick the proper times for calling Beal down. During one hand, Ted raised on the button, and Andy called. The flop consisted of 7-9-9. Beal checked, and called Forrest’s bet. Both sides checked after the jack on the turn. After a six came on the river, Beal bet. Forrest thought about it, fingering the four $25,000 chips before tossing them toward the center.
Neither man had a pair. Beal showed down A-5. Forrest won the $500,000 pot with A-T.
For eight hours, Andy Beal and Ted Forrest pushed the same $1.5 million back and forth across the table. It was a tense display of great poker. Ted remained impossible to figure out, but Andy still managed to keep up, and sometimes even confound, the unflappable pro.
Even more impressive, Forrest later admitted that he was getting better cards than his amateur opponent. “I remember after six hours or so thinking, this is not good. I’ve been getting hit by the deck, at least on my first two cards, but I’m ahead less than ten bets.”
Clobbered
After such a tough, tight match, in which neither player seemed to catch a flop all day, Ted hit a series of flops with premium hands and got paid off. Just after 5pm, Ted and Andy went for three bets before and after a flop of 4d-7h- Qd. Forrest bet and was called after an ace of hearts on the turn and a nine of clubs on the river. He showed down AQ for top two-pair to take the $1.1 million pot. On the next hand, Forrest picked up K-Q and was called down by Beal on a board of Kc-Tc-Kh-8d-8s. That full house resulted in a $900,000 pot.
By 5:15pm, Andy was down $1.25 million. Every play that had worked all day now backfired. Beal slowplayed 8- 9 after a flop of 8-9-6. Forrest, holding Q-2, picked up a big pot when a queen came on the turn, followed by a deuce on the river.
Even though Ted was picking up steam, Andy was not defenseless. On a board of Q-7-3-K-2, he called Forrest down. Ted showed 6-9. Andy took the $600,000 pot with 4-4. Calling the bet on the end with fourth pair? That was a Ted Forrest move, executed by Andy. Ted slapped his own wrist for trying to steal.
Just before 6pm, Forrest was dealt pocket tens and pocket eights in a stretch of four hands. The tens held up to take an $800,000 pot. The eights became a set on the turn, winning Ted a $1.1 million pot, and putting Beal behind $2.5 million for the day.
Tug of War
Even though Ted Forrest’s $4.5 million win on Day 3 sounded like a rout, until the last hour and a half, he and Andy Beal played the closest eight hours of poker imaginable.
9:09am – Beal is ahead $500,000 in six minutes, winning two of three showdowns in the first four hands. 9:26am – They are even for the day and the game seems to have slowed down. (Three hands later, Beal wins a $900,000 pot with pocket aces.) 10:38am – Despite a lot of showdowns for $500,000 and above, the match is still even. 10:52am – Andy is ahead by $1.5 million. After thinking for a long time, Ted Forrest mucked two consecutive hands to bets on the river in pots of $500,000 or more. 11:20am – Forrest has come back and squared the match. 11:47am – Beal has retaken a $1 million lead. 12:57pm – Ted is ahead by $650,000. 1:03pm – Ted Forrest has extended his lead to over $1 million. 2:34pm – Andy Beal has once more come back and the match is even. 5:03pm – Ted Forrest has kept the lead for the last two hours, but it has never been as high as $1 million. Several times, it seemed like Andy Beal was just barely hanging on, but Ted was never been able to shake him. The match is now dead even.
When one side starts getting cards after they spend all day fighting over garbage, it can get ugly. Ted got paid for flopping a full house – A-6 and a dream flop of 6-A-A – to take another million-dollar pot. While it was happening, it did not seem unusual that Beal would pay off on hands like this. What seemed unusual was that Forrest would actually have these cards, after the two players had spent all day trying to pick up pots with A-A-6 flops by hitting one pair on the turn or river.
By 6:26pm, less than an hour and a half after the session was knotted, Beal called it a day, taking a loss of $4.5 million. Thanks to Ted, the pros had recouped their losses of the first two days and were ahead by over $2.7 million.
Saturday,Day 4
Table Talk
Andy Beal was not in a good mood on Saturday morning. He wasn’t sleeping well and he wasn’t happy with how he’d finished Friday’s session. He also made it clear to the pros that he didn’t want to be “double teamed.” He didn’t want them watching each other (or him) play. The pros would bicker among themselves and with Beal on some matters, but generally let him have his way. After all, he was the outsider putting up his own money to play them all, one at a time.
Mollifying Andy Beal, however, comes at a cost for Ted. Now alone at the table, he doesn’t have anyone to help out if he wants a pack of gum or a bottle of soda. Also, despite Ted’s laser-like focus, he wants to spend his day doing more than just staring at cards. With Andy on “radio silence” and David Grey and other pros banned from the table, there is no one for Ted to talk to.
Forrest finds people to talk to during the day: me, Craig Singer, even Andy Beal. But only one of us takes on the role of manservant.
On one occasion when I leave on a brief errand for Forrest, he jokingly makes an offer I should have accepted.
“If you want, I’ll take notes on what you miss.”
When I return, I ask Ted what I missed.
“We decided to give Jennifer a heart attack and tell her we’re down to one rack and were going to take a shot at the craps table.”
There Was Also a Poker Game
Meanwhile, the poker was great. For the third straight day, Ted seemed in top form, even when Beal was winning. After Forrest’s big finish on Friday, the threat of a big swing in the players’ fortunes hung over Andy at the start.
It didn’t work out that way. The cards were in the air at 9:10am. Beal held the lead by about $500,000 for most of the first hour. But Ted Forrest won two big pots in a row and, by 10:10am, he had erased the deficit and built a $1 million lead.
Ten minutes later, Andy won a million-dollar pot with pocket aces. Ted raised on his button and Beal just called. After Ted bet the jack-high flop (with two hearts), Beal check-raised. He did the same thing on the turn, and bet the river. Even after losing the hand, Ted maintained his sense of humor and sunny outlook. After calling the last bet and mucking, he told Andy, “You could have gotten in the elusive three check-raises if you wanted to. I’ve never been able to do that.”
When they change dealers and decks at 11:05am, Andy leans over and says, “All you need to know, Michael, is that I am up for the day.”
Despite Forrest winning his own million-dollar pot with pocket aces, Beal steadily builds his lead. It is $1 million at 11:26am, $1.4 million at 11:50am, and it reaches its peak of $1.7 million by noon.
In just a half hour, Ted Forrest erases that margin and takes a $500,000 lead. In one stretch of four hands, he wins over $1.3 million, betting Beal off one hand and winning three showdowns, never with a hand as good as top pair.
By 12:40pm, Forrest held a $1 million lead. Between hands, he said, “It’s like Mike Tyson said: ‘Everyone’s got plans until they get hit.’”
Is this a challenge? An observation? More important, did Andy have what it took to respond to getting hit like this? The answer was an emphatic “yes.”
Even though Ted extended his lead to $1.5 million for the day, Andy would not give up. He reclaimed the lead 80 minutes later.
Andy Beal was a picture of grim determination. Ted Forrest, in contrast, seemed to exult in their mutual effort, even when it wasn’t paying off for him.
Andy raised on his button and Ted called. After a flop of T-7-3, all spades, Ted bet. Andy folded. Ted made a backhanded show of As-4s, catching Beal’s attention and breaking his silence.
Andy turned to me and said, “Will you make a note of my good read?”
As I write this down, Ted adds, “Will you make note of my bad bet?”
By 2:35pm, Beal had taken a $1 million lead. Within fifteen minutes, however, they were back where they started.
“A lot of back and forth Andy.”
“I want to see less back, more forth,” Beal responds.
He gets his wish. A few hands later, Ted goes into the tank after Andy bet on the river after a board of T-Q-3-3-J. Forrest calls and Beal shows K-9 for the straight.
Ted puts his hand over his face.
“I’m glad this game has five cards,” Andy says.
Craig Singer, watching most of the day in the seat to Andy’s left, adds, “He learned that from you, Ted.”
Ted nods. “That’s a good skill to have.”
Seeing me scribbling all this down, Andy jokes, “Don’t write about that hand.”
Ted concludes with a little dig. “Write that he didn’t miss a bet.”
Even though Beal once again is leading by $1 million on the strength of that hand, Forrest retakes the lead 20 minutes later.
Andy occasionally tells me when the lead changes, though, obviously, only when it changes in his favor. When Ted pulls ahead by $150,000 at 3:25pm, he says, as the next hand is being dealt, “Let it be noted that I’m winning for today.” Andy raises and Ted adds, “But that could change on this hand.”
After losing a $1.1 million pot with a king-high flush to Andy’s nut flush, Ted says, “Do you want to tell Mike that you’re up again?”
“I’m up again.”
They go back and forth, the lead changing after nearly every showdown. Ted wins a $700,000 pot with 2-6, after a flop of K-K-6 in a hand just before the 4am deck and dealer change. Andy wins a showdown for the same amount on the next hand when his Q-8 (third pair) prevails over Ted’s 6-7 (fourth pair) facing a board of 4- K-7-8-A.
They trade a few more pots and, at 4:03pm, the floor comes to make the hourly deck change. Andy decides he wants to call it a day.
He ends up winning $500,000 for the day, reducing his loss for the trip to $2.2 million. It was a long and difficult game of poker, but Andy Beal definitely kept up with Ted Forrest every step of the way, proving equal to every weapon in Ted’s considerable arsenal. He was brimming with confidence on Saturday night when I asked him if he would stay beyond Super Bowl Sunday. Things could always change, but he felt confident in his ability to win against the pros. There was no reason to plan his departure.
He was relishing the opportunity to continue his solid play and prove – to himself, the only critic who mattered – that he had the game to succeed against the best players in the world.
Sunday,Day 5 9:45am – Beal’s Toughest Opponent
When Andy Beal told me, “It’s absolutely not the day I should be playing,” he knew what he was talking about. After losing $1.2 million in the first seventeen minutes, he was enveloped in dread. If Andy, at his best, was competitive with the pros, how much could he lose at his worst?
I began to sense that this could become a truly awful day for Andy Beal, a day in which he could lose millions, feel terrible, and spend years distancing himself from poker.
Todd Brunson is a master at taking advantage of his opponents’ mental frailties. Todd immediately moved in for the kill, pushing marginal hands and playing far more aggressively than he had. Beal, who had shown so much skill in combating Ted Forrest’s play on marginal flops, seemed to let Todd have his way.
Nevertheless, he would not go quietly. By 9:45am, he had pulled within $500,000. But Todd broke Andy’s back on a big pot, starting with 3-4 and making an inside straight on the turn. If Andy’s low morale encouraged Todd into making moves with hands like 3-4, actually hitting that hand could further wreak havoc with Andy’s mental state. In the space of five hands, Brunson won a total of a million dollars of Beal’s money.
10:17am – Beal Begins to Fight For Garbage
Andy steeled himself to make a second run at Todd Brunson. On one hand he called Todd’s raise from the button and check-raised after a flop of 7-7-8. Both players checked after the four on the turn. Andy bet after a five appeared on the river and Todd folded. This was the kind of play that Beal and Forrest routinely made on each other, but which Andy, up until now, had let Todd take away.
Todd Brunson stacked his chips into a multi-tiered fortress in front of him. Beal, picking up on this, suddenly took three racks of his chips – $7.5 million – and angled them as a barricade between himself and Brunson.
Neither man looked like he wanted to be here. The time of jokes, small talk, and camaraderie was long gone. This was war.
11:20am – Andy Beal Calls His Shot
At 10:40am, Todd Brunson’s margin is $1.2 million. Beal leans to his left, toward Craig Singer, and places his hand over his mouth to say something. The room is filling up and getting noisy. It is Super Bowl Sunday and everyone wants to get their casino gambling in before the game.
Two tables over, a player yells, “I’m not a drunk! I’m a goddamned pro!” Todd inserts the ear-buds from his iPod and turns up the music.
Andy, in a hoarse whisper, tells Craig, “In thirty minutes, I’ll win a million dollars.”
Andy hit the ball out of the park. By 11:20am, he erased his seven-figure deficit for the day and was ahead by $700,000. Nobody was going to get anything for free today.
11:58am – Every Hand of Poker Makes Somebody Unhappy
With Andy having apparently bandaged his psyche and Todd playing well, it was possible the balance could swing to the next person to get lucky. Inherent in this equation, however, was the fact that a professional like Todd Brunson could shrug off bad luck. After having come this far, however, would cruel fate make Andy Beal unravel?
Unfortunately, it did not take long for Brunson to put Beal to the test. Just before noon, they played a $1 million pot, with Andy holding A-T and Todd holding A-2. The flop came A-Q-K, and the fourth card was a trey. The deuce on the river could have been the knockout punch. Todd took the lead for the day, a lead he never relinquished.
This touched off a run of several hands in which he built his lead to nearly $1.3 million. Beal, however, kept slugging away, and got some luck of his own. He picked up pocket aces and bet them all the way on a board of 4s-3-7s- T. After a second four hit on the river, Andy bet and Todd raised.
Andy called, wincing, “Did you hit your four?”
Brunson turned over Q-Q. Beal grabbed the $1.2 million pot, one of the largest of the day. A poker player can expect pocket aces once in 220 hands. But it takes some luck to get an opponent with a strong secondbest hand, especially one that doesn’t contain what could have been a fatal four.
1:45pm – The Biggest Game of the Year
Todd Brunson is clearly rolling. Kickoff time for the Super Bowl is less than two hours away and they have agreed to stop by then. Andy discloses that he is going home tonight. Todd’s lead is $2.1 million for the day. The pros are ahead by more than $4 million for the trip, and it looks like that number could grow.
Todd is on top of his game now. He seems to know when to bet Andy out of a hand, and when to get away cheap. Then, with a winner, he senses when his opponent is in an aggressive mood and pulls him in. Beal is playing faster, but Brunson is taking his time, either to access his expanded playbook or to let Andy’s tension build.
I see that one of the video monitors is showing the first run of Poker Superstars. Todd Brunson won that, too. I look away from Todd’s appraising stare on NBC and see the mirror image twelve feet away.
He is a mask of concentration, peering thoughtfully at Andy Beal and the board before acting, oblivious to the roiling mob in the poker room, the casino, and the city, before the biggest game of the year. This is the biggest game of the year and Todd Brunson is living in the moment.
During the 2pm deck and dealer change, probably the last break in the game, I get a minute to measure Andy Beal’s mood. As we walk away from the table, he mutters, “It is a war.”
“I know I can beat them,” he tells me a minute later, “but in the next hour that’s just not going to happen.”
Does Andy Beal deserve to win? I don’t know the answer to that, but he has played a strong, smart game of poker against three of the best players in the world. I like and respect Andy and the pros, so I don’t have a rooting interest… but I feel a little sad that Andy desperately wanted this and has just admitted to himself that this ambition will go unfulfilled.
“This is why I wanted them to come to Dallas. After the first day or two, it just becomes a grind.” He shrugs.
I explain how at least some of the pros made no secret of their interest in playing Beal in Dallas if that was what it took to put the game together. It was even possible that a splinter group would go down and play if there was not a unified position by the group.
“Really? Because if I could play them in the next few days, I could play five or six hours a day – make sure to tell them it has to be in the next few days. Tell them to keep their bankroll together. They could come down –”
Then he catches himself and grins. “Listen to me. I shouldn’t be playing at all. This should be it. This is all for me. Of course, you’ve heard me say that a thousand times.”
As we walk back into the room, I alone know that Andy Beal doesn’t believe he can win today. If he has indeed given up, I hope it doesn’t get ugly.
“Make Sure He Gets Us on the Upgrade List”
Andy Beal, resigned to defeat and frustration, walked back into the Wynn poker room and proceeded to erase nearly all of Todd Brunson’s winnings during the next fifteen minutes. By a quarter past two, the losing margin for the day is just $500,000.
Craig Singer is checking them out of the hotel when he discovers the flight time was wrong. Their plane leaves for Dallas at 4:16, not 5:16.
“See if Craig can get a later flight.”
On the next hand, Beal raises on his button and bets after a flop of Ac-5c-7c. When a fourth club, a jack, hits on the turn, Todd bets. Andy raises, Todd peeks at his cards and folds.
Five minutes later, the margin is even smaller when Andy wins an $800,000 pot with 9-5 when he picks up a five on the flop and another on the turn. Craig calls me again. They can get on the 6:30 flight for an extra $150 apiece.
I pass the message along between hands. Should Craig make the reservations?
“Yes, and make sure he gets us on the upgrade list.”
Just before 3pm, I see Andy Beal’s last chance come up short. Andy raises before the flop and bets after a flop of Kh-5h-3d. Todd raises, Andy reraises, and Todd calls. Todd bets after the five of diamonds on the turn, but checks after the four of spades on the river. Andy bets and Todd just calls.
Andy shows pocket jacks. Todd, however, has the king and six of diamonds, for top pair, winning the $900,000 pot.
Andy is behind for the day by a million dollars, and that is where things stand when they finish at 3:09pm.
For the five days, the pros won a total of $3.2 million, providing them a 30 percent return on their investment. Subjective judgments about the relative skill of the pros and Andy Beal aside, it was extremely close. They played over 2,000 hands, contesting pots totaling about $600 million. This means that the pros pulled in $301.6 million, compared to $298.4 million to Beal.
I have spent five Super Bowls in Las Vegas. Other than New Year’s Eve, it is the biggest party of the year. This is the first time I have left during the Super Bowl. At least there is no traffic at the Hoover Dam.
My cell phone rings. It is Andy Beal.
“I just want to tell you, if those guys want to play me in Dallas, they have to do it in the next few days. I should really be done with poker, but if they keep their bankroll together, they can come down and play. We can settle all transactions in Las Vegas, but if they’re going to play me…”
Interlude
Of course, Andy Beal wasn’t finished with poker. He negotiated with the pros all week about continuing the match in Dallas. On Friday, as he was emailing me with suggestions for convincing the pros to come to Dallas, he wired $10 million to the Wynn. By the time I reached him, the match was back on for Sunday, February 12. Andy would fly in that morning, take a cab to the casino, check in, and sit down at Table Three and play.
PART II
Day 6 – Sunday (the next Sunday) Jennifer Bets
Jennifer Harman would play Andy Beal first on Sunday. The cards were in the air at 11:29am. Harman, to an even greater degree than in her previous game with Andy, pushed the limits of aggressive play.
She raised nine of her first twelve hands on the button (and folded the other three). In every instance but one, she bet or raised on the flop. Although she varied her play during the day, it was unusual for her to merely call or offer Beal the opportunity to take the betting lead. She was also very active on Beal’s button in trying to take over the betting after the flop.
Beal started by checking, calling, and folding. He was behind by nearly a million dollars in thirteen minutes. To his credit, he quickly adjusted and his counter-strategy proved successful throughout the afternoon. After those opening hands, he started playing back, raising or check-raising after the flop or turn, winning $1.2 million in an early four-hand sequence after Harman’s fast start. The $800,000 pot he won on the last hand of this sequence gave him the lead for the day and he never gave it up.
This sequence started the pattern of play for the session. Jennifer Harman would start as the aggressor. After the flop, Andy Beal would either fold or play back. Jennifer would make a lot of laydowns to Andy’s aggressive responses, and she would call down a lot of hands where Andy was betting with genuine strength.
Without a doubt, Harman had some periods in which she was card dead. During an entire hour, nearly sixty hands, Beal won seven pots of $300,000 or more; Harman won just one. At one point, Andy won fifteen straight hands.
But this is the danger of playing with maximum aggression. By building bigger pots, the best hand is disproportionately rewarded, and the second-best hand is disproportionately punished.
On the previous trip, Beal demonstrated that he had matured as a player. He no longer needed to scare the pros with the size of the game to have a chance to win. Like the pros, he could mix up his play and adjust to their shifts and feints. I thought, as a result, Andy Beal had made himself a better – but less-feared – player. Jennifer’s style pushed him back toward the wildly aggressive style he had played in 2001, 2003, and 2004.
Could the pros withstand the bigger swings? Did Beal’s improvement include adjusting to this kind of game? Would his concerns about self-control and fatigue become magnified in a bigger, faster, wilder game?
Time Bomb
Andy told me he was going to play only four hours on Sunday, quitting at approximately 3:30pm. By 1pm, he had built his lead to $2.5 million – this was during Jennifer’s hour without playable cards – and pointed out to me how well he played when rested. “Talk is cheap, but the reason I lose is because I play tired.” He was fresh, playing well, and he wasn’t going to let himself play when he was at less than his best.
Harman finally caught the cards to make her aggressive style pay off. Just before the 1:30pm dealer change, she won back $1.2 million in six hands, and Andy’s lead, once more than $3 million, was just $1.7 million.
But then Andy caught some cards and built the lead to $4.5 million by 2:25pm. In less than three hours, he had won nearly half of the group’s bankroll.
Jennifer kept trying to comeback. After betting and raising all the way, Beal’s flush draw failed to come in. With three hearts on the board, and Andy winning nearly all the big pots, Jennifer thought long and hard before calling with her pocket queens, winning the $1 million pot. A few hands later, she won an $800,000 pot with top pair, against Beal’s second pair. She had cut his lead to $2.7 million by 3pm.
At the break, Andy told me, “I’m only going to play another hour or so.”
That sounded smart. He seemed to be drifting, slowing down his own play and frequently folding after calling several of Harman’s bets. Then, instead of playing back, he would show down weak cards, sure losers unless Harman was making an outright bluff. Did he convince himself that he was tired and was losing his edge? As 4pm neared, Beal seemed listless and passive. Harman had cut the margin to $1.5 million.
Once again, some good cards fueled strong play in a few big pots, restoring his lead. He won a $1 million pot with Ah-Kh and a flop of three hearts, pulling in the chips before Harman even had time to muck. Two hands later, he won another $1 million pot with two pair after Harman’s bluff backfired.
As we neared the 4pm break with Andy’s lead back to $3.8 million, I was surprised when he did not call an end to the session. His margin swung between $3 million and $4.5 million. At the break for the 5pm deck and dealer change, he admitted, “I know I’m going long. I just want to end up ahead by $5 million.”
This was dangerous thinking. He had set a limit based on his stamina and, even though the physical signs suggested that it was a proper limit, he was ignoring it.
By 5:45pm, he was ahead by only $2 million, and that goal of $5 million seemed impossibly far away. I would bet that the next $2 million swing would bring Jennifer back to even.
But Andy got the best of Harman in a very dangerous hand, and the momentum shifted to him. Jennifer raised on her button and Andy made it three bets. After a flop of 8s-2h-Th, Andy bet and Jennifer raised. After the turn brought an ace of diamonds, Andy check-raised. The ace of hearts – making three hearts on the board – came on the river, and Beal bet it.
The Other Brunson
Watching the latest round of the richest poker game of all time, who would think a sweater would grab my attention? Doyle Brunson sat behind Jennifer Harman’s left shoulder for several hours on Day 6. Despite some great poker, I couldn’t help but note the following insignificant details about The Man:
The ring-tone for his cell phone was the theme from The Godfather.
After Jennifer won a $500,000 pot, Doyle remarked, “lucky flop.” It was T-T-2.
Doyle picked up Jennifer’s golden wrap-around sunglasses and tried them on. He declined my offer to take a picture.
Jennifer thought for a long time, looking worried. She held a cup of coffee in both hands and sipped. She set it down and stacked, counted, and collected rows of chips. With $1 million in the pot, I thought she would call, but for her to think about it this long, she couldn’t have a flush or an ace.
She folded.
Beal then went on a rush, picking up A-A and K-K in the space of four hands and winning several other big pots. At 6:31pm, seven hours after starting the match, he won a $700,000 pot with K-8, flopping a king, and said, “Let’s call it a day.”
Beal ended the day winning $4.925 million. If he had used his pre-match estimate of his stamina, confirmed by his fatigue and the swings in the game, he would have quit more than two hours earlier, ahead by approximately $3 million. Even though Harman temporarily cut his margin to just $1.5 million, he profited in the end, despite ignoring his warning signs.
It was a day of achievement, but one fraught with danger and lingering questions about how the match would proceed.
Monday,Day 7 Two Men,Too Tired
Five hours after Todd Brunson and Andy Beal started play on Monday morning, Brunson held a lead of just $300,000. Each man had the other stuck at one time by $1.5 million, though it had been close for most of the day.
Todd had been awake since 7pm Sunday and looked ready to sign an endorsement deal with Sugar Free Red Bull. Andy, of course, had had his usual trouble sleeping. He told me in the morning that he wasn’t going to tire himself out by playing more than five or six hours. The match had worn on both men.
During the 2pm deck change, Beal said, “It’s a tough battle, Todd.”
Todd gestured toward his chips. “You didn’t think we were going to just give these to you, did you?”
“You know, they say you’re supposed to stop when it’s not fun.” Andy paused a moment, quiet. “Well, it’s not fun.”
They played three more hours.
The game had been a roller-coaster ride all day, with Todd Brunson setting the pace. He started the day with a more aggressive style than he had shown in the previous two February matches, but had also seamlessly changed gears. He could bet Beal out of pot after pot, yet have a good enough hand to prevail when Andy looked him up.
The next move was Todd’s. By 3:30pm, he had moved ahead by $2.5 million. It was a forty-bet swing in two-anda- half hours, and he demonstrated how he earned the reputation as a great short-handed Hold’em player. All day long, he had been agitating to build bigger pots. He had walked the high wire perfectly, conceding pots where he was overplaying or bluffing, but somehow managing to get maximum action on his good hands. He bet all the way on a garbage board with pocket nines and won an $800,000 pot. With A-T, he picked up two tens on the flop and took another half million from Beal. He got in a rare fourth bet before the flop with pocket kings and won that pot, too.
Then, Brunson sat on his lead, calling on his button, checking with the betting lead. Beal followed, and during one stretch of nineteen hands, there wasn’t a single called bet of $100,000.
Andy Beal was hanging by a thread. At 3:55pm, Brunson called on his button and Beal, out of position, raised. Andy bet the flop of 6c-3s-5d. When Brunson raised, Andy reraised. Todd made it four bets and Andy called. After the queen of spades hit on the turn, Todd bet and Andy just called. They both checked to the jack of hearts on the river.
Beal turned over A-6. He had top-pair-top-kicker on the flop but was vulnerable to straights, two-pairs, and the overcards on the turn and river. Todd looked at his hole cards, almost turning them over – I knew at this moment that Andy had won because Brunson would never slow roll – before throwing them in the muck. (Todd had K-6.)
It was an $800,000 pot for Andy, and I think he needed it to keep his equilibrium.
Beal had a card propped up to the right of his pocket watch. He had written very neatly on the card: “statue,” “robot,” “slow-pre,” and “A-A”. In the heat of the moment, it is easy to ignore such prompts. Beal and his opponents had been playing approximately thirty hands per dealer. In the previous half-hour, they had played forty-one.
On the last hand before the 4pm deck change, Beal called Brunson’s button-raise with J-6 and got a dream flop of 6-7-J. Todd, with A-K, naturally faced a check-raise, and called. But he was truly stuck on the hand after an ace hit on the turn. Andy won the $1 million pot.
That hand probably kept Beal from quitting at 4pm. In the first series of hands after the break, he won back-toback pots of $1.1 million and $800,000 to pull close to even. Todd kept chipping away at the small pots, but Beal was winning the showdowns.
They played one of the biggest pots of the afternoon at 4:20pm. Neither side raised Brunson’s button. After a flop of 5-7-9, all spades, Beal check-raised. He bet out after the three of hearts came on the turn. Todd raised and Andy reraised. Following the six of clubs on the end, Beal bet and was called. Andy turned over 4-6 of spades for a flush, taking the $1.1 million pot and the lead.
For the next twenty minutes, the match remained knotted, the tension building as both players downshifted their betting. Beal took over the lead for good when Brunson bluffed at a pot after an ace fell on the turn, but Beal called him down – he had A-K – to win a $700,000 pot.
At 5:02pm, after building his margin through small pots, Beal won another $700,000 when his open-ended straight draw hit on the river.
Andy said, “Let’s call it a day, Todd. I’m dying.”
Brunson had Beal on the ropes, but somehow, he escaped. The match was close most of the day and was close at the end, but Andy finished ahead $1.2 million, extending his lead to $6.2 million after two days.
Ted Forrest would be his opponent on Wednesday, Valentine’s Day. In the spirit of the occasion, Ted came by in the afternoon to give Andy a pair of gifts from his girlfriend: a homeopathic sleep aid and a philosophy book, Krishnamurti’s Freedom from the Known.
Andy thanked Ted and promised to try it. “What’s the book for?”
“She said, ‘If the treatment doesn’t put you to sleep, the book will.’”
Tuesday,Day 8 The War of Two Furies, or St.Valentine’s Day Massacre
This must be the most exciting poker game ever played, and only three people saw it from start to finish.
Andy Beal started the day with $10 million in chips. Ted Forrest started with $3.8 million, which did not seem like enough. Ted told me he was more comfortable playing Andy Beal on a short bankroll, because the swings in the game were much smaller than in previous matches, but that was ten days ago. During the previous two days, the game had been much more aggressive, and more volatile.
During the first twenty minutes, Forrest played like he didn’t have enough chips. He arrived in a somber mood, without his usual good humor and spirit of fun. He started out playing conservative; it looked like Beal was running over him.
Of course, the cards play a role. Andy won four of the first five showdowns and at 9:33am, after twenty-three minutes of play, he had won $1.3 million. The prospect that he would clean out the pros now seems very real. Andy Beal is certainly good enough to win but having the staying power and focus to beat player after player out of these sums must be mind-bogglingly difficult, not to mention draining.
I know Ted will make a stand. It’s just a question of when, in what form, and with what result. Just before 10am, he gets the break he needs, hitting a flop of 9-8-6 with 7-5 after Andy had raised pre-flop. He needed that $700,000 pot. Ten minutes later, he gets another board tailor-made to his cards – 9h-4h, with which he raised – and made a flush on the turn. He got three bets in on the turn and won the $1.2 million pot.
Ted took the lead two hands later on the second-biggest pot of the eight days of heads-up matches. With pocket tens, he three-bet Beal’s button-raise. The flop came 4c-6c- 6d. Forrest bet and Andy, with Ac-3c, called.
The best card in the deck for Ted (and the worst for Andy) would be the ten of clubs. It would make him a full house, and give Beal the ace-high flush.
The ten of clubs, indeed, was the turn card. On both the turn and the river, Forrest was able to put in the third bet.
When Andy made the final call in the $1.6 million pot, he asked (knowing the answer), “Did you fill up?”
“Yup,” Ted said, showing his pocket tens. Beal held up his cards for a moment and mucked them.
The two biggest pots in the 2006 Andy Beal games were both taken down by tens-up full houses, and the turn card both times Super-Glued the second-best hand to the pot.
It looks like Ted has dodged the bullet and is playing more in the style expected of him – that is, playing in unexpected ways. There is, however, a difference. He is playing much more aggressively. Both players are raising or folding on their button almost every hand.
By 11am, Forrest has taken the lead for the day. Now, it seems he is betting on every flop and Andy is almost always folding. By 11:15, the lead is $1 million and it looks like it will rise. Beal bets the river on a pot and Forrest calls. The pot contains a million dollars and Andy mucks his bluff. I notice that his left hand is shaking.
How big a lead is safe? There are probably more showdowns in less than three hours than in the first two days combined, many of them big pots. Beal retakes the lead at 11:56am. Forrest gets it back at noon.
Beal hangs on by making a straight flush, holding Jc-Tc with a board of 8c-9c-6d-Qc-Kc. It is amazing that Ted didn’t lose a pot larger than $900,000. He had pocket sixes, and one of them was a club.
Just after 12:30pm, Ted Forrest sends Andy Beal careening toward a cliff. He steadily builds on his lead, growing it to $2.5 million by 1pm.
I see an ominous sign for Andy. Ted has been playing out of the rack all day, keeping just one stack of chips in front of him. He has now filled two racks and is starting to lay the foundations for a ten-stack chip tower. Between hands, he lays out a triangle of ten chips, pointed at Andy Beal.
The message needs no elaboration. He wins two more big showdowns and his towers are rising. His lead is $3.5 million and I can’t see any sign that it won’t continue to grow. Ted seems to sidestep Andy’s strong hands, but all the showdowns – of which there are many, including several with seven-figure pots – are going Forrest’s way.
By 1:22pm, the margin is $4 million. To Andy Beal’s credit, he has no give-up in him. He keeps trying to fight back. His face is a mask, so there is no window to his emotions, but it feels like he thinks he can turn the match around.
Andy looks desperate, and Forrest must be picking up on it. Beal bet all the way with ace-high and Ted called him all the way with pocket sixes, despite overcards, three clubs, and possible straights, to win a $700,000 pot.
On the next hand, Andy holds K-J against Ted’s pocket jacks. They both pick up a straight draw after the flop of T- 8-9 but Andy wins the $1 million pot with a king on the river. Ted grunts when he sees the hand, showing his jacks before mucking. Forrest usually shows no emotion, but he seems slightly peeved.
Has Andy returned to his “wild man” style, where he builds pots with little regard for his cards, daring his opponent to stay in to see who catches the river?
By 1:40pm, Andy has cut the margin to $3 million and I notice that Ted has dismantled the towers. Ted looks a little angry, and he’s throwing his chips into the pot with some force, sometimes spiking his cards on to the felt for emphasis, even when he wins. At the 2pm break, Ted’s lead for the day is now $2 million.
As we exit the poker room, Andy looks drained. “It’s a real war,” he tells me.
But is he enjoying it?
“No. And that’s the sad part. It should be fun. But by the third or fourth day, it’s just a grind.”
He then reveals that Forrest picked up a tell on him, which is how, Andy thinks, Ted took that big lead. “But I figured it out and got him back.”
Before we walk back to continue the game, he stops at the entrance to the poker room. “It begs the question, why do I do it? What else am I going to do? Sit around all day? I guess I feel I have something to prove. To myself – not to them, and not to anyone else. I feel I have something to prove to myself.”
Ted Forrest wins the first hand back from the break, a $900,000 pot, and the next five. But there might be something to Andy’s reasoning about Ted’s read on him. He bets Forrest out of several pots and draws within $1.2 million of break-even at 2:22pm.
Is it possible that Beal has Ted figured out? No one will ever have Forrest really figured out, but Andy is now treating Ted in exactly the same way Ted treated him in their first three matches this year. Andy is the player who is one move ahead. Andy is the one who could be playing any two cards, the beneficiary of any possible flop. Ted is the one backing off, not knowing where he stands in the hand.
That’s when Ted Forrest pushes Andy Beal off the cliff. It takes him less than two hours to win nearly $6 million. At 4:12pm, he has Andy Beal stuck exactly $7 million for the day.
Andy Beal has one rack of chips in front of him and I think he is playing to lose that rack so he can leave and give up poker for good. Ted is trying to ease his path to the door, betting every flop and watching as Beal folds hand after hand.
Andy’s outer shell looks the same but, after watching him for eight days, I can tell that he is a mess. They are playing 35-45 hands per half hour, and when he isn’t racing to get his chips into the pot, his movements are so forced and artificially slow that I think he might never complete a bet. If he thought Forrest had a read on him at 1pm, his cards must be face-up by 4pm.
Despite Ted’s giant lead, however, he is being pushed to the limit, too. During the 4pm deck-change break, he asks me if Beal will be returning on Thursday. He has trouble getting the question out, and he momentarily forgets Andy’s last name.
At the 5pm break, Andy tells Deborah Giardina, the poker room manager, that, despite cutting his loss by $2 million in the previous hour, “I am so stupid. I am the most stupid person in the world, and you can quote me on that.” Then he says that he is on an adrenaline rush and will play until it ends.
It’s that intense.
Both sides would agree that luck is a bitch. When nothing was going right and Beal was just barely hanging on, he lost with A-8 to Forrest’s T-2 on a board of 8-5-2-A- 2. A few hands later, Andy got stuck with A-9 against Ted’s 9-5 with a board of J-9-5, but he caught an ace on the river to win. Both pots were in excess of $1 million.
At 5pm, with Andy still behind by nearly $6 million, he starts catching cards. With the wild, reckless, aggressive game of chicken he and Forrest have been playing, the rush brings Ted’s lead down like an avalanche. Beal gets a maximum payoff on every great hand and on every draw that hits. He flops quads on one hand and full houses on two others, and gets action all the way. In less than three hours, Andy Beal completely erases the $7 million deficit, restoring his $10 million in chips at 6:58pm.
If Ted Forrest was in a somber mood at the start of the day – and Ted in a somber mood is better company than many poker players in their best mood – his behavior during the day should be a model forgenerations of gamblers. His deportment was not significantly different when he was ahead $7 million than when Andy Beal erased that lead. Andy showed him the World’s Fair, but he took it in stride.
After Andy made quads, he stumbled, trying to make a comment about the hand. “Man, I was glad to see you call that bet … or raise that bet … or whatever.”
“I don’t blame you,” Ted said.
Just after 7pm, Beal actually took the lead, but it was clear the day was over. Both men were so drained that they seemed to lack the strength to make big pots. After a half hour of volleying the same chips across the table, Andy called an end to the day.
He had exactly three more chips than when they started play ten-and-a-half hours earlier.
When Ted nodded that they were indeed done for the day, Beal practically leaped across the table to shake his hand. Forrest lunged forward to do the same.
“I feel like I’ve been in a battle,” Ted told his opponent.
“It was like a war all day long,” Andy said. “It was unbelievable. Listen, Ted. If I’m ever in a war, I’d want you on the front lines right next to me.”
Forrest’s phone rang and he answered, listening. “We just finished the last hand two minutes ago. I can’t even think about how to explain it.”
I can.
A member of the poker room staff came by and asked me how it ended as Beal was racking his chips in a birdcage.
I shrugged. “They broke even.”
Andy corrected me. “No, I won $75,000.”
Thursday,Day 9 Sweetness in Victory, Nobility in Defeat – The (Anti-) Climax
Ted Forrest returned to face Andy Beal for a fifth time in nine sessions on Thursday morning. Again, he started at a disadvantage in chips. The entire session was played as if the competitors agreed in advance that the previous day’s game was too much. There were only four pre-flop raises in the first twenty hands, and only one bet was called after the flop during the first half hour.
Andy Beal won the first big pot, $900,000, with A-Q and a queen on the flop. That was how it went all morning. Beal and Forrest danced in slow motion, but when they both had good enough cards to take a hand to the river, Beal had the goods.
At 9:40am, just a half hour into the session, Andy had won $1.8 million. Forrest had less than $2 million of the team’s bankroll left with which to mount a comeback. Gus Hansen came by to watch. Both players started raising more, as if Hansen’s aura was contagious.
Steve Wynn also stopped by to watch for a half hour and we talked about the many levels of thinking that went into a match of this nature. Andy took off his sunglasses and earphones to chat briefly. The game restarted and Beal won the first two hands.
“You must be good luck for me,” Andy said. “I’ve won two hands in a row.”
“You’ve won two hands in a row before, Andy,” Ted joked. “I think you won ten hands in a row earlier.”
By noon, the pros’ bankroll is down to ten bets. Andy Beal picks this time to turn up the heat. Forrest has no choice but to fold marginal hands. After a flop of 9-J-Q, Ted tries to get as much money in the pot as possible with QT. Andy, with J-T, has a good enough hand to follow, but he has almost no chance to win… until a second jack comes on the river, making trips.
“I almost want to apologize,” Andy says as he turns over his cards.
Andy Beal’s Gold Rush
Based on the kind of game Andy Beal and Ted Forrest fell into on Day 8, it was inevitable that the player catching better cards would be extravagantly rewarded. Andy Beal erased a $7 million loss with monster cards. Everything went his way during the last three and a half hours: With A-9, he won a big pot after a flop of A-A-9. Forrest looked flabbergasted when he saw Andy’s cards. Holding 4-4, he caught a flop of 4-4-5. Forrest actually took the betting lead and Andy didn’t raise until the river. With 3-3, he caught a three on the flop. Forrest called all the way to the end. Beal made two pair with Q-5, catching the queen on the flop and the five on the turn. Andy called on his button with K-2 and Ted raised. The flop as K-2-2. When Forrest saw what Andy has, his face registered a horrified expression and he tossed his pocket aces in the air. With A-Q and a garbage board, he hit a queen on the river. Ted shrugged when he saw it. On the first hand back from the 7pm break and the players even for the day, Andy took 6-3 and made two pair to win an $800,000 pot. According to my notes, “Ted is just beside himself when he sees Andy’s hand. Calm, but beside himself.”
Andy knows it’s not over yet. “I hope you don’t pull some kind of comeback, Ted.”
“You could be happy for me,” Forrest suggests.
“I’d be happy for you, but not if you did it against me.”
At 12:19pm, Forrest is all-in after the flop. He hits an inside straight on the river to survive. He is all-in again two hands later, winning with K-8 against Beal’s K-7 after they both hit a king on the flop.
“You just won’t let go, will you?”
“I’m fighting you tooth and nail, like a bloody tick.”
Indeed, Forrest holds on another twenty hands, until, at 12:31pm, Beal’s pocket queens prevail over Ted’s A-4 after Ted picks up a four on the flop.
As Ted and Andy talked about the conclusion of the game – and, indeed, whether this was the conclusion of the game – casino security arrived to take Beal’s $13.8 million in chips to the cage. He had too many chips for the available racks, so one of the security guards took the empty racks from the space in front of Forrest.
It was the poker equivalent of a warrior being carried out on his shield.
Only fiction ends unambiguously. The following days were consumed with phone calls, trips between Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Dallas, and discussions about new players, Howard Lederer, higher stakes, lower stakes, playing in Dallas, playing in Los Angeles, new groups, hybrid groups, and the possibility that Andy Beal could now quit poker without regret, having proved to himself that he really could match skills with the best in the world and prevail.
Okay, that last subject never came up.
To be continued?
Who is Andy Beal
ANDREW BEAL – born in 1952 and currently lives in Dallas, TX. Founder and chairman of Beal Bank and Beal Aerospace Technologies.
ENROLLED AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY but dropped out after becoming bored with the classes.
AT AGE 19 HE BOUGHT A HOUSE FOR $6,500 and rented it for $119 a month which led to his first gain as a businessman.
PLAYED BLACKJACK as a youth.
1981- He started buying property that no one else wanted and made it profitable.
1988 - Opened first bank in Dallas (later renamed Beal Financial)
1993 – Discovery of conjecture (mathematical number theory). Has offered $100,000 for its proof or disproof.
2000 – Bought over 1 billion commercial loans and collected on the debts.
AFTER SEP 11, 2001 – Began buying airline bonds. He makes about $70 million a year from those bonds.
2001 – Began visiting Bellagio to participate in high stakes poker games.
BETWEEN 2001 AND 2004 – Began playing The Corporation.
