Where are they now?

Last time we spoke to this guy, he was exhausted but euphoric, and surrounded by $7.5million in cash. Almost a year later, it’s time to catch up with World Champion Joe Hachem to find out just how life has changed for Melbourne’s favorite son.

Well, my frequent flyer membership has gone platinum (laughs). I’m spending most of the time in airports and stuff – that’s the downside. But, generally, life as the World Champion’s great.

It’s a responsibility that I take very seriously. I believe that I owe it to the poker world and the grassroots poker public – all the people who love poker who have ambitions of one day becoming champions as well.

All sorts of things. People are always coming up with different ideas, whether it’s a proposition for playing in a big event, or they want permission to make a bobble-head of you, or a trading card, or they want to include you in their latest video game.

I’m naturally a people kind of guy, so it’s always easy.

Oh, man; it’s put Australia on the map as far as poker goes. It’s quadrupled the number of people playing poker there. Seriously, when I left, July 2, 2005, to go to Vegas, poker was just becoming popular. When I came back in August, it had exploded, and when I came back in January for the Aussie Millions, it had burst at the seams. Absolutely crazy! But it’s happening all over the world. People are playing home games after work. They’ll close the restaurant and have a game. People are just enjoying playing together.

Basically Vegas is the center of the poker universe, so obviously I’m very well known there. But in Australia, I’m an Australian hero.

Yeah, they do. When I’m walking through the casino, I get bailed up all the time. They’ve got to tell me a story, or ask me what they did wrong in a certain hand they played. The way I look at it is that I hope I can be inspirational to them. I put myself in their shoes.

I think we’re going to get about 8,000 to 8,800. My biggest difficulty this year will be getting through Day 1.

Quite a few – probably ten or twelve. Last year I only played two – the Main Event and the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em with rebuys. I came in tenth in that one.

(Laughs) Yes. The first thing they should do is go to PokerStars.com, then find their way to a $3 satellite; they can parlay that and win a package to WSOP, which is worth $12,000. Going into Day 1, they shouldn’t worry about what’s going on around them – they should just try to beat the guys at their table. Don’t worry about how many chips the chip leader has; don’t worry about who else is at the table, or whether there are professionals at the table. Just treat everyone with the same amount of respect and play your game. Set yourself little goals. So if you start with 10,000, you want to have about 12,000 by the end of the second level. After that, say to yourself, “I want to get through Day 1.” Then say, “I want to get through Day 2.” And just play and try to build a chipstack, but build it slowly, without risking all your chips at any one time.

What helped me was that I was getting eight or nine hours of sleep every night. A lot of the guys would go out at night or be too stressed about winning to sleep. Once the tournament finished, I would have dinner, go for a little walk, and then go to bed. And I’d wake up fresh. Then I’d come back and start all over again. For me, it was like one continuing day.

My poker bankroll and my financial situation are very separate. I keep my bankroll aside. Just because I won that money doesn’t mean that it becomes part of my bankroll. Obviously it helps, but here’s the thing: You should not be playing in a game that you do not feel comfortable in. I couldn’t go and play in that 2,000/4,000 game at Bellagio. Just because I have the money doesn’t mean I should play it.

I think I’ve gone up one or two levels, but that was going to happen anyway, because my bankroll had gone up even before I won.

(Laughs) I’ve got a big red bullseye on my ass.

You’ve got to just adapt your game. At the end of the day, it’s a profitable situation, but it gets frustrating the times that guys go out of their way to play you and they suck out on you.

Yeah, you bet. This year’s been so big. I need to because I’ll be so exhausted by the end of it.

Yeah I know – it’s a Catch 22. But the number one priority is winning another bracelet. If I do, then I won’t sleep for another year (laughs).

That forever and ever, I will always be 2005 World Champion. Nothing can ever take that away from me.

“Are there some personal issues you want to discuss?” smiles Andy Black over coffee and cigarettes at London’s Gutshot Card Club. “Is that why you want to talk to me?” He rolls his eyes in mock desperation, “Oh, you don’t want to talk about poker, do you? You know, I had an interview with a Swedish magazine last month; we didn’t even mention the World Series. It was great.”

The Irishman was perhaps the most reluctant hero of last year’s World Series, in which he finished fourth, taking home $1.75 million. A confirmed Buddhist, and therefore presumably unconcerned with fame and fortune, Andy simply spent the week of the Main Event doing what he has done for many years – sitting in his little zone of self-composure, playing poker. He was probably only dimly aware that he was on TV playing for millions of dollars.

Andy Black is one of the most fascinating characters in the game. As a child, he was captivated by playing cards, and would obsessively build card houses, which he suggests, may have taught him the mental strength and endurance needed for poker. While a law student at Trinity College, Dublin, a friend dragged him to a local poker club, and he was hooked. By the mid-nineties, he was a well-known face on the tournament circuit, and finished 14th in the 1997 WSOP Main Event. And then, suddenly, he disappeared.

Wracked by personal demons, Andy moved to England, where he found spiritual refuge, living and working in a Buddhist Monastery. Five years later, he returned to poker a new man and, he believes, a better player. But how has life changed for Andy Black since the World Series? Has the material world beaten an unwanted path to his door, offering sponsorships?

“Well, I’m a bit independent,” says Andy. “Also, I have a thing which I’m exploring about internet poker companies – as well people in poker – generally trying to be a bit more responsible about the emphasis they put on things. At the moment, for example, the emphasis is, ‘This could be you.’ You could be Phil Hellmuth or you could be Phil Ivey. You can win millions of dollars. The reality is that that’s not the case. The idea that anyone can win, especially with people like Moneymaker and Joe Hachem winning the World Series, has created a proliferation of this view that is far from the truth. The truth of the matter is that if you’re not good, then you’re going to lose. So that’s of a lot of interest to me. I’ve turned down a good $200,000 this year because I wasn’t prepared to stick my name to something.

“The thing is, maybe 20% of people have the chance to be winning poker players. But that other 80%, they won’t be winning poker players. Imagine a rugby game. You pitch a bunch of guys who are professional rugby players with years of experience against a bunch of guys who are not in that league. What’s going to happen? They’re going to get battered. Occasionally one or two might sneak through. And that’s how it is in poker. I’m not suggesting that we shut it all down. I’m suggesting we explore a more accurate path. It’s about a connection, a sense of shared humanity. It’s quite clear to me that you have to present a full story, and I think that once one presents a full story, that will allow more people to make better choices.”

How do you reconcile poker – the ultimate pursuit of filthy lucre – and Buddhism? “I think, to some extent, I’ve come to a truce of sorts. There used to be a lot more tension between the two. But still I’m aware that it’s part of life that if you win, other people lose.

“Another question is about the attitude you can have in poker – and Stu Ungar would be the archetypal example of this. Stu was a savant and was part of the reason I quit. Stu knocked me out in the WSOP in ’97, and he was a phenomenal guy; but the thing about Stu was that one of the reasons he was able to focus so much on winning, was that he’d find something about his opponents to hate; whether it was their tie, or that they looked a certain way. He’d just find something to hate and use that to crank himself up to destroy them. Did that attitude have a positive effect on Ungar? I reckon the fact that he had such a vicious element did him personally no favors. So I would say the same to those people who say to me, ‘Oh yeah, we just want the fish and we don’t care. We just want the money.’ I think people, individually – people who are really obnoxious to dealers or other people at the table – ultimately, that makes them unhappy. They have to ask themselves what they are in it for.”

What are you in it for, Andy?

“A lot of things. I’ve been playing poker since I was very young and I’m hooked on it. You know, I love the game of poker. On the other side, arguably, I’m in it because I’m too weak to do something else. I did take five years off and did a lot of soul searching. I was doing a lot of meditation and techniques and it was all directed towards something. The reality is that we change. Your emotions change and your thoughts change. For those five years, what I did was realize there are various tools that can help you change for the better – to be more generous, more patient.”

So, say you’re playing in a cash game and there’s some guy hemorrhaging money, and he’s going to lose his house and his wife’s going to divorce him. What do you do? Get up and leave?

“Well, I probably wouldn’t have that much information. But it’s an important question. Probably, I’d do much the same as everyone else and I’d take his money. I mean, there have been various incidents where I’ve maybe noticed something like that, and played less ruthlessly. But not that less ruthlessly. Again, though, I think it’s about us presenting an accurate picture so that people will be able to make better choices. One of the biggest factors is that there is this explosion of young people who are seeing the media and playing poker, and OK, we hear about young Americans winning. But most young people who start aren’t winning. What’s happening is that when they get their first real income - their first job, or they go to college and get money from their parents - they’re actually getting in over their heads.”

Has Buddhism made you a better poker player?

“Yeah, definitely. There’s a theme there and, again, this is one these things that is not talked about in magazines. The thing with poker is that, however good they are, after a while people get into habits, and you particularly see this with older people at a poker table. They start to play a bit too tight or a bit too loose or a bit too weak. This is what happens to most poker players and it’s the reason why few survive over the long run. What happens is they get stuck and they don’t realize they’ve got these habits, and it’s too painful to try and address these habits. In my own situation, I saw I had all sorts of bad habits. So I went away on retreat.”

What ultimately triggered that?

“Suffering. My life was a mess. I’d been playing poker for 13 years, 10 of them professionally, and I was a bit worn down. I’d always made a living out of it and I never owed any money, but it was difficult to get ahead. I was drinking a bit, smoking a lot of dope, and relationships suffered – the common things. Gradually, drop by drop, I found myself in a poor state. I was down and a bit beat. Basically, I discovered a meditation class. I was pretty anti-religion, but I started getting into it and realized I could change.”

How can we change and improve our game? Give us all a poker tip.

“Each person is different, so poker tips aren’t necessarily helpful. A good starting point is not to aim too high. My suggestion would be to try to look honestly at where you’re at. People don’t want to do that. Get a piece of paper and break it down into areas – how you do financially, which games you’re doing well in, what’s your lifestyle like, how are your relationships affected... Write down where you are. The suggestion here is not to say you’ll suddenly get brilliant, but you’re looking for something you can improve. The paper idea is a great chance to work out where you’re at. The process will be cathartic. I see a sports psychologist and we talk about things, because I’ve got the technical thing, all I want to do is know whether I’m going with the best idea. What’s come out of it is that I need a plan for me. I need my own tailor-made plan, but that’s a starting point. Someone else’s plan can be alienating. And if you fail, don’t give yourself a hard time, because that doesn’t work. Focus on what you’re doing well.”

And with these parting words of advice, Andy shakes my hand and heads towards the bar – one of the nicest millionaire poker-playing Irish Buddhists you’re ever likely to meet.

Steve Danneman, a mortgage banker from Severn, MD, finished second in the World Series, netting $4.5 million – not bad, considering it was the first poker tournament he’d ever played. And you couldn’t imagine anyone could be so blasé about winning $4.5 million.

“I’m not one of those guys that get a couple of dollars and has to quit his job,” he tells us. “But winning $4.5 million must have been a life-changing experience?” we ask hopefully.

“Not really. I had a partner who I split the money with, and then, after taxes, you’re only going get about 1.3 million dollars. So in essence, it’s not really enough to retire on.”

“But you must have had a splurge?” we ask, in desperation.

“No, not really. My business has always been successful, so pretty much whatever I want, I just go out and buy anyway. I’ve got a very nice home and I vacation as much as I want. I’ll do a few investments with the money and keep it as a nice emergency fund.”

You’re not making it easy for us to like you here, Steve!

Actually, you can’t help liking Steve Danneman. You get the feeling that he charmed his way to the final table. But he has also proved he was no one-hit-wonder, with some recent impressive tournament finishes:

“Poker’s going pretty well. I’ve played in the Borgata and the US Open at the Taj Mahal. I made it to the third day in both those tournaments, and I played fifth in the Tournament of Champions. That was a really good feeling, because my expectations for the tournament were pretty low, based on the players and their expertise. I was probably one of the few guys in that tournament to have a real job.”

Vindicated?

“Absolutely. People say you can make it to the final table at the WSOP through luck. Hey, someone has to finish second, right? But I played a very solid game at the WSOP. I took the principles I use in business and applied them to the poker table. But coming in fifth at the TOC made me feel I really could play with the big guys. At the WSOP, I was faced with maybe one pro per table, if that. But at this tournament, you got eight or nine professionals. It will probably be the most difficult tournament I will ever play in.

“But I get the same fix of excitement playing in a $10,000 tournament as I do in a $100 tournament at my house. As strange as that sounds, the level of competition at my house is just as fierce as it was at the final table of the WSOP. We have a lot of really great players in my home game. I feel that if the twelve guys that play at my house had all played in the Series last year, at least half of them would have cashed. And that’s a pretty strong statement. I’m about the fifth best player in my home game.”

So will you be back next year?

“Someone asked me on the sixth day if I would be playing next year, and I said, ‘Absolutely not!’ It was taking too long. But I’ll be back next year. Definitely.”

Aaron Kanter was eliminated in fourth place, picking up $2 million in the process. A semi-professional player and mortgage broker, in the months leading up to the WSOP, he had found that he could make more money playing poker than he could from the loan industry. He had entered a handful of major tournaments throughout the year, with mixed success. Kanter played a super solid game, however, at the World Series, busting Phil Ivey and getting a little lucky in crippling defending champion Greg Raymer along the way.

So what’s been happening, Aaron? “Poker-wise, I’m playing probably 4:1 online to live. I’ve been trying to hone my skills towards No Limit Tournaments, since that’s the direction poker has been going. I play some cash games during the day, but I play in all the major tournaments online at night. I also like playing in the local tournaments when they have them at the casinos. I won the $1,000 event at Bay 101, about two months ago. I won 40K, and a 10K buy-in for the WPT shooting stars in March.”

At first, Aaron, like Steve Danneman, claims he didn’t splurge after the Series, and then proceeds to tell us that he bought a Honda, a Toyoto Sequoia, a new house…oh, and another condo. Now that’s more like it!

Has he kept up with any other of the guys from the final table? “Yeah, I’ve seen Brad online a couple of times. We’ve sent some emails back and forth. Joe has been playing a bunch of events. I saw him at the circuit event at Bally’s, and then we all met up for the first time at the Tournament of Champions. We actually had a good showing there. Mike won it, Steve Danneman finished fifth; I finished 18th, Daniel Bergsdorf finished somewhere around 25th. So we had four guys in the top 25.”

Aaron is committed to playing in next year’s Series. “So,” we ask him, “What do you think your chances are of making another final table, this year or any year?”

Aaron laughs and launches into the math. “Main Event? Oh boy! If I figure I am about 500 to 600:1 each year… umm… my odds are… if I could get 30 years in… I guess it should be about 20:1. That’s if poker levels off…if not, I would say 30:1 to get back there in my lifetime.”

“The money changed my life,” says Brad. “But I haven’t done anything too exciting with it yet. It’s invested and I’m waiting for business opportunities. I had a pretty good bankroll before the WSOP – and I’m just really trying to play with that and not play over my head. I just play a couple of big buy-in events per year.”

Did the World Series make you popular at school? “Well, my Law School’s pretty small, so I pretty much know everyone anyway. But I had a big party after the WSOP. It was a good time.”

So how’s the poker going? “I went over to the Borgata and played in the WPT event. I played all right, but went out towards the end of the first day. I went out to Vegas for the Tournament of Champions, but I just couldn’t really get anything going there. Those are the only real big buy-in events I’ve played. I play mainly online in cash games, and I’m doing great in those. I play at all the sites, I move around a lot.”