Phil Gordon

Poker Pro Phil Gordon did a recent interview with those folks over at Freakonomics. Phil has always been an keen observer and no-holds commentator on the real life of the professional poker player. Here are a few of this comments.

Q: What percent of your success would you say is attributable to randomness?

A: Randomness, otherwise known as “variance” at the poker table is much bigger and more important than most poker players realize. I have a simple theory: change 10 river cards in any poker player’s tournament career and I would bet that they would be a losing tournament player for their career.

You might need to set aside players like Doyle Brunson here or maybe just up the number to 20 or 30 but Phil's point is correct. There are several bookkeepers and more than ten chiropractors who would be well known poker professionals today if that one river card had gone the other way. By the same token, there are a couple of guys walking around with a WSOP bracelet on their wrist who should get out before variance brings them down to their true skill level.
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"When I talk patience, I just mean wait for profitable opportunities. I'm not saying wait for aces, but for me, poker is not gambling, poker is strategic investing. All I'm doing is waiting for an opportunity to put chips in the pot where I'm going to get more chips back out than I put in; I'm just trying to do that as many times as possible over the course of my life."

Phil Gordon

Like so many other professionals, Phil Gordon talks about patience and yet we see many amateur players modeling their game on total aggression. In fact, in this interview Phil mentioned five keys to being a great player: Aggression, Observant, Courageous, Patient and Work.

He also said with three or four out of these five, you could be a good player but to be great you need all five.

While the rest of you are apparently out boozing sleeping, I'm hard at work conducting intense internet research. While checking out my MySpace page (shut up) I noticed that I had a personal* message from none other than Mr. Phil Gordon. At the time I was checking out friend requests and wondering if that 21-year-old's father knew about the whorish pictures she was sending all over the internet, but of course for Phil I drop everything, so I went to check out his message.

Turns out that on Sunday, October 15th, he's hosting a $10 charity tournament to raise money for his pet charity, the Bad Beat on Cancer. Here's your chance to play with the pros and in the process raise money for a great cause. You can get full details on Phil's site, and I'll see ya there.

*And by personal, I mean me and the other 5,689 people he sent it to. And I'm a little hurt that Rini makes his Top 8, but not me.