Barry Greenstein, Part Two

[Eric]

"Did you tell him real poker players don't do interviews, because
they're too busy playing?" So yells Phil Ivey from across Bobby's Room
at Barry Greenstein, who has generously agreed to take some time on an
early Saturday evening to share his thoughts about poker's past,
present, and future.

"Didn't I see you did one yesterday?" Greenstein calls back across the
room to Ivey. Greenstein returns to this interview, where we discuss
the upcoming WSOP.

PokerNews: You're a member of the Players Advisory Council for the
World Series of Poker, and there have been a few questions about some
of the changes for this year's WSOP. Last summer you won your third
bracelet in the $1,500 razz event. The buy-in for that one has been
changed to $2,500 this year....

Barry Greenstein: One of the reasons for the buy-in being changed is
that some people were feeling like there wasn't enough play. You know
we're going to have triple chips this year at the World Series. Two
years ago there was too much play at the early levels in the limit
events, and then last year some people felt that there wasn't quite
enough play. But now, with the $2,500 buy-in having us start with
7,500 chips, there's going to be more play in that razz event in the
early levels, and I think people are going to be happy with that. Some
were hoping for two razz events: a $1,500 buy-in and maybe a $5,000
championship. And so we compromised, so the serious razz players feel
like it's going to be a big enough prize pool, but it's still not out
of reach for more entry-level WSOP players.

PN: Another change concerns the no-limit deuce-to-seven draw event.
That was a $5,000 buy-in event with rebuys last year. This year there
are two NL 2-7 draw events, one for $2,500 and the World Championship
one for $10,000, neither of which will have rebuys. You won your first
WSOP bracelet in that event, correct?

Greenstein: Yes. I've always done well in that event, and I feel like
I have the best shot in that no-limit deuce-to-seven, because I've
played it a lot. You know the people who have the best shot are the
people in the Big Game who've played it a lot. And of the people in
the Big Game -- and I'm talking about people like Doyle, and maybe
Lyle Berman and Bobby Baldwin and Phil Ivey and people like that --
I'm the one who seems to take that event the most seriously these
days. I'm almost the younger statesman of that group, except for maybe
a guy like Phil Ivey. I came third in that event last year, and first
a couple of years before that in 2004 . I've gotten to the final ten
players, I think, every time but once that I've played it. So I always
have a good shot in that event.

Part of it is, although I haven't had a lot of rebuys like some
people, having extra money to rebuy gives you a big edge over the
field. This year we're not doing that, and it makes it more of an even
competition. So that was always the event that I looked to, if I had
bracelet bets. That was always my number one event. And I used to
figure that I had about a 5% chance of winning that event, when you
take into account that there are going to be, maybe, 60 to 80 players,
and I'll rebuy more than the average person, and I'm more experienced
in that game. Now I'll have to lower that percentage some because I
don't have the extra money as far as rebuys are concerned that I'm
allowed to make over players who are only going to have one bullet, as
we say.

PN: What sort of field do you think the $40,000 buy-in, "40th Annual
No-Limit Hold'em" event is going to attract?

Greenstein: Well, I have an over-under bet with Eli Elezra that over
222 players will enter . A lot of people think that that's ambitious
because it's right at the beginning of the World Series. But the way I
look at it is we'll get 300 or 400 for the WPT Championship which is
$25,000 -- not that much different -- and so why not over 222 players
for the $40,000 no-limit? The WPT World Championship attracted a total
of 337 entrants.

The $40,000 event will probably get good television coverage. We know
it's going to have a great final table, because it's going to be the
toughest no-limit field that's ever been assembled. You're going to
get all of the top live players who can pony up the $40,000, and I
think all the online superstars will be coming out for that one,
also.

PN: What about the decision to repeat the November Nine delaying the
Main Event final table until November ?

Greenstein: Well, most people judge it by the numbers, and that's the
television rating which was up in 2008 . But I always look at more
than just the television rating. I'm an advocate for the players, and
so I look at it in terms of "What did the players get?" And if you
look, just about every player from the November Nine got a contract of
some sort. If you take those total contracts into account, we're
talking millions of dollars in extra money whereas in the past only
the winner got that money. So, like I say, as an advocate for the
players I have to view it as a success, and again look forward to this
year where we'll have nine players who not only will get millions of
extra dollars in contracts, but for whom we know for future events
that they will have other marketing potentials if they continue to
succeed in their poker careers.

PN: On a recently-aired episode of "High Stakes Poker", you alluded
to a phrase that had come up over on Joe (Sebok)'s PokerRoad podcast
-- "math is idiotic."

Greenstein: Yes.

PN: The phrase is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but back in Ace on the
River Greenstein's 2005 autobiography and poker strategy guide , you
tell an interesting story about a hand you once played against a
philosophy professor back when you were a student at the University of
Illinois. It actually comes up in a section called "Misusing
Mathematics." It was a stud eight-or-better hand, where he had
calculated it to be over 1,000-to-1 against for you to have had
precisely the right cards three low diamonds in the hole to scoop
him...

Greenstein: Yes, mathematically, with random cards, I shouldn't have
him beat. But of course, in that particular case, there wasn't
anything random about it. I had to have the hand I had, pretty much,
to be able to raise him all in, because it was obvious that he had
something like possibly a six-high straight, as I recall. I wouldn't
have called his bet with one card to go without a low and flush draw,
and I made it and scooped him.

PN: It was funny rereading that, and thinking of the phrase...

Greenstein: Yes, I think of it more as not that "math is idiotic," but
that math is misused a lot in poker.

PN: It makes idiots of us. Or it can.

Greenstein: Right. So many people cite the math. And we have this all
the time. If you go on the Red Pro forum, I had a big argument over
there with... I'll call them the "internet kids." You know, sharp
kids, good players. Daniel Kelly, Jimmy Fricke... real respected,
obviously smart kids, and good players. And they will all do some
mathematical figuring of when things are plus-EV and my whole argument
is to say, "You guys are missing poker things that can allow you to
give yourself a greater EV than your mathematics is giving you."

And I see this recurrent theme among the young players who think
they've figured the game out, but a lot of times it's getting in their
way. Because in live poker there's so much more that you can go on
beyond the mathematics, especially when you are playing against weak
players where you can exploit them. I think a lot of the young players
are missing this, and I think that we'll see over the next couple of
years, as they get better, the better ones will wake up to not be
hampered by their mathematical models which are actually getting in
their way sometimes.

PN: You've been interviewed so many times. Is there any question that
you've never been asked that you'd like to be able to answer?

Greenstein: No, I don't have anything in particular that I can think
of. You have to realize, I represent PokerStars. And what I do for
PokerStars, you know, I represent them online, I'm involved with the
games that we play on the site, and I wear a PokerStars patch when we
go to tournaments. But one of the other things that I do is that if I
go to Europe or anywhere else, what really they are paying me to do is
to do interviews.

Because we're kind of fighting this PR battle around the world where
governments are really oppressing poker.... And so it's my job as a
spokesman for PokerStars to go to these different places and wake
people up and say "There's nothing wrong with poker. Poker is
everyman's game. People around the world are enjoying poker as a
pastime, and most people are putting $50 to a $100 online in their
accounts and playing recreationally." So, I have to keep sending out
that message. I'm not going around telling 16-year-old kids to play
poker. I'm telling them to stay in school. But I am going around
telling people who like to play poker that there is nothing wrong with
you playing it online or wherever, and you don't need a politician
telling you how you can spend your leisure time.