Phil Gordon

Thank you very much.

I hear that quite a bit.

I think the show has a couple of appeals. I think first of all it’s one of the only places on television where you can watch celebrities actually be themselves. They’re not there promoting anything. They’re not there for any other reason other than to have a good time to raise a little money for their charity. It’s Las Vegas so it isn’t hard to get into the party frame of mind. Most of them are there for the right reasons and they’re having a great time which I think shows. The other good thing about the show is that the people are making the same mistakes that you’re probably making in your home game. I think you can learn more from watching their mistakes than you can by watching the great players on the World Series [of Poker].

No. Some of his funny voices maybe, but not his funny hats.

I love Dave like a brother and doing the show with him is a pleasure. He’s one of the most generous guys I’ve ever met both on and off camera I’d do anything for him. It is just a real pleasure to work next to someone that makes you laugh. There is nothing forced with him and he makes every day an adventure. You never know what he’s going to say or pull on you.

Well they’re not professional poker players. I don’t expect them to do the same things that professional poker players would do. That being said, I get a little upset sometimes when I’ve spent three hours before each show telling them to raise before the flop. Then we go 40 hands before someone raises before the flop. That kind of pisses me off a little bit. Or when they do something boneheaded like throwing away the best hand possible. But for the most part, I try to keep my commentary positive and on the funnier and lighter side rather than calling them an idiot every three seconds.

Yeah, I’m certainly very fortunate to have gotten the job and there are not a lot of people with credibility from a poker playing perspective that are going to be comfortable on camera and doing commentary. So I don’t think I’ve got a lot of competition in that respect and that’s a good thing because I really love my job and it had been a great thing for me personally.

No, not really. When I’m playing it is usually against expert competition. One way it’s helped my game is because poker players watch the show. Then when I play in big tournaments I’m very often I’m up against people that watch me on television and maybe they might be more intimidated by my presence at the table.

It is exactly the way that I play the game. It’s 300 pages of No Limit Texas Hold’em exactly the way I play. I’m not the best player in the world but I’m certainly a winning player. I’ve won a couple of World Poker Tour events. I’ve made five final tables in No Limit Texas Hold’em at the World Series of Poker including the $10,000 championship in 2001. That being said, there are a 100 different ways to play. I’m not contending to know the only way to play; I can only tell you how I play. So the book is exactly how I play the game on every card and in every situation. What I want to do is give people a guide to how I think about the game critically. I’m hoping to give you some scripts that you can run through your head. In fact the first chapter is, Decisions, Decisions, Poker’s All About Making Winning Decisions. You may not win the pot; you may not make the most money. None of that’s important. The best player in the world is the person that makes the most winning decisions.

Well one of the things that I do that gives me an advantage is to play aggressively before the flop. Once I choose to play a hand, I play it aggressively. There are certainly some people that have great success without raising before the flop. I’m not one of them. If I’m playing a hand I want to give myself two ways to win. I either want to win with the best hand or force my opponent to fold a better hand and I’ve found that raising before the flop affords me great opportunities in both those respects.

A style is the number of hands that you’re willing to play before the flop. The hands that you’re willing to raise with and the hands that you’re willing to call raises with. Whether you like to check your bad hands and bet your good hands or the opposite. Everyone has a certain style or demeanor at the table and I certainly have one. I tend to be the guy that keeps betting. Very often, I find that I can exploit people’s tendencies to play too conservatively.

So what. I think a lot of the stuff that I’ve written in the book is unbeatable. No matter if you know exactly what I’m doing or not because a lot of the stuff that I do is based very soundly in what’s known as game theory. In game theory you may know exactly what I’m doing but there’s no optimal solution to how you play against me. There’s no real counter strategy.

Every time I play a hand I learn something and the better competition that I play against the more I learn. I’m always thinking about the game and analyzing my play. There are great opportunities to learn by watching better players. There are good things to learn by watching worse players and there are always good things to learn from self instruction and analyzing the hands and determining what you played well or played poorly.

There are a lot more people playing. The first year I played in the World Series of Poker there were about 500 entrants. This year there were 5,618 players.

So the fields are enormous. Five years ago there was one $10,000 buy-in tournament in the world. You had to wait once a year to play at that time and that was the World Series of Poker Championship. Now there are fifty $10,000 dollar buy-in tournaments and you can play one a week if you want.

Dave Foley is dead bet money but he likes it that way. I wouldn’t change anything about his “game”.

I was probably most surprised by Mena Suvari. She has a real intimate knowledge of the game. She plays, she studies the books and she’s a fierce competitor. Just based on looks alone you wouldn’t necessarily expect that. She’s kind of short and meek and beautiful and those aren’t real qualities that you associate with good poker players.

One thing about novice players is that they’re very unpredictable and you’re never as far ahead in Texas hold ‘em as you think you are. Almost always your opponent will have the chance to draw out on you. In our show the blinds go up pretty rapidly and it’s not uncommon for the best player to be first out and for the worst player at the table to win.

When it becomes a job I’ll stop and go do something else. I still love the game. I play online more than I play live now. There’s a lot less investment in me getting into the car and driving down to the casino and playing 40 hands an hour when I can just log in and play 200 or 300 hands an hour at Full Tilt Poker in my underwear.

As far as the tournaments go I have to play a reduced schedule because of my business commitments both in TV and writing. But truth be told I’m enjoying teaching the game right now more than I’m actually enjoying playing.

I like to play golf and tennis and do a lot of traveling. I’m definitely writing a lot more. I write for ESPN every week. I love teaching the game and corporate speaking and poker seminars and things along that nature. I‘m keeping myself very, very busy.

No.

Phil Hellmuth on my ass.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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