A new breed

Internet poker whiz kid Joe Cada is part of a new breed of poker player. Here some professionals give us their opinion on the future of poker

Anyone who follow poker would have recognised the thumbnail sketches of the two survivors at last week’s World Series of Poker final table. The heads-up game saw internet poker whiz kit Joe Cada beat the self-described amateur Darvin Moon.

This kind of clash is becoming more common with players from both categories doing well in major tournaments. In recent years the poker veteran Billy Baxter (a respected Las Vegas professional gambler) has started paying attention to where the latest poker players are coming from.
“The game is dominated by a new breed of poker player. One thing I have noticed is that some of the most successful people in the world in other lines of business now become poker players. You see people who made a fortune in the business world and they say, ‘Now I want to play poker.’ They look at it as a great challenge.”
However, it is not new that wealthy individuals from external fields come and try their luck at high-stakes poker. They used to be referred to as “producers” however, Baxter does not think that this is an accurate term as the “new breed” of player studies the game passionately and achieves results.

This final table of this year’s World Series saw two competitors (Antoine Saout and Jeff Shulman) who are officially considered semi-professional. There were three amateurs at the table, two of which are the kind of player Baxter was referring to: Steven Begleiter who is a principal at a private equity firm and Kevin Schaffel who recently closed a business he owed and run for thirty years.

Even with the advent of internet poker where high-stakes games can be found at any time of day or night, players will still go to Las Vegas to play against professionals. Doyle Brunson, winner of 10 World Series bracelets thinks that this has been common since the poker came to Vegas.
Brunson said that, “People who want to gamble and who can afford it, they’re kind of the nucleus of the high-stakes games, then there’s always the hometown champion who wants to come in and take a shot. Every town’s got a champion and they like to test themselves.” And according to Brunson sometimes the players to well and sometimes they don’t.

It is thanks to Jack Binion that the World Series of Poker became so popular and in his opinion because poker is so accessible to all it will continue to grow as a game.
Binion said that “Players see poker as a different kind of endeavour because it’s a mental game rather than a physical game; it’s viewed as a game where everybody’s got a chance.”