World Series of Poker Spotlight -- Barry ShulmanCard Player CEO Looking for His Third WSOP Bracelet |
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Earlier this year, Barry Shulman became just the third poker player in history to collect two seven-figure tournament scores within four months. With his win in the WSOPE main event and his third-place finish in the PCA main event, Shulman’s lifetime tournament earnings catapulted to nearly $4.3 million. Now, going into the summer, he has just one goal.
“I want to win another bracelet, for sure,” said the 64-year-old businessman, who is the publisher and CEO of Card Player Media. “That’s my goal.”
With the way he’s been playing and finishing at premiere events lately, it’s hard not to like his chances. After final-tabling the $2,500 six-handed limit event at the WSOP last summer and then watching his son Jeff Shulman make the November Nine, the elder Shulman said he was focused like never before to pick up his game.
The results have been impressive, to say the least. He won his second WSOP bracelet over in Europe, and was more than three decades older anyone else at the PCA main-event final table. If poker is becoming a young man’s game, someone forgot to tell Barry Shulman.
A Proud and Focused Father
Shulman credits his recent poker renaissance to a variety of factors — namely his wife Allan Jaffrey Shulman, his diet and exercise regime, his renewed focus, and not least of all, his son, Jeff.
“Jeff final-tabling the main event had a huge impact on me,” said Shulman. “I said to Jeff, ‘I want to go to Europe and make the final table, also.’ I was focused like I’ve never been focused in my life.”
So, despite having never played in the WSOPE before, Shulman traveled to London to compete in one of the most difficult tournaments of the year. But as difficult as the competition was, so too were the marathon days he would have to endure.
“We played 17 hours the next to the last day to get to the final table, and then we played 15 hours the last day, including five hours heads-up with Daniel [Negreanu],” said Shulman. “That’s tough.”
A couple of years ago, it seems unlikely that Shulman would’ve ever made it through those days. Acknowledging that he could be a bit impatient, he also struggled with his stamina.
“I could not beat the fatigue. Starting at noon, playing after dinner, and thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to play until two in the morning — I’m so tired.’ And then I would play too fast,” said Shulman. “I’ve always done a good job of gathering chips, and then I would piss them away.”
But after Shulman hired a trainer, he noticed that he started to feel better.
“I got a trainer and started doing diets and exercise. It gave me have a lot more energy, and that really helped. I also stopped drinking so much coffee at events, and started drinking green tea, and it made my stomach feel better. I put some honey in it if I need a little sugar or something,” said Shulman.
With increased attentiveness and a renewed focus, Shulman defeated a stacked tournament field en route to the biggest win of his career on Oct. 1.
But Shulman was far from finished. Fewer than four months later, he headed to the Bahamas to compete in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. Against a young and aggressive field, Shulman navigated his way to another final table, eventually finishing in third for $1.35 million.
With that finish, Shulman became the second faster player to string together two unique million-dollar tournament scores. Only Daniel Negreanu, for his wins in the Five-Diamond World Classic and Borgata Poker Open in 2004, has done it more quickly. Besides Shulman and Negreanu, Mike Matusow (for his ninth-place finish in the 2005 WSOP main event and his win in the Tournament of Champions) is the only other player to put together two seven-figure scores within four months.
In fact, there are only a few players who have two seven-figure tournament scores even within 12 months. That elite list includes Michael Mizrachi (2005 LAPC, 2006 Winter Poker Open), Bertrand Grospellier (2008 PCA main event and 2008 Festa Al Lago), Chino Rheem (seventh place in 2008 WSOP main event and a win in the 2008 Five-Diamond World Classic), and Yevgeniy Timoshenko (2009 Five-Star World Poker Classic and 2009 PokerStars WCOOP wins).
Turning it Around
With both the WSOPE and PCA events shown on ESPN, Shulman has graced the television screen quite a bit in the past few months. Despite being a major industry player for years at Card Player, Shulman was a relatively new face to the ESPN poker demographic in 2010. Even with his decades of poker experience, this past year was almost a coming out party for the businessman.
Shulman has had success in poker before these last few months. Within a two-year stretch between 2000 and 2002, Shulman won events at the Jack Binion World Poker Open, the WSOP, the Four Queens Poker Classic (multiple times), and the LAPC. But ironically, he credits that bevy of success as the reason why he stopped focusing on the game for so long.
“I proved to myself that I could be a winner in poker, so I focused on being a winner in business,” Shulman remembers. “I really love business, and there’s more money to be made in business. So I lost my competitive poker edge, and that’s really important in poker.”
Devoting his time to Card Player, Shulman guided the media organization through the poker boom. Along with his renewed focus his business, there were other factors pulling his attention from the table.
“I got married six years ago now, and Allyn loved to play poker, so if she would bust out, I would find myself busting out five minutes later because I’d really rather be out having dinner or a cocktail with her than sitting in a poker tournament,” said Shulman.
But last year, just before the World Series, Shulman made the commitment to get back to playing his ‘A’ game. Although he admits that his energy level still wasn’t up to snub, he was able to get back to a WSOP final table in 2009 in the six-handed limit event. That achievement, of course, would pale to his tourney success in the next few months.
Shulman hasn’t played too much poker since the PCA, electing to spend a good portion of his time on the open waters on a cruise. Even still, he added yet another win to his resume.
“One Sunday, I won about 90-something-thousand dollars on PokerStars on their $500 Sunday event,” said Shulman, showing that he can also win online.
Now, Shulman just hopes to continue to play great poker and perhaps add another title to his growing collection.
“It’d be nice to get another bracelet. I’ve got two bracelets, but there’s a whole bunch of guys who have two bracelets or more, but not too many who have had two bracelets since 2000 if you take away all the guys who get them in the last century,” said Shulman. “By the end of the Series, I’d like my peers — the guys who really understand poker — to think I’m the best playing senior right now.”
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