Some Personal Info

Several times during the last few months, I have had someone contact me, let me know they were going to be visiting Vegas, and ask if it would be possible to get together with me. This is a natural enough mistake, since I lived in Vegas for a long time, am a professional player, and write for Card Player, which is published in Las Vegas. But I do not live in Vegas anymore, and haven't for a long time. I have taken these misconceptions as a sign that it is time for me to write a bit of personal information.

Even though I was born in Brooklyn and lived as a child on Long Island, I have always considered Saginaw, Michigan, my hometown. We moved there from New York in 1951, and I went to junior high and high school there. My parents continued to live in Saginaw thereafter. My mom died in 1995, and in 1996 I moved back to Saginaw to live with my dad. I still live with him now, and he just celebrated his 93rd birthday this summer. I bought a nice home there this July, so there is a good chance I will be in Saginaw for the foreseeable future.

Saginaw is far from being a red-hot poker town. The closest legal game is a $20-$40 hold'em game in Mount Pleasant at the Soaring Eagle Casino, about an hour drive away. In Detroit's Greektown Casino, there is $20-$40 hold'em action every day, and a $5-$10 blind pot-limit Omaha game once a week, but I have yet to play there. My dad's physical condition prevents me from leaving him alone for any length of time. I was going to Mississippi once or twice a year, but can't do that anymore. So, basically, I am retired for a while, and stay in touch with poker by writing books and giving lessons. Perhaps when I am not so busy, I will do more playing on the Internet.

That is my present situation. Let me talk a little about the past. I first played poker in Las Vegas in 1978, when I was 37 years old. Of course, someone that age does not come out of nowhere, and I had a tremendous amount of poker experience before I ever set foot in Nevada. Even though I did not consider myself a professional player back then, I was playing in Detroit home games several times a week and earning a good part of my income from poker. The games we played in Michigan were usually dealer's choice, with a wide range of games allowed, so I had plenty of experience in all the different poker forms.

After my first taste of Vegas, I became a full-time poker player. Hold'em was my favorite game, and either pot-limit or no-limit my preferred betting structure. I moved to Dallas in 1980 and played no-limit hold'em nearly every day for three years. Some of the people I played with back then were Bill Smith, Ken Smith, Charlie Bissell, Bill Bond, Everett Goolsby, Bob Hooks, Bob Brooks, "Point," and T. J. Cloutier. It would be hard to imagine a better training ground for a no-limit hold'em poker player.

In 1983, several of the big-bet poker players started playing pot-limit Omaha in Las Vegas. I took to the game like a duck to water. Later on that year, I moved from Dallas to Las Vegas so that I could play pot-limit Omaha every day. It has remained my favorite poker form ever since. I lived in Vegas for 11 years, from 1983 to 1994. By then, Omaha had died down, so I moved to Downey, California (in the L.A. area), to work as a proposition player at Hollywood Park Casino.

During my poker career, I have seen lots of different playing styles do well at the poker table. I am well aware that there is more than one road to poker success. Even so, there is only one road that seems to work for me, and that is, playing only hands that I believe are better than the other guy's. Furthermore, I believe it is difficult, if not impossible, to teach someone to play in the guns-blazing, full-steam-ahead style that some of the action players are able to get away with. The fact is, a guy like the late three-time World Champion Stu Ungar is not supposed to have any disciples. You need incredibly good poker skills to play in this fashion, because you oftentimes have the worst hand, and need to be terrific at reading players and able to fight your way out of lots of tough spots. The style of poker I teach is going to work much better for the people I have for clients.

Even though I have been a professional poker player and writer for a long time, this is not my "claim to fame." Instead, it is the number of games that I am able to play with a fair amount of skill, rather than reaching the top in any one game. Some of those other games I compete in are chess, bridge, and backgammon. I know a number of fine poker players who are quite good at one of those other games as well, and there's a handful of people who are good at two of those games. Deserving of mention in that department are Jim Thinnsen and Dan Harrington, both of whom are quite good at backgammon and chess. Frankly, I do not know of any American poker player who is strong in all three of those other games.

What do you need to excel in a variety of different areas? A key ingredient is time. It is helpful if you have no job and no family responsibilities. You cannot become good at something without devoting yourself to it. I would scarcely encourage anyone to travel down the road I have chosen in life. On the other hand, I have been a person who has always been happy, despite the obvious drawbacks of the path I selected. At least I have spent nearly all of my time doing things that I enjoy.

What of the future? I love writing, but I am not sure my next book will be a poker book. I am not even sure that it will be nonfiction, because there is a novel in me somewhere. Right now, it will take me a while just to get settled in my new home. At any rate, I expect that you will continue to see my columns in Card Player, so stay tuned.

Editor's note: Bob Ciaffone's new book Middle Limit Holdem Poker, co-authored with Jim Brier, is available now (332 pages, $25 plus $5 shipping and handling). This work and his other poker books, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Holdem Poker, can be ordered through Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons. E-mail [email protected] or call (989) 792-0884. His website is www.diamondcs.net/~thecoach, where you can download Robert's Rules of Poker for free.