Everything But the River - Ted Forrest: One of the World's Best

This is the second of a three-part series about Ted Forrest, one of the world's best and most interesting professional gamblers.



Part I of this series in the last issue described how Ted, even as a teenager, became accustomed to difficult situations. Part I concluded with Ted at the WPT Mirage final table in May, in one of those difficult situations. His pocket fours had turned into a set against chip leader Thang "Kiddo" Pham after a flop of 5-4-2, with two spades. Ted bet the pot, was check-raised, and called. After the K came on the turn, Pham checked. Forrest bet $300,000 and Thang immediately raised all in. After careful consideration of the likelihood that his opponent had a flush, a straight, a flush draw, a king, two pair, or was bluffing, along with his 10 outs to beat the nuts, he called.



Ted's thoughts appear in italics in this article.

Thang Pham turned over 9-5 offsuit. Without a spade in his hand, he was drawing dead. From a four-way battle in which relatively few chips separated the players, Ted took a huge lead with $2.7 million in chips. Pham was left with only $250,000, which Forrest took six hands later when Ted's A-9 proved to be better than Pham's all-in A-5. He was now in control of a tournament offering a payday of more than $1 million. Amazingly, it wouldn't be the first or even second seven-figure win of his poker career if he won. And 19 years earlier, he almost quit during his first day as a pro.



Palace Station, 1986 – Two hours into his career as a professional poker player, 21-year-old Ted Forrest realized he might have made a terrible mistake. He had just spent his first two weeks as a Las Vegas resident living on a gallon of milk, ketchup and mayonnaise packets, and one meal per day provided by the Las Vegas Rescue Mission.



His total bankroll was $100, and the Palace Station offered him $30 per day and one free meal to become a prop player. All he had to do was play poker for eight hours. What could be better?



He had just been dealt rolled-up sixes in $1-$3 stud. After going to war with a single opponent on fourth street who was showing J-9, he was forced to throw in the hand after his opponent picked up another jack on fifth street. (The other player showed another J-9 in the hole.) Forrest had made the first big laydown of his career, but his bankroll was down to $33 and he got pulled from the stud game to play $2-$4 hold'em.



Maybe poker isn't for me.


How did Ted Forrest come to this place in his life? He developed his love of poker at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, a highly regarded Jesuit school where his father taught English. He did well enough in his local game to fly to Vegas during a holiday vacation. He stayed in a cheap motel in Downtown Las Vegas and rode a bicycle to Caesars Palace every day to play $5-$10 and $15-$30 stud. "It rained a lot while I was in town, and it even snowed a little. And it seemed that in whatever direction I was riding, a cold, biting wind was always in my face."



He later took a break from LeMoyne, moving to Arizona to live near the Grand Canyon. He still intended to become a psychiatrist or psychologist, depending on whether he wanted to go to medical school. As has always been the case with Ted, however, part of the fun of life was not having a plan. He loved being outdoors and he loved the Grand Canyon. Once again, his parents let him make his own choice, hoping he would come back smarter for the experience.



He took the first job he could find, working as a maid at the El Tovar Hotel for $4 per hour, and he hiked on his days off. Gradually, he replaced the hikes with marathon low-stakes poker sessions in Las Vegas or Laughlin. He would work all day Friday, drive several hours to a casino, play for two days straight, and drive back to the El Tovar in time for work on Monday morning.



That led him to move to Vegas, where he blew most of his money setting up a tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood, and lost all but $33 of the rest on his first day at Palace Station.



In the hold'em game, he almost dreaded seeing good cards that could force him into a hand with which he could go broke. "I was so scared, I threw away ace-king before the flop in an unraised pot. I was like the kid in right field praying no one hit the ball to me."



But he got back into the stud game and started to win. By the end of the eight hours, he had recouped his earlier losses and won $166. He never again doubted that the gambling life was right for him.



Some Palace Station dealers took a liking to him and taught him to deal. "'Ted,' they told me, 'you're playing too many hands. You'll never make it as a poker player.'" He credits his time as a dealer with advancing his skills in reading other players. Of Ted Forrest's many skills, the one that gets the most attention is his ability to deduce his opponents' hidden cards. That kind of talent can't be taught, it has to be developed, and there are no shortcuts. "I didn't waste my time in the box. I studied the players and tried to improve. I was amazed, especially in hold'em, at the frequency with which I could figure out a player's exact holecards."



Ted realized that to make it as a poker player, he would have to play more often than his dealing job would allow. So, he quit Palace Station … to return to college. As was becoming typical of Forrest's big decisions, it was smart and unconventional, and benefited from a dose of good luck.



No one in the family knew it, but William Forrest had only five months to live. Ted taught his dad poker and they played for pennies, both laughing when Ted got bluffed off trips. "I think he was proud of me for succeeding, even at that small level. I came home with a car and $10,000."



When his father died with a month to go in Ted's final semester at LeMoyne, he resolved to finish strong. He had perfect grades since his return to school. The only tricky class would be biology, a required course offered by a teacher who had some long-standing feud with Dr. Forrest.



Ted had no idea of the reason for the enmity, but he was determined to ace biology. His interim grade was an A. In the difficult days after the funeral, however, he must have written down the wrong date for the final. When he showed up one day late, the teacher would not consider giving him the exam and failed him in the class.



Although Ted probably would have prevailed in an appeal, he simply quit school. Forrest is not much different today than he was then. He didn't like confrontations, or asking for favors, or playing on emotion. He never made up the exam or the class, never returned to school, and never got his degree.



And he never looked back on the experience with regret. Then, as now, Ted Forrest would not second-guess himself, pity himself, or assign blame. Everything was focused on the positive and on moving forward.

"If I had gotten my degree, maybe I never would have gone back to poker. Now I had to go back to Las Vegas and do what I love to do. It ended up being the best thing that could have happened, and I was lucky I got to spend those last five months with my dad."



Ted moved to Las Vegas with his girlfriend, Karen, in 1987 to start his poker career. They married that year and their daughter, Kristin, was born in 1988.



It would not be inaccurate to say that Forrest was unfathomably better than his competition as he moved up the poker ladder in the late '80s. He started a string of 43 straight winning months. As he began winning in the biggest games, it sometimes seemed like he was playing full time in both Vegas and L.A. Other players would shake their heads, chuckle, and say, "That's Ted for you." His love of a good poker game and his endurance, combined with a devil-may-care attitude, contributed both to his ability to play so much and to other players writing it off to eccentricity.



What most players did not realize was that Ted Forrest was using poker to run away from a difficult situation at home. Ted and Karen married young and became parents young. They just weren't meant to be married to each other, and as they got older and spent more years together, that became increasingly clear. They didn't get along, and rather than fight all the time, Ted took refuge in poker.



While standing in the shower, instead of arguing with Karen in the next room, he would tune her out and think about the players he expected to see in the game that night. Rather than endure whatever arguments would come up over the weekend, he would drive to L.A., analyzing those players and immersing himself in the games.



Domestic discord made Ted Forrest a better poker player. Skill developed under such circumstances comes with a cost, but he couldn't find a better way to fix his home life.



It was inevitable under such circumstances that Ted would start playing in poker tournaments. The tournament circuit of the early '90s bore little resemblance to today. Binion's hosted the World Series, of course, and the Hall of Fame in the fall. Amarillo Slim was the front man for the traveling annual Super Bowl of Poker. Commerce Casino and The Bicycle Club each hosted a series of tournaments. These tournaments attracted the biggest side action, moving Vegas' big game to wherever the tournament was held. The tournaments outside Las Vegas also gave Ted a reason to leave an increasingly untenable situation at home.



Commerce Casino, 1992 Still a tournament newcomer, Ted Forrest won the Best All-Around Player award at the L.A. Poker Classic. Day after day, he laid waste to the field, making a remarkable 10 final tables, covering nearly every form of poker: hold'em, seven-card stud, five-card stud, Omaha eight-or-better, ace-to-five lowball, and even "Asian five-card stud." Under the point system used to determine the best all-around player (which paid $20,000), the gap between Ted and the runner-up was greater than the gap between second place and 10th place.



World Series of Poker, 1993 The next year, at the World Series, he made a similar impact. On consecutive days, Ted won events in razz and Omaha eight-or-better. Less than two weeks later, he won the seven-card stud championship over a final table that included Chip Reese and Howard Lederer. It was only the second time anyone had won consecutive events and the second time a player had won three times in one Series. It took Ted Forrest only six events to accomplish these feats.



Within a year, he and Karen divorced, and Karen moved back to Syracuse with Kristin. The daily stress was gone, but so was his daughter. For the next four years, Ted and Kristin maintained an uneasy long-distance relationship. Even as Karen moved on with her life and remarried, their conflicts wouldn't die. By 1997 and 1998, the tension became unbearable for both of them.



One visit ended prematurely when an argument at Karen's door nearly erupted into blows between Ted and Karen's husband. This is behavior completely foreign to Forrest's nature.



Soon thereafter, Karen and Kristin disappeared. They cut all ties with Ted's family in Syracuse, moved away, and left no clue as to their whereabouts.



"It tore me up inside. It was a very, very emotionally trying period. Finally, I realized that I had to stop letting it tear me up. No good could come of it."



Ted got over the bad feelings, as he always had, with poker. Throughout the '90s, he used poker to fill an ever-larger hole in his life. To stamp out his feelings of anger, hurt, and loss, poker became his mission.



"I decided to pour my heart and soul into becoming the best poker player I could possibly be."



He was already a winning player in whatever game he chose, even in the highest-stakes games. How much better could he be by willing himself to improve?



Ted Forrest's force of will is the subject of legends among the community of high-stakes gamblers. Early one morning as his game was breaking, Ted became especially annoyed with a $60,000 loss. He promised himself that he would stay in the poker room until he erased it. Then he looked around and saw that the biggest game still going was $30$60 stud.



So, he sat down and thumped the game for a couple thousand dollars – "I proceeded to get hit in the head by the deck," he conceded – and then found Erik Seidel willing to play him $300$600 hold'em heads up. He beat Seidel, and the win doubled because Ted had arranged at the start to bet on the outcome with Howard Lederer. As the table filled up, Forrest continued to win. It took 12 hours, but he won back the money he lost, and even made a small profit.



Twelve hours is not a long time for Ted in a poker game, especially when the session turns into a test of his will. On another occasion at Commerce Casino, he lost a similar amount and vowed not to leave until he won it back. He succeeded, but there weren't any $300-$600 or $400-$800 games going, and it took him two and a half days. He once played Hamid Dastmalchi at The Mirage for four days, after which Hamid needed to be removed from the property in an ambulance, either from the 50-plus packs of cigarettes he smoked during the game ("and he lit only one match," Ted added) or from all the bad beats Forrest showed him.



So, he was going to take that same mental toughness and see how much better he could become. Ted attributes his success to three factors: innate talent, a desire to improve, and being focused and prepared at the table. They don't sound like secret weapons, but their simplicity is deceptive. You can't get them from any book or have anybody teach them. Some skills, you either have or you don't. And the others, you have to learn on your own.



That is why Ted Forrest plays hands no one else will play: to learn. As a result, he has not only been pushed more pots with lousy cards than any poker player alive, but he has learned a lot more than how to play 8-4 offsuit. He has gained insight into other players. His reputation for playing such hands has made his actions impossible to interpret. Playing garbage hands taught him not to fall in love with premium hands, making it easier to make a big laydown. He also learned how this style can prey on the psyches of his opponents.



Forrest also owes his success to an ability to focus on the players in the game, despite all the distractions and the long hours, even against opponents he has played with for years. "After a certain amount of experience, it's easy enough to go on auto-pilot. These are the opponents I want to be playing." Certain players change their games over time. Others shift gears during the session. Still others play differently based on their mood at the time or whether they are winning or losing. "I think it's best to keep your eyes and ears open all the time."



WPT Mirage, May 2005 – After Ted eliminated Pham, he held a significant chip lead ($3 million) over Chris Bell ($1.8 million) and Gavin Smith ($1.5 million). Threehanded, Bell abruptly shifted gears and began making huge bets into every pot he played.



Bell's change may have occurred because Ted pushed him out of the hand that eliminated Pham. Forrest had the A 9, Pham (all in) had A-5, and Bell had pocket nines. Chris folded when Ted bet aggressively with the nut-flush draw into a flop of K-8-4 with two spades. The 9 on the turn would have won Bell a big pot. Whatever the reason, Bell wasn't going to let Ted control the betting.



Just two hands after Pham went out, Ted bet the minimum ($30,000) after the flop in an unraised pot. Chris responded by going all in. On the next hand, Ted raised three times the big blind, to $90,000. Bell reraised to $300,000.



On hand No. 80, after 10 rounds of threehanded play, Ted got his chance to trap Bell and executed it perfectly. Going into the hand, Bell's aggressiveness had enabled him to take over the chip lead, $2.6 million to $2.3 million for Ted. (Gavin Smith held steady at $1.5 million.) On the button with $90,000 in the pot, Ted looked down at the A J and bet $140,000. Bell, in the small blind, called.



The flop came J-8-7 with one club. Ted had the top pair with the top kicker. Bell had not been playing much after the flop, taking most of his pots with pre-emptive bets. Because he had little chance of outplaying Forrest after the flop, and Ted would likely not put his tournament on the line after seeing only two cards, conceding Forrest's superior skill in the later betting rounds had been wise.



But now, unless he had a monster hand, Bell had fallen through the trapdoor. Ted bet $170,000 into the $370,000 pot. Bell called, swelling the pot to $710,000.



Good. I wanted him to call.



After a deuce came on the turn, Forrest bet $250,000. Bell check-raised to $700,000.



I thought awhile. I concluded that A-J was the best hand and asked myself, "What's the best way to play it?" I could reraise, but he might throw his hand away. If I just called, he might try to bluff on the river. I called.


Another 7 came on the river. There was more than $2.1 million in the pot. Bell had about $1.4 million in chips left, Forrest about $200,000 less.



Bell put all of his remaining chips in the middle, forcing Ted to place his tournament on the line if he called.



I thought for a long time. He went into the audience and talked with his people. Based on his actions, I thought he wanted me to call. He looked very natural, not like any of this was forced. In addition, I thought before the river that he'd bluff at the pot after the river card, but not all in. A bluff bet of $750,000 would have crippled him if I called, but he would still have almost that much left. That would have been half of what Gavin had, so he could have had some chance at second if the bluff failed.



But all in? He could beat top pair, probably because of the 7 on the river.



I folded the hand.



When Ted mucked his hand, the A-J flipped over. Chris said he had that beat. Ted heard the next day that Bell had 7-6.



Chris is a pretty honest guy, so that makes sense. I'd like to think that with any other river card he would have bluffed at the pot, but I'd have gotten a different vibe.


Ted Forrest made the right move at every point in the hand. He maneuvered his aggressive opponent into taking the lead with a terrible hand. Then, when Bell hit the miracle river card, Ted somehow extricated himself, giving himself at least some chance to finish second.



So, how far did Ted Forrest's force of will and hurt over losing contact with his daughter take him in poker? And at what cost? At The Mirage, how did Ted finish at the WPT final table? How did he do the next day in the Professional Poker Tour (PPT) finale? Find out in the third and final part of this series, "Any Hand Can Win."