It's no secret that professional poker is a very demanding job. At the highest level, very few make it, and those who do treat the game as a business. They keep meticulous records, invest wisely in a particular game to maximize their return on investment, and are astute at calculating risk versus reward.
A separate, yet perhaps even more important, fact is that the true winners lead balanced lives. Family supersedes time at the felt, and a healthy equilibrium between work and family is a policy, not an option.
Perhaps no one in poker embodies this balance better than Eli Elezra, a regular in poker's highest-stakes cash game and a
World Poker Tour champion. With the current state of poker, where business leaders are signing up for CEO poker tournaments, Elezra could easily be the master of ceremonies. But, his calendar is filled; he is too busy playing $4,000-$8,000 limit at Bellagio, running a portfolio of multimillion-dollar companies, and balancing a large family that consists of five children.
Around the World and Back Again
It's been quite an amazing ride for one of poker's quiet superstars. Elezra, now 45, got the poker itch as a child while growing up in Jerusalem, Israel. From eighth grade on, he played strip-deck poker with his friends. By 10th grade, he was handling the group's poker money. And, early on, he received his first valuable lesson in bankroll management after he gambled away all of the money he was holding for his group of friends. "After that, I learned one of poker's most valuable lessons; don't play over your head, and with that which is not yours," he commented.
Elezra, always a tenacious competitor, determined at a young age that if he wanted something, he was going to get it, no matter what. He fought his first major battle after graduating from high school with a mechanical engineering background when he was instructed to join the air force as part of Israel's mandatory military service. He refused, as he had his sights set on joining Golany, the Israeli Green Berets. "This is a select group that only a few can join," he recalled. "They didn't want to take me, but I fought for it. I sat in jail for three weeks because I would not go to the group they assigned me." Finally, an officer listened to his case, he aced all the tests, his physical strength and talents got him ahead, and he became a lieutenant during his four-year stint in the army. But, his military career was cut short when he was wounded in the leg in the Lebanon War in 1982, and he spent three months on a cot.
Off to the Arctic
Despite being immobile, Eli could not sit still. While many people coast through life without carving out their own direction, Eli got his hands dirty in one of the world's toughest environments, to hone his entrepreneurial skills and sail into Vegas as a seasoned business veteran.
Once his war wound healed, he traveled the world. Once he was out of money, he headed to Alaska, The Last Frontier. "I knew a few people from Israel who were making $8,000 a month there, big money at the time," he said. Eli found a gig gutting salmon on a boat, working 20-hour shifts. The work was the pits, but he was rolling in the dough.
When there wasn't fish to be gutted, he traveled to the Far East and trekked in Nepal. After spending most of his money, he headed back to Alaska, enrolled in an English as Second Language (ESL) class, and looked for a job to reload his bankroll. His teacher mentioned that Kotzebue, a small town 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle, was full of opportunity, so Eli packed up and moved to the permafrost to seek his fortune.
Once he landed in Kotzebue, he hooked up with a born-again Christian who employed Eli as a taxi driver. "He found out I was from Jerusalem, and I was like God to him," he chuckled. "He wanted to hear about the holy country, and I started working for him right away." He stayed there for four years, built the only convenience store in town with his brother-in-law, and was able to pocket a few hundred thousand dollars. Soon thereafter, his brother-in-law took his family on a trip to Las Vegas. He called Eli, saying there was tons of money to be made in the desert, and they were off to the next conquest - Las Vegas.
Playing With the Profits
In 1988, Eli purchased a small one-hour film-development business across from the Stardust for $300,000. He invested in new technology so that he could process film in 30 minutes, and became one of the first express-photo franchises in the nation. Immediately, he built other locations all over town.
With the shop situated by the Stardust, Eli found himself again bitten by the poker bug. He started playing $5-$10 limit hold'em and Omaha. "At first, I remember losing and losing and losing. But I just loved the game. The competitive nature in me came out. I don't play blackjack, roulette, or anything else where I have no control.
What I love about poker is that I have control over my own hand and my own destiny. And if I go home at night and cry, it's because I didn't play well."
Eli kept his nose to the grindstone, building his business empire up to 28 stores between 1990 and 2000, and also honing his poker skills from the lower limits up to $150-$300. Never one to settle, he took all of the money he made from this business and reinvested it in land and shopping centers around town. He also branched out and entered the club business, leasing a country restaurant from Bobby Baldwin to open Seven, a popular after-hours club.
With the dough rolling in and a proven track record as a cash-game winner, Eli began playing even higher-stakes poker as soon as Bellagio opened. He met Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson, and joined the big-game crew playing $1,000-$2,000 limit mixed games. "People were telling me that I had to be the craziest person in the world, playing with Chip and Doyle," Elezra laughed. "We started the big game at Bellagio and I did pretty well playing shorthanded against them."
Now, the normal haunt for Elezra and the rest of the high-stakes Vegas crew is Bobby's Room, the crown jewel of the Bellagio poker room. The high-limit room named in honor of 1978
World Series of Poker Champion and Mirage Resorts President and Chief Executive Officer Bobby Baldwin is always abuzz with poker's most recognizable names and filled with massive piles of chips and thick bands of $100 bills.
This is the home of the "big game," which regularly runs at $2,000-$4,000 and is often kicked up to $4,000-$8,000. The mixed game includes rounds of limit deuce-to-seven triple-draw, pot-limit Omaha, Omaha eight-or-better, hold'em, stud, and stud eight-or-better. For games such as pot-limit Omaha, no-limit hold'em, and no-limit deuce-to-seven single-draw lowball, a $100,000 cap on the betting is in place (you can lose "only" a maximum of $100,000 on any given hand).
A few big hands at this table can take down as much money in one night as a
WPT champion. "A group of about 15 to 20 of us play in this game," Eli said. "Everyone is in my cellphone, and they are always calling me to find out if we are playing. I am known as the game starter, the conduit that brings it all together."
The who's who of poker calls this game their game. On any given night, one can spot the likes of Phil Ivey, Jennifer Harman, David Benyamine, Chip Reese, Chau Giang, Minh Ly, Barry Greenstein, Ralph Perry, Daniel Negreanu, Lyle Berman, David Grey, Todd Brunson, Sammy Farha, Freddy Deeb, or Doyle Brunson battling it out. Many in this group comprise "The Corporation," the consortium of players who beat Texas billionaire Andy Beal out of an estimated $47 million during a series of heads-up freezeout matches. During the last match, which took place earlier this year, Eli was the man driving across town to Wynn Las Vegas with the $10 million buy-in. And after Phil Ivey schooled Beal, Elezra returned to Bellagio with $27 million in chips. "Here I was with piles of $25,000 chips, in a limo surrounded by guards with shotguns," Elezra exclaimed. "It was crazy!"
When I recently stepped in to size up the big game, the lineup of Elezra, Gus Hansen, Chip Reese, Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, Lyle Berman, and Minh Ly were playing $4,000-$8,000. The average buy-in is between $200,000 and $300,000, but anyone can pull up a chair with poker's elite for the table minimum of $80,000. Play was loose and downright insane. Capped family pots are the norm, and on average there's enough money in each pot to buy a nice condo in Vegas. I watched Eli scoop up a juicy $300,000 pot once the game changed to pot-limit Omaha when he spiked the nut flush. All told, in the half-hour that I watched him, he pocketed just over $350,000. Not a bad hourly rate, right?!
Since most games are limit, Eli said, "You see so many more hands. I love to see what the top players show and think about how they played a certain hand. It is very educational." And play many hands they do. When Elezra folded in the big blind after a raise, mucking his 10-3 offsuit, Phil Ivey chimed in, "What? The bills must be due … Eli hasn't folded a hand in years." After all, it was chump change to continue - only another $4,000, which is nothing to this group, in which prop bets alone can reach up to $90,000 a hand.
With this much money being passed around, the swings can be big and discipline has to be maintained. "If I lose more than $400,000 in a session, I get up," Elezra stated. "When you're playing my kind of game, you can lose $10 million a year if you don't pay attention. That is why it's important to look at this as a business." Last year, he won more than a million, and this year, much, much more. The most he ever lost was $2.5 million a year. "It was devastating," he said. "It can really hurt your cash flow. But I never exhausted my poker bankroll and I am pretty happy that I don't have to depend on just poker for my living. I just built a 40,000-square-foot medical building with a chunk of my winnings, about $4 million." Within this medical building, Elezra has opened yet another business, Maya Makeover, a state-of-the-art rejuvenation clinic.
Family Man + Businessman + Poker Player
Eli could be the best ambassador for poker, with his fine balance of work, family, and success at the table.
How is this for a schedule? Eli gets up in the morning and takes his children - Jonathan (19), Guy (13), Sean (11), Ryan (5), and Maya (4) - to school. Then, it's off to the corporate offices for four or five hours a day to make the important decisions that influence his portfolio of companies. Then, like clockwork, the entire family has a huge lunch together at 3:30 p.m. every day. They spend time together in the afternoon, and then it's off to Bellagio for an evening session. Eli and his wife, Hila, usually hit Bellagio together. "She is my biggest supporter, and has more hours than anyone else behind a player in the big game," he said. "Without Hila, I would not be able to maintain my busy daily schedule. She runs the household much like I run our businesses and helps me make difficult decisions regarding both." Hila also plays, but for nowhere near the regal sums changing hands in the confines of Bobby's Room.
In sum, Eli says he is very happy that he has much more than just poker. "I have a fine line between my family, my poker, and my business," he stated. "That is why I am so happy in my life. People always think that I am a professional poker player. I say, 'No, no, no.' When they find out I have five kids, they say, 'When do you have time for all this?'"
He has time for poker, but his sights are set on much more. Eli believes the poker explosion has just begun. He is anxious for other tournament tours to roll out, competing products that can challenge the
World Poker Tour. "Someone has to come with some type of program, so it isn't the ace-king versus the pair of queens," he said. "I'm excited about a few projects in the works, and hope I can become more involved. I heard that the Venetian is going to host some type of professional poker league concept. They just built an amazing state-of-the-art poker room, including a high-limit poker room like Bobby's Room, but on top of that, there is a players lounge that looks like the PGA's Augusta National. This is the kind of league that could take poker to the next level."
And since poker is growing and evolving, he would like to be involved more in furthering the game's larger business agendas. A players association or a big poker league are the first topics of conversation that come up. "As players, we cannot sell ourselves cheap, because poker is going to be huge. I want to be involved in any way I can."
But, getting back to the basics, Elezra said, "No matter what happens, I have a strong, loving family and a great business full of excellent managers, many of whom are family, such as my brother-in-law, brother, and two sisters, who run the day to day. I have the whole package, and that is all I could ever ask for."
The Skills to Pay the Bills
So, when it comes to poker, what makes Eli Elezra a winner? After all, he holds a
WPT championship title after beating more than 250 players and winning just over $1 million at the 2004
Mirage Poker Showdown. He has made three
World Series of Poker final tables and cashed in three
WSOP events in 2005, his best finish being 10th in a $1,000 no-limit hold'em event.
Eli says that patience is the number one skill necessary for success. "Of all the people I play with, it's not a question of who is better than another," he commented. "It is a matter of who is more patient. I think Phil Ivey has a good read on people, but he also has an amazing ability to be patient and wait for the right hand, which makes him so tough."
Elezra says concentration and getting out of the game when you're tired are the best ways to avoid losing stretches. "Don't play too many hours, because there is always another day," he said. "I like what Phil Ivey says: 'When you win, you have to stay there forever to beat the game; when you lose, you have to get up.' Control is everything."
But, within his specialty, business management, there is a myriad of skills that have kept Elezra above water in the world's highest-stakes cash games. Sure, any serious poker player treats the game as a business, but Eli's advantage is that he has been a serious businessman longer than he has been a poker player. "Money management, as well as chip management within the game, is crucial to a poker player's long-term success," he stated. "I learned money management long before I became a successful poker player, and I have transferred many of my business skills to the poker table, not just money management. The countless leases, sales, and purchases I have negotiated over the last 20 years have helped me read weakness in other players; conversely, I know when to let a hand go."
Choosing the right game at the right time, knowing when to leave the game, knowing when to speed up and slow down, and knowing when to take a break are other skills related to business that Eli applies every day in his quest to eke out more profit from the big game.
"Calling me a businessman poker player is redundant; all serious poker players are businessmen," he exclaimed.
Sure, but if you have time to sit down and spend any time with Eli, you'll think of him as much more than just a businessman. It's all about the balance, and Eli, confident in himself, seemingly successful in anything he touches, and supported by a cast of loved ones, walks this delicate line like no other in this game.
