On the 43rd floor of the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, a dormant dragon waits in his lair. David "The Dragon" Pham sits with family and friends, waiting to leave for New York City, where he will visit an uncle before returning to Southern California. Downstairs, day one of the
World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open plays late into the night, but as far as the tournament is concerned, the dragon is asleep for now. Pham finds himself leading the 2007
Card Player Player of the Year (POY) race with just two months remaining in the year. He is no stranger to the race; he won it in 2000, was runner-up to Daniel Negreanu in 2004, and is a perennial threat to finish in the top 10. To find this top level of consistency in other sports, you would have to look to solid performers like Albert Pujols, Kevin Garnett, and Peyton Manning, who always find themselves in the most valuable player award race in their respective sports. They are players who even in an off year are considered among the best. This is what Pham is to poker, a consistent performer who makes final table after final table. He is well-known for his aggression, which led to his fire-breathing nickname.
Pham was excited about the prospect of winning a second POY title that night in Atlantic City, dissecting and analyzing his closest competitors with the confidants who were along for the trip. Even though the day's tournament did not go as expected for him, he looks to the closing months of the year, planning which
WPT events he will compete in, hoping to make at least one more final table to solidify his title run. Most of the conversation with Pham focused on the subject of the POY race, but it also strayed to a five-year period of his career that involved not a single day at the felt, the origins of his nickname, and his place amongst the shorthanded poker elite.
Focus: 2007 Player of the Year Race
Pham already has money, bracelets, and respect. He has learned that poker players are judged by their long-term success, and that is why he covets the award. "In a poker career, the title will stay there forever; the money will come and go. … Any poker player can have luck and win, but the player of the year has the most importance because you're the best during the whole year," said Pham. He pointed out that the intrinsic value is much more important now than it was seven years ago. This is due to the fact that tournament poker has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity since then. "I really want to win this year," he continued. This desire to end the year as king of the mountain stems from the close defeat he suffered at the hands of Negreanu in 2004. "In '04, I almost won, but in the last event, Daniel Negreanu took the final table and beat me," said Pham.
With the lesson he learned in 2004, Pham is taking a lot of focus into the closing months of 2007. He knows everyone is chasing him, and acknowledges that a lot of people can chase him down if they run well. "A lot of people can still win the race, even in the top 30 or 50. Someone might come on strong in the last couple of months if they're running hot and win," said Pham. The Dragon knows this, because he himself has been on a strong run of late, whereby he not only caught up to the early front-runner J.C. Tran, but surpassed him. "J.C., he's played well, but he has gone cold the last couple of months. The first three months, he made three
WPT final tables, but now, you never know," said Pham. He is also on the lookout for another player at the top. "Bill Edler is one of the top players on the tournament circuit, he's running hot, and he's playing the game well," he continued. Pham knows that anything can change with the turn of a card in tournament poker, and there's a lot of poker left to play in 2007. "Even though I'm ahead of J.C. by 1,000 points and Bill Edler by 800, there's still three more months. That's a long way. So, I have to focus on all the main events. I'm going to prepare for the last tournament at Bellagio as the big finale."
Changing Gears, Gobbling Up Chips
After Pham finished his analysis of the current state of his poker affairs, the conversation turned to the strategy he employs to make double-digit final-table appearances every year. Anyone who has sat across the table from The Dragon knows that he is one of the most aggressive players in the game, and because of this, he is also one of the most feared. Pham knows this, but he also knows that uncontrolled aggression can easily spin out of control. "I change gears a lot when I sit down at a table. I pick my spots to be aggressive; I'm not aggressive in every spot. Aggression versus aggression will be … bang! Somebody's going to get hurt," he said. He also professed the importance of changing up your strategy during the course of a tournament. He prefers to come out aggressively on day one of a tournament so that he can chip-up early and then sit back and tighten up, while the more anxious players make haphazard attempts to double up or go home toward the end of the night. During days two and three of a tournament, Pham adjusts to the players at his table, depending on their level of play and the amount of chips they hold.
He considers two factors in his decisions at the felt more than any other. His cards are at times an afterthought. "Usually, I do the math by the amount of a bet. … It's very important to know the amount they bet out, and how much is in the pot. I calculate why this guy bet that much. That's the math I do, and then how they went out with their chips. Sometimes people go out strongly and have a very weak hand. Sometimes they go out very slowly and weakly when they have a strong hand. I think the amount is more important than anything. From the amount they bet out, I can calculate if they have a hand or not," said Pham. Because he plays the player first and his cards second, he knows the importance of not letting anyone read his hand. The Dragon is capable of putting all of his chips into the middle with anything. "If I pick up two kings or two aces, that's a bonus, but with my style, I can play any two cards. … It takes a good top player to read me, because I change gears a lot and can play any kind of cards. I bet with nothing sometimes, and I bet with the nuts," he said. This makes him dangerous in all situations, but even more dangerous in shorthanded situations; this is when The Dragon takes over.
Pham uses his final-table experience to push even harder and hit a high gear of aggression that few players in the world possess. "When the amateurs get there [final tables], they're scared, they don't calculate much, they just try to last as long as they can," said Pham. "Usually when you win a lot of money, you know what to do when it's shorthanded. Heads up, threehanded, fourhanded, you've got to know." Pham speaks with the confidence of a player who has been in these situations countless times, and who knows how dangerous his game is when the endgame is near. A recent affirmation of his skill came when he won the $5,000 no-limit hold'em heads-up event at the 2007
WPT Mirage Poker Showdown. "I've got a lot of titles for these events, so you can say I'm one of the best shorthanded players. But, I know a lot of pro tournament players who are very good; they're a little more focused," said Pham. The quick pattern of speech that Pham used throughout the interview slowed for a moment as he pondered his top peers in shorthanded games. The Dragon offered two names: "Barry Greenstein is very good … Phil Ivey is good … there are at least 20 to 30 shorthanded players who are right at the top."
Five-Year Hiatus
This is where the conversation took another turn, away from poker strategy and POY races to The Dragon's past. It turned to how Pham came to love the game of poker and how, at one point, he actually had to walk away from it for five years.
Pham began playing poker in 1989, when Men "The Master" Nguyen taught him how to play $1-$2 limit hold'em at The Bicycle Casino. "I think I was born to gamble, because the second time I played, I hit the bad-beat jackpot. I got a bankroll of about $12,000 for that," said Pham. He held aces in the hand and his opponent held sevens. With an ace and two sevens on the board, both players got it all in on the turn, and Pham had an instant bankroll on his hands. He immediately jumped into higher-limit games, playing $5-$10 and $10-$20 right away. He was broke two months later. This didn't stop The Dragon, though; he borrowed money and kept playing. Unfortunately, he kept going broke, and walked away from the game in 1992. For the next five years he worked at a nail salon that he and his wife owned and operated.
Days at the salon were long, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to Pham. This meant no time for poker. That didn't stop him from thinking about it every waking second, though. The Dragon lay dormant, but the fire still burned within. "During the time I worked at the nail salon, I thought only of poker," said Pham. During his free time, he would deal out all nine hands on a poker table, then open them up. He calculated the percentages that each hand had to win. Deal, calculate, memorize, and repeat. Pham played this poker version of solitaire countless times during those years. He was determined to learn from his previous mistakes, determined to learn the game of poker, the game that had eluded him once before. Another thing he did to improve his game was watch a lot of the top players in Los Angeles. "I watched a lot of players; how they make a move, how they lead out with chips, what position they play from. All of the details, I combined when I went home to think about poker," said Pham. T.J. Cloutier was one of the players Pham remembers watching. "I would remember what street he would bet, and how much he would bet." It would appear that Pham retained those lessons well, from both Nguyen and Cloutier. If he can hold on to the lead and become the 2007 player of the year, he will join Negreanu and Cloutier as the third player with multiple POY titles.
In 1998, Pham made a decision to return to poker. "I told my wife that I was going to sell the business and come back to poker. I wanted to stay in poker. … At first my wife said, 'No, no, no, don't do it; you'll only go broke.' I said, 'No, this time it's different.'" A wide grin spread across The Dragon's face as he reminisced about this moment. It was the grin of a man who had taken a gamble with his life's ambitions and hit the jackpot. "It's been a great poker career for me since I've come back," said Pham. "I learned from the mistakes I made during those five years." The Dragon had returned, and after he won some money during his first year back at the felt, he took his game to another level in 2000. That was when he won the POY title. Seven years later, he now holds two gold bracelets, numerous victories, and more than $6 million in career tournament winnings.
Origins of a Dragon
Although Pham changed a lot about his game during the self-prescribed five-year break from poker, one thing from his past managed to follow him across the five-year gap, something he had forgotten. When he won the 2000 POY title,
Card Player's Jeff Shulman gave him a call and asked him about his old nickname. Pham had forgotten about the old moniker, but the memories rushed back to him at that moment, and ever since, he has been called The Dragon. So, where did Pham pick up this fire-breathing comparison? Prior to his break in 1992, he was playing in a $300 seven-card stud tournament at The Bike and made the final table. Many of his friends were on hand to root for him, and he proceeded to not only win the tournament, but eliminate each and every one of his opponents. Many of his supporters began to chant, "You're on fire. You're like a dragon!" One of Pham's friends, Steve Skolnick, kept the nickname alive after the tournament, commonly addressing Pham as The Dragon. The nickname stuck, and despite the five-year retirement, it fits its owner as well today as it did then. Pham became very animated when explaining the comparisons made between the mythical creature and the way he plays the game, at times mimicking the very comparisons he professed. "With my style, when I play, it looks like a dragon. Dragons are always moving around; they never stay still. Moving around, grabbing chips, aggressive," said Pham, in the same restive manner that defines him at the table.
When Pham sits down at a poker table, he becomes a dragon among men - aggressively grabbing chips by attacking pot after pot, leaving weak players fatally wounded as he charges forward. Will The Dragon win the 2007 POY race and join an exclusive group of legends with his second title? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: It won't be for a lack of effort on Pham's part. The old saying "the best defense is a good offense" is not only the exception but the rule in the game of poker. Pham has learned this lesson beautifully; it has served The Dragon well, and it will continue to serve him well in the future.
