Carl Westcott Goes Crazy!

While shooting the finale of a new reality show, the Best Damn Poker Show, featuring Annie Duke and me, my friend Carl Westcott went crazy! First of all, a word about the new show. It airs on FSN (Fox Sports Net), and features 36 players, six of whom are sent home on the first show. That is followed by a draft of nine players for "Team Hellmuth" and nine players for "Team Duke," followed by a series of "three vs. three" playoffs, and then a "three vs. three" finale. There are seven episodes in all. Annie and I see all of the holecards, we coach before, during, and after each match, and we have some pretty juicy fights along the way.

Without revealing the final result, I'll dissect Westcott's crazy play. There are several types of crazy: There is bad crazy, a good crazy, and brilliant crazy. Westcott's play falls into the brilliant category. Carl noticed that no one in the finale was making a stand, and he decided to play superaggressive poker. He raised with weak hands (like 6-5 and J-8) all day long, and won pot after pot with nothing. These free chips - blinds and antes - quickly added up. In fact, Westcott picked up so much driftwood (free chips) that he built a mansion! After a "Hollywood Dave" Standon raise to 40,000 with 4-4, Westcott sensed weakness and moved all in for 150,000 with 8-3 offsuit! He won that pot, too, when Standon folded before the flop (adding 65,000 in driftwood). When Westcott opened for 30,000 with 9-7 offsuit and both blinds folded, he added 27,000 more in driftwood. Later, after Tracy Scala moved all in for 50,000 from the button with K-6, Westcott moved all in with the A 8 from the small blind, and Standon called all in with Q-10 offsuit (no comment on whether Westcott won that pot or not).

The superaggressive theory of poker has been rekindled on the Internet and is used by many of the young Internet stars these days. They are on to something. In fact, in the old days (the 1990s), I used to deploy those tactics myself. When everyone else played snugly, folding hand after hand, I came out firing. I was trying to pick up all of the antes, blinds, calls, and other bets that lay in the pot, uncontested. And it worked for a while. I picked up so much driftwood that I built a row of mansions. I mean, if you could pick up tons of chips risk-free, you could afford to be unlucky more often than anyone else and still have chips left over. In my mind, winning risk-free is the best way to play hold'em! Of course, what many of the young Internet stars of today fail to realize is this: When the other players at your table latch on to what you're doing, you can lose a lot of money quickly. Sure, an aggressive style of poker can work well against the worldwide public, but bring it to the World Series of Poker, and you'll get eaten alive.

Westcott understood that everyone else was laying down to him, so he kept grabbing all of that driftwood. And somehow he had a way of doing it that worked perfectly, because the other players kept thinking he was playing strong hands. He had pulled the wool over their eyes. This billionaire from Texas just seemed like he was always in deep timber when he was really on a Christmas tree farm. I'd hate to have been on the other side of the table from him with the uber-buyout firm KKR (Kravitz, Kohlberg, and Roberts) when they bought Westcott Communications from him for $500 million! Carl sold because he feared that the Internet would hurt his business, and he was soon proven right, in spades. When I pulled Westcott out of the match to substitute another celebrity player, my advice to him was, "When I put you back in there, keep playing superaggressive poker. You have them folding like lambs! Don't let up!"