NBC National Heads-Up Poker Champion Chris Ferguson

"Andy Bloch is best known for his run in the World Series of Poker $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event, finishing second to Chip Reese. Hopefully today he'll finish second again." Those were the words of Chris "Jesus" Ferguson prior to the finals of this year's NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

Ferguson went on to defeat Bloch and claim the title and $500,000. The invitation-only bracket-style event was introduced four years ago, and Ferguson has made it to the finals three times, finishing second in both 2005 and 2006. This year, he nabbed first place after winning the last two matches in a best-of-three competition. Ferguson's match record in this exclusive event is an astonishing 16-3.

He had no aspirations of fame or fortune when he set out to master the game of poker. Since he entered the industry, however, he has achieved a level of success that is realized by few. Since the early '90s, Ferguson has accumulated more than $6.5 million in tournament earnings. In 2000, he did what every tournament player aspires to do when he defeated T.J. Cloutier to win the main event of the World Series of Poker. That was the second bracelet that Ferguson won that year; a few weeks earlier, he had won the $2,500 buy-in seven-card stud event. In the next few years, he went on to win three more bracelets. He is also the only player to have won three WSOP Circuit championship events.

Ferguson decided to study the game of poker in 1994 because he is a student at heart, and he knew that he could learn to play at the highest level. His tournament triumphs have made him a fan favorite, but recently he gained distinction for a feat that did not involve a win. He challenged himself to earn $10,000 by playing poker online, which may not sound too difficult. The catch was that he began the experiment with absolutely nothing in his online account; he had to play freeroll tournaments to get started. Luckily, tournaments are his specialty, and his studious approach to the game has been generously rewarded.

Card Player picked Ferguson's brain about all things poker after his NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship victory.

Lizzy Harrison: What was going through your mind as you entered the Heads-Up Championship finals for the third time?

Chris Ferguson: I was just thinking about playing poker. I had been there enough not to be nervous. I think that a lot of people would have worried about finishing second again, but I wasn't worried about that. I was proud to be there, and I still would have been proud had I finished second again. I was happy when I made the money in the third round; getting that deep was an accomplishment in itself.

LH: You played numerous matches in order to advance to the finals; which opponent was the most trying?

CF: John Juanda and Jon Little both gave me tough battles. Andy Bloch, though … that was the battle. He won the first match of the finals, and in the second match, he was ahead 3-to-1 in chips at one point.

LH: Why do you think that you've consistently done well in this event?

CF: I have studied heads-up poker more than any other aspect of the game. I used to play heads up a lot on the Internet. When you are playing online, you get to play a lot of hands; I used to see 300 an hour. By playing that many heads-up hands in rapid succession, I learned a lot. A lot of my strategies were born from the matches I played back then.

LH: How do heads-up matches allow for the mathematical aspect of your game to shine?

CF: The mathematical analysis that I have done is particularly useful when I am playing heads up. Game theory doesn't have good answers for multiway pots, because there are complications that come into play when you are playing against more than one opponent. It applies much more when you are up against a single opponent. Therefore, most of my game-theory research revolves around heads-up play. I do apply it in multiway situations, but it is most useful when I am playing heads up.

LH: You have won some of the most prestigious events in poker, and certainly are well-bankrolled; what made you decide to drain your online account and then try to turn nothing into $10,000?

CF: I looked at it as a challenge to myself. I figured that it would take me about six months to get from zero to $100, and then it would take me another six months to get from $100 up to $10,000. You might wonder how the hell I went from zero to anything. Well, Full Tilt has freerolls. You can enter a freeroll for nothing, and back when I was playing them, they would have around 900 players and would give out a total of about $40. When I played the freerolls with a $40 prize pool, the top 18 finishers got $2. If you made it to second place, you got $3, and the winner got $5. You would be shocked about how hard I tried to win those freerolls. During this experiment, I played my heart out in them. Everybody else was playing for fun, but I was sweating bullets. I would make a bluff and then sit there at my computer repeating, "Please don't call!" Every freeroll that I played was like that; if my opponents could have seen me, they would have thought I was insane to work so hard for two bucks.

LH: What style of play is conducive to success in freeroll tournaments?

CF: Solid poker. I think that early on, the players tend to be a bit wild. I tried to stay out of their way, but once I had a big hand, I was able to go after them. I tried to play well; I didn't go out on limbs to take advantage of anyone. I allowed their mistakes to cost them money. A lot of people try to get too fancy against beginners. I toned it down and I did not bluff much, especially when I knew the players would call me down.

LH: When did you make the jump from freerolls to real money?

CF: As soon as I won $2, I started to play cash games. I remember the first $2 that I sat down with. It was a 5¢-10¢ no-limit hold'em table, and the minimum buy-in was $2. I was totally committed, and eight hands after I bought in, I was broke. The button did not even make it all the way around the table.

LH: How did you make it to your first goal of $100?

CF: The way that I got there was by finishing second in a $1 buy-in tournament. I think second place awarded me a little more than $100.

LH: How did you decide how to divvy up your meager bankroll?

CF: Once I got up to $100, I had a set of rules that I had to follow. My formula is that I can buy into a live game for only 5 percent of my bankroll or less. If my bankroll goes down, that forces me to play in smaller games. I wanted to show people what really good money management can do. Oftentimes, players will lose and then move up in limits; it takes discipline to move down. Eventually, every player will experience a losing streak, and unless the player is very careful, he will lose his bankroll. The only way to avoid losing your bankroll while you are on a losing streak is to move down in limits. If you are losing but you continue to move down in limits, at least you are still in action. If you are a good poker player and are able to stay in action, you will move back up in limits. In tournaments, I had a slightly different strategy. For multitable tournaments, I limited my buy-in to 2 percent of my bankroll. The rule for single-table sit-and-gos was 5 percent. On the low end, I could always buy into any game for $2.50, and I could play in any tournament with a $1 buy-in.

LH: When did the experiment begin and how long has it been going on?

CF: It began in the middle of February two years ago [2006]. As I mentioned, I thought that it would take me a year to get to $10,000. It actually took me 18 months. It took nine months to turn nothing into $100, and then another nine to turn $100 into $10,000.

LH: Will the experiment continue indefinitely?

CF: The experiment is still going on. I got up to $10,000, and I continued. At one point, I built the account up to about $28,000. Then, I started to run very badly. I kept getting unlucky, but I stuck to my rules. I had played a few hands of $25-$50, but I soon had to move back down to $10-$20. I continued to go down from $28,000, and when I hit $20,000, I was a little bit concerned. I was a lot more concerned when I hit $15,000, because I had to move down to $5-$10. I actually continued to go down from there, and right now I have about $9,000. I can barely play $5-$10, and I may have to move down to $2-$4. It is hard to move down, because it is tough to have losing streaks like this, but it is important.

LH: What is it like to continuously have to move down in limits?

CF: Once you have been playing $25-$50 no-limit, it is really difficult to move back down. As I said before, the most important thing for a professional poker player to have is discipline. If you cannot move down in limits when you are losing, you do not have the discipline that is needed to be a professional poker player.

LH: What is the most profitable way to play low-limit no-limit hold'em?

CF: In $2-$4 no-limit, for example, you want to start with good hands. Play tight-aggressive and do not call a lot. If you think you have the best hand before the flop, put in a raise. If there is a raise in front of you, but you still think you have the best hand, reraise. It is not a good idea to call a raise with A-K, A-A, or K-K; you should reraise to limit the field.

LH: You are conducting your experiment on Full Tilt Poker; what exactly is your involvement?

CF: I founded the software development company that created the software for Full Tilt. I helped to design the software, which was appropriate because I am a poker player with a Ph.D. in computer science. I thought it was the perfect opportunity for me to combine my interests; it was great to be able to meld my knowledge of both poker and computers.

LH: When did you first start playing poker, and did you build your way up from nothing or did you have a bankroll?

CF: I never really had a bankroll. I have been playing poker for money since I was about 10 years old. In high school, I played all sorts of games with my friends; if we could imagine it, we would play it. We rarely played hold'em because, to us, it was a boring game. To get only two cards, with no wild cards, and not be able to pass any of them seemed stupid to us.

LH: When did you begin seriously playing poker?

CF: In around 1994, I really began to take no-limit hold'em seriously. I had built up money in other ways; I invested in the stock market, and I worked as a research assistant. I made a conscious decision to apply myself so that I could learn to play poker well. I realized that to learn, I would have to play against the best players. When I looked at the cash games, though, the best players were playing limits that were beyond my bankroll. The smaller games consisted of players who did not take the game seriously. I knew that it would be impossible to learn against players who were not really trying. What I did find was that in tournaments, I could play against some great players. In small buy-in tournaments, I played with Men "The Master" Nguyen, T.J. Cloutier, and Phil Hellmuth. The other thing, which was actually more important to me, was that the players were actually trying to win. I think that tournament poker is the way that poker should be played. That is why I decided to specialize in tournaments.

LH: Do you ever play in cash games?

CF: Not really. I like tournaments because they change over time and the strategy that you use to be successful also changes. Early in a tournament, the players have very big stacks in comparison to the blinds. You cannot risk everything without a monster hand. Later on in the tournament, players tend to tighten up a little bit as it gets closer to the money. You have to be able to take advantage of that. As the blinds go up, the stacks become relatively smaller, and you are not playing big-stack poker anymore. At this point, you can push people around a little more. Once you make the money, you are in another stage. This added dimension makes tournament poker interesting to me. I don't really enjoy live-action poker, mostly because I feel like I am taking money from other people. It doesn't seem fair to me. But once they put up their money in a tournament, someone is going to get it, so it might as well be me.

LH: What is your favorite game and why?

CF: No-limit hold'em; it is the most interesting game. Today, though, I actually look forward to tournaments that are not no-limit hold'em. All of the major tournaments right now are no-limit hold'em, so I like to play any other game. If I were to play a tournament today, I would be interested in playing any other game. However, if I could play only one type of poker for the rest of my life, I would want it to be no-limit hold'em. There is also another game that I love called Asian stud; it is a five-card game played with a stripped deck, which means that you use only 32 cards. You take out the deuces through the sevens. All of your cards are exposed except for one, and to me, that is the purest form of poker. Poker is about bluffing, which is representing something that you do not have. You also have to be able to detect when your opponent is bluffing. Of all of the games, Asian stud is the game in which skill is the most important. Since you have only one card hidden, it is not about reading the hands. It is a simple game, and it is all about having the guts to bluff and the guts to call down someone who is bluffing.

LH: You spent two decades pursuing higher education; what is it about school that you enjoyed?

CF: I enjoyed the freedom. I loved school, and I did not want to get a job. Luckily, I could afford to do it. I love the environment at UCLA; there are so many very interesting people there, really true, honest, and good people. It is rare to find people like that outside a university environment.

LH: What do you like about the poker community? Are there any similarities to the environment you enjoyed while in school?

CF: When I was in school, I had three very separate worlds that didn't have too much in common. I had the UCLA world, I had the poker world, and I had the dance world. I used to love to swing dance. There was really no crossover at all between my worlds, and I liked different things about each one. The only crossover was Mike Sexton; he's a champion dancer, and was inducted into the Shag Hall of Fame.

LH: What are you up to these days when you are not playing poker?

CF: I just took up golf about four or five months ago. I play about four times a week, but I'm no good.

LH: So, you're not gambling on golf yet?

CF: No. I might bet $100 against another guy who shoots about as bad as I do, though Gavin [Smith] did take me for a little bit of money. I don't think you'll see me on High Stakes Golf.

LH: You are known for your ability to throw cards through fruit; how exactly did you perfect that skill?

CF: I read a book by Ricky Jay called Cards as Weapons when I was a kid. It taught me how to throw cards, and I practiced a lot. Soon, I could throw cards into apples and they would stick; I thought that was pretty cool. When I was about 18, I decided to use a carrot, but I had no belief that I could actually cut it in half. I just wanted to throw a card at it to see if I could hit it. I hung up the carrot and, lo and behold, I was able to slice it in half. It was not until 2004 that it became a big deal. Harrah's was filming the promos for the World Series of Poker, and they asked me if I had any unusual skills. I told them I could slice a carrot in half with a playing card, though at that point it had been a while, and I was not even sure that I could still do it. I could, and once it aired, people began to come up to me and ask if it was a trick. I guarantee that I can do it with a normal paper playing card.

LH: Are you actually able to use cards as weapons? Could you hurt someone?

CF: If I were to throw a card at a person at point-blank range, I could break the skin. If it hits the bone, it can hurt very badly, but it won't cause an injury. I remember one time, I was cutting carrots in a studio, and when we were done, I noticed that the cameraman had a welt on his forehead with a trickle of blood. He knew that I had hit him, but he didn't know that he was bleeding. So, you can hurt people, but not too badly.