Jeffrey Lisandro Proves Himself With Historic World Series

His friends refer to him as a bit of a loner and an enigma. His opponents call him one of the best in the game. Before the 2009 World Series of Poker, Jeffrey Lisandro was considered a great — if not terribly well-known — poker player. But after the 2009 WSOP, where he captured three bracelets in just over two weeks, Lisandro is now considered a giant, a superstar, a legend in the making.

He becomes just the fifth person ever — and the first since the poker boom — to win three bracelets in a single World Series, joining an exclusive group that includes Puggy Pearson (1973), Ted Forrest (1993), Phil Hellmuth (1993), and Phil Ivey (2002).

Not too much has been written about Lisandro. The dual citizen of Italy and Australia has led a quiet and impressive life, earning millions at the poker tables and even more in his real estate investments. But he has shied away from revealing too much of his personal history, preferring instead to let his game speak for him. But now, at the end of his historic summer, he sits down with Card Player magazine to tell his story and reflect upon his life.

Childhood and Formative Years
There is a certain twinkle in Lisandro’s eyes when he talks about his childhood, but it is undoubtedly accompanied by a forlorn look, as if he still remains nostalgic about those early days.

He was the oldest son in a large family, and often watched over his six siblings (three brothers and three sisters). He had aunts, uncles, grandparents, and relatives always coming to visit his family in Australia, and all of them had a common favorite activity — cards. Poker was the game of choice in the Lisandro family, and everyone, young and old, anted up.

“I loved it when my mother and father would play cards all night. My grandfather, my grandmother, everyone would play,” said Lisandro. “You might have lost like $50, but even that was a lot of money back then.”

It was in this competitive environment that Lisandro first learned how to play, quickly falling in love with the game. A particularly good math student in school, he adjusted naturally to the probability and odds involved in poker. In fact, he was a pretty good student in most of his subjects, but he didn’t stay in the classroom long.

“After my mother and father divorced, I quit school,” he said. Shortly after his parents’ divorce, at the age of 16, Lisandro dropped out of school. Even now, in his 40s, he doesn’t like discussing the reasons behind his life-changing decision, saying only that it was “a difficult time.”

During this tough time, he went off to work with his father, an exploration driller. He traveled all around western Australia, from town to town, making a living by working for an oil company while continuing to play his fair share of poker.

“I played the local game in all these little country towns,” said Lisandro. “That’s where I knew I could start making money playing poker.”

Pretty soon, the young card player was earning a healthy side income and a well-deserved reputation for his poker abilities.

And that’s when he was challenged to a game that would forever change his life.

The Heads-Up Match and His New Career
Still working as a driller at the age of 20, Lisandro attracted the attention of John Urovich, a very wealthy mining boss.

“In 1982, he challenged me to a game of poker,” said Lisandro. “I had like $10,000 on me, which was still a lot of money in those days. You could probably buy a house for like $40,000. And he wanted to play fairly high stakes. It was probably bigger than my bankroll was suited for.”

But, Lisandro put up the cash, and at the end of the day, he had turned his $10,000 into $70,000.

“That was just so much money in those years,” said Lisandro, remembering that both his father and uncle were proudly watching and rooting him on. “After one day, the guy stood up and said, ‘If we don’t double the stakes, I’m going to quit.’”

Lisandro was at a crossroads. He had the opportunity to politely decline Urovich’s new challenge, take his newfound riches, and be on his way. Or, he could accept the higher stakes, play on, and risk losing it all. So, what did the young Lisandro say?

“I said, ‘OK, let’s double the stakes.’”

Four days later, after playing the same opponent the entire time, Lisandro was up more than $500,000. He had turned 10 grand into half a million in less than a week.

“He gave me a block of apartments in a really good suburb of the city in exchange for the money he owed me,” said Lisandro.

From that day forward, he was in the real estate business.

“I never use money from the bank to buy my properties. I always pay for them with my poker winnings. I never borrow a dollar,” said Lisandro. “I’m a very conservative poker player. In the 20 years I’ve been playing poker, I’ve never had to sell a property to play poker. It’s always been the other way around.”

Now, Lisandro owns about 20 residential properties throughout Australia, Prague, and Italy.

A World-Traveling Cash-Game Player
When he was drilling throughout Australia, Lisandro cherished the opportunity to see so many different places and experience so many different cultures.

“I loved seeing different groups of people, different towns, different cities, different cultures. I loved it,” he said. So, with a healthy bankroll, he went off to see the world, playing cards against top players from around the world.

“I’ve probably played in about 30 or 40 countries,” said Lisandro.

Istanbul. Moscow. Macau. Cyprus. The Phillipines. If there was a high-stakes cash game, Lisandro was there.

He goes to about 10 countries each year, playing in some of the biggest games in the world. As poker has continued to explode internationally, Lisandro has pioneered its new frontiers.

He remembers how different the games were before the poker boom.

“I went to Istanbul in the early ’90s because they had massive games of stud there. But there were only like 20 players in the whole country. Ten of them were businessmen, five of them were tourists, and the other five were professionals. I went there and won a lot of money,” said Lisandro. “My opponents weren’t as famous as the World Series of Poker players, because they weren’t on television, but there were some great players.”

Now, of course, stud games — Lisandro’s bread and butter — are few and far between.

“It’s not easy to find eight stud players and to make it a regular game today. There are thousands of hold’em players, so the poker rooms around the world and in America aren’t offering stud games. Ten years ago, there were stud games everywhere. They were great.”

Over the years, Lisandro has done very well for himself in these cash games, consistently reaching what he considers to be a modest goal.

“I do OK. I have a very small goal,” he said. “My goal is making a million dollars a year, and I’ve done that each year for the last 11 years.”

He said that back in the day, when he played in relative obscurity, no one really knew much about him. Was he a shark or just a lucky fish? But after his historic triple-bracelet performance at the 2009 Series, news spread to his former competitors in cardrooms around the globe.

“Now they tell me, ‘Hey, I might have lost my money, but at least I lost it to a great player,’” Lisandro said.

Making the Transition to Tournament Play
Lisandro always preferred cash games to tournaments, admitting that it was difficult for him to stay motivated enough to be successful at tourneys. But as poker exploded and he saw fellow pros gain stardom on ESPN, he realized that he might be missing out on something.

“There’s a lot of money in poker if you’re a really good player,” said Lisandro. “I thought, well, if I get a lot of good results, maybe I can get some sponsorship or benefit from the business side of poker.”

But he was never able to secure such a sponsorship deal. He would get involved in discussions, but the deals would always break down.

“I haven’t made anything from endorsements or the business side of poker,” said Lisandro. “I’m still just basically a player funded by winnings from tournaments and cash games.”

Perhaps feeling slighted, Lisandro had found his motivation.

“I’ve really been playing the WSOP only the last six years,” said Lisandro. “I played a little before that, but in the last six years, I’ve been playing really hard.”

His success has been staggering; at the 2009 World Series alone, he’s cashed for more than $800,000. He’s bagged three bracelets ($10,000 seven-card stud eight-or-better, $2,500 razz, and $1,500 seven-card stud), and has six cashes total. His cumulative World Series stat line now features 31 cashes, 12 final tables, and four bracelets.

Even with a comparably light tournament schedule outside the WSOP, he still holds a top 10 standing in the Card Player 2009 Player of the Year race.

But, he remains patchless; nothing from PokerStars, nothing from Full Tilt — nor Bodog, DoylesRoom, or any other online poker room. With literally hundreds of players sponsored by sites, Lisandro remains a glaring omission.

“Jeff is a real enigma. He doesn’t give an inch to someone he doesn’t think deserves it if he’s not a good guy,” said Barry Greenstein, who has known Lisandro for about 10 years. “But if someone is a good person, Jeff is real generous and real nice and real thoughtful. He’s very, very different, so that’s why I think there are a lot of different impressions out there of Jeff.”

But even before this summer, Greenstein knew what a great player Lisandro is, and he proved it in the form of a monstrous prop bet.

The World Series Prop Bet
Daniel Negreanu and Erick Lindgren had been talking a big game. They boasted that no other duo in poker could beat their collective performance at the World Series, and they were willing to put up their money to prove it. Greenstein was interested.

“I said, ‘OK, I’m going to take Phil Ivey as my partner,’” Greenstein told them. “They said, ‘Well, no, you can’t take Phil Ivey; you have to pick someone else.’”

It was probably a good decision by Team Negreanu/Lindgren, as it was becoming increasingly clear that with several prop bets of his own on the line, Ivey was going to take the 2009 Series very seriously. However, their acceptance of Greenstein’s next choice wound up costing them a lot of money — at least six figures, and probably close to half a million dollars.

“I thought, well, let me take the highest-limit player who plays all of the games and isn’t going to be playing in the side games, so that he’ll be rested,” said Greenstein. After running into Lisandro at Commerce Casino and talking with him to make sure that he wasn’t going to fall into the cash games during the Series, Greenstein had his man.

The two players accepted the challenge from Negreanu and Lindgren, and promptly blew them out of the water.

“The amazing thing is, without that bet, he never would’ve had this World Series, because he wasn’t going to play the seven-card stud event with a $1,500 buy-in, but then said, ‘Oh, all right, I’ll play it because of the bet.’ He played it, and won it,” said Greenstein.

Where His Accomplishment Ranks All-Time
When Lisandro won his third bracelet of this Series and fourth overall, his accomplishment quickly became the water-cooler talk of every poker player at the Rio. Where did this rank all-time?

Although he is just the fifth person to accomplish this feat, he is the first person to do it since the “Moneymaker Effect” forever changed the game and tournament field sizes at the World Series. In his three events, he beat a total of 835 players.

Pearson, on the other hand, had to beat out only 12 other players in his main-event win for one of his bracelets. Ivey’s three-bracelet year comes closest in terms of players beat, but even that is a distant second, at 529 players.

“I think it definitely ranks as one of the top 10 poker accomplishments of all time,” said two-time main-event winner Johnny Chan, whose first, first, second finishes in three consecutive main events also likely puts him on that theoretical top 10 list.

“He’s a very solid player, and he always picks the right spots,” said Chan.

Greenstein said that there is no doubt that Lisandro’s feat is the most impressive of any of the triple-bracelet winners, partly because no one was sure that it could be done in poker’s modern era.

“A lot of people might have said before this year that we may not ever see another guy win three bracelets, because the fields are so big,” said Greenstein. “Lisandro proved them wrong.”

The Perceived Lisandro vs. the Real Lisandro
Most casual poker fans who knew of Lisandro before this summer could identify him because of one specific incident — “Antegate.”

In the 2006 main event, where he finished in 17th place, he was accused (wrongfully) by Prahlad Friedman of purposely not putting in his ante during one of the later hands of the tournament. Friedman referred to him as a “thief,” telling him that he didn’t trust him.

Lisandro told Friedman several times that he didn’t know what he was talking about, but after Friedman persisted, Lisandro uttered the memorable line: “If you say it one more time, I’m going to take your head off!”

Friedman complained that he was being threatened, both players were warned, and the very intense situation slowly died down — but not before ESPN captured it for its worldwide audience in one of the most entertaining segments of its coverage.

While Lisandro does feature a tough-guy look and an almost mobster-esque persona, it is his faith in God and his religion that dictates how he leads his life.

“I’m a Christian, and that’s very important to me,” said Lisandro. “It controls the way I behave, and it affects my goals and priorities in life.”

While he says that he always puts forward his best effort at the poker table, he is much more accepting if and when things don’t go his way.

“It’s God’s will, if you win it or not. In life, poker is very small. You don’t get carried away,” said Lisandro. “I never pray to God to win a tournament. I pray to God for someone to get cured, or something. As much as I want to win that bracelet and win that tournament, it’s not big enough to pray for. If someone else wins it, so be it.”

He admits that it’s sometimes not easy balancing his faith and his gambling lifestyle.

“It’s a really hard issue. That’s probably why I’m so generous. I used to beat people out of money and then give it back,” he said. “Normally, I play only other professionals. I try to gamble against other people who can afford to lose. I like to know about their financial situation before I play. I don’t want to beat up on guys who can’t afford it.”

And, he says gambling isn’t a sin — not in his book, or in the Good Book.

“Gambling is not really a sin, as I read it in the Bible. There are a few verses where Jesus went to the temple and threw over the gaming tables, but he never said it was a sin. He took out the gaming tables because they were in the temple of worship,” said Lisandro. “You’ve got to know where gambling is as a priority in life. It’s a form of entertainment, and it should be done in the right places. And it should be in the right order of your life.”

Lisandro quietly gives money to charities, and firmly believes that funds should be put aside to help those people who struggle with gambling addiction.

Moving Forward
With a record-setting World Series in the books, Lisandro has instantly catapulted himself into the upper echelon of the poker elite. With four bracelets in stud-variant events, he has established himself as one of the most feared stud players in the world.

When asked why he’s so good at stud, he simply responds that it’s because of the game itself.

“In no-limit hold’em, you can get a totally erratic player who does the craziest things, and your whole stack can be based on one hand,” said Lisandro. “In stud, you’ve got to know all the situations. You’ve got to have a lot of experience. Sheer aggression is not as effective in stud as it is in hold’em.”

Moving forward, it probably wouldn’t surprise anyone to see Lisandro win another bracelet or two. As for remaining “patchless,” that’s probably another story.

Lisandro Reveals Some Stud Secrets

His success easily qualifies him as an expert. With four bracelets in stud-type events — two in seven-card stud, one in seven-card stud eight-or-better, and another in razz — Jeffrey Lisandro is a pre-eminent stud poker player. Here, he shares some of his secrets for stud success with Card Player.

Stud
1. Adjust your starting hands based on what others are showing.
“Your starting hand varies, depending on the cards you see on the board. It’s not like hold’em, where there are certain starting hands. A pair of eights or a pair of nines is a good hand to start with if all of the other cards are lower. But you might not want to play them if all of the other cards are bigger.”

2. Concentrate and pay especially close attention when the hand is being dealt.
“The biggest mistake that I see people make is not concentrating enough. When the dealer deals out the initial hands, a lot of people aren’t looking at the hands. They’re talking, they’re Twittering, they’re on their mobile phones, and so on. To play as well as possible, you need to be concentrating on the cards coming out. I generally remember every single card in a given hand, although sometimes I miss one or two.”

3. Don’t give up on a hand too early.
“Another mistake that people make is that when the pot is big, they throw away their hand too early. Even if you’re behind, you might have such massive pot odds that with one pair and a big enough kicker, you should be trying to make two pair. A lot of people feel like they’re beat, and they dump their hand.”

4. Be very conscious of your kicker(s).
“Your kicker is very important. Even if someone has a higher pair, if you have a couple of cards higher than that and they’re fresh (meaning they haven’t been dealt to anyone earlier in the hand), you should often peel to another street.”

5. Be careful of low flush cards.
“I will play for flushes if my three cards are fairly big, so that I have some chance of winning if I make two pair. But I wouldn’t play something like the 7 4 3 in seven-card stud high.”

Razz
1. Play the strength of your board.
“In razz, you basically start with three low cards. After that, you’re playing the strength of your board, of what you have showing. Keep putting in bets even if you have paired one of your holecards. Just keep firing. You can win the pot just on this basis.”

2. Have the discipline to fold.
“The biggest mistake that people make is that when they make an 8 low, they can’t get away from the hand. If someone’s board is showing (X) (X) A-2-4-5 (X), your hand is no good.”

3. Steal.
“There is a lot of stealing in razz. When you have a small card [showing] and all of your opponents have big cards, you have to try to steal — even if you have two bad ones in the hole.”

Lisandro believes that while hold’em strategy has evolved in recent years with the increase of aggression brought on by online players, stud strategy has remained relatively the same.

“In stud, you can make a few moves, and make a few plays, but you’ve got to know all of the situations,” said Lisandro. “It’s a game of experience.”