Steve 'gboro780' Gross Claims Online Poker’s Highest Honor

Card Player magazine has been the poker authority for more than two decades, and during that stretch, it has crowned 13 Player of the Year (POY) winners. With strict award criteria and an extensive database of tournament history dating back to the very first World Series of Poker tournament, Card Player has established its POY award as a pinnacle of achievement within the poker community.

Due to increased activity in the online poker community, the Card Player Online Player of the Year (OPOY) award was established in 2007 to recognize those who excelled on the virtual felt. The inaugural winner was Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron, who has gone on to have a lucrative live-tournament career, as well. The beauty of the award is that players can compete from the comfort of their homes, and receive points for going deep in any online tournament that follows the rule of 100: Points are offered in any tournament that features a buy-in of $100 or more, a prize pool of $100,000 or more, and a field size of 100 or more players.

No Longer Playing Second Fiddle
Steve “gboro780” Gross had a spectacular year in 2008. The young pro from Marlboro, New Jersey, racked up $735,997 in online tournament winnings despite never cashing for more than five figures or winning a major tournament. That was a true testament to his reputation as one of the most consistent players in the online world. Unfortunately, it was also the reason why he fell just shy of OPOY honors, finishing runner-up to Alex “AJKHoosier1” Kamberis.

With a new sense of urgency in 2009, Gross picked up right where he left off and started crushing tournaments. This time around, he added three six-figure scores to his poker resume and made sure that he closed things out whenever he got deep.

Growing Up Gross
Gross is the youngest of five children, having three sisters and a brother. Although he originally learned to play cards from his grandparents, it wasn’t until his freshman year at Rowan University that he was bit by the poker bug.

A friend in his dorm room was playing sit-and-gos on PartyPoker, and Gross asked him to transfer $50 into his account in exchange for cash. After losing his initial deposit, Gross repeated the process four times before he finally began to win. Since that point, he has won and kept himself far in the black, all on his own dime.

By the time he reached his junior year, he was already a successful online grinder and wanted to take his skills on the road to see if he had the chops to play on the live circuit. His mother, Doris, is a schoolteacher, and along with his father, Michael, has always pressured Gross to finish school. Together, they worked out a six-month sabbatical, during which Gross traveled and played poker.

When he returned, he diligently powered his way to a degree in business management. With school behind him, he began his climb up the online rankings.

So Good, It’s Gross
In January 2009, Gross made the largest score of his career up to that point in time, finishing runner-up in the $1 million-guaranteed event on Full Tilt Poker. The $126,506 payday significantly boosted his bankroll, and also put him among the leaders in the OPOY standings. Just three weeks later, he won a Full Tilt Online Poker Series event for more than $275,000. Now, he wasn’t just in good company, but was absolutely cruising atop the leader board.

Then in April, he switched his focus to PokerStars, where the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) was in full swing. In event No. 11, a $3,000 six-max tournament, Gross cemented his status as one of the greats with a runner-up performance that was good for $128,000. In all, he had 64 OPOY-qualifying cashes, 30 final-table appearances, and eight wins during the year.

The 24-year-old earned more than $1.2 million in 2009, and finished with the most points (10,188) in the OPOY award’s three-year history. Card Player recently met with the 2009 Online Player of the Year to discuss his accomplishment and what it means to him.

Julio Rodriguez: Can you talk about the volume of play that is required to compete for the OPOY title?

Steve Gross: You obviously have to play a lot to be in contention, but it all comes down to being able to close out for big wins. A solid, consistent year is great, but you are going to need to take down a major tournament or two to be in the running late in the year. You look at a guy like David Sands, and you can see that even though he didn’t play as often as others, he was able to stay in the hunt because he won so many big events.

JR: Taking on a massive field that’s full of satellite qualifiers in a tournament such as the Sunday Million must be a completely different animal than competing against the tough grinders in the $200 rebuy event. What is the major difference between those types of tournaments, and what is it like to play them simultaneously?

SG: I’ve noticed that my game changes with the number of recognizable players at the table. I know that I’ll be able to get away with a lot more at a table that’s full of unknowns, and I also know that I’ll have to pick my spots more carefully at a table with a bunch of regulars.

That being said, I have noticed a change in the big Sunday tournaments lately. You’d think that anyone who gets deep would be easy to pick apart, because he is worried about the big money jumps, but it’s amazing how much you’ll get played back at by a guy who’s never been that deep before. People can go crazy, four-betting and reshoving at times when you’d think they’d hit the brakes. But that’s just a testament to how good the average player has gotten, and how much everyone needs to improve to stay ahead of the curve.

JR: What was your proudest moment of the year?

SG: The FTOPS win was really big for me. I was out late the night before the tournament, and was feeling really sick the next day. I really wanted to just pass out and get better, but I kept picking up chips and getting deeper and deeper. It was 6 a.m. when I finally closed out the win, and even though I was completely fried, I felt a great sense of accomplishment.

JR: What happens when you realize that you just won $275,000? Did you go nuts? Was anybody there to congratulate you?

SG: No, I was by myself, just sitting in my apartment in New Jersey at the time. It felt great, don’t get me wrong, but the jumping around and getting high-fives sort of went away when poker became my job. I remember one of the first big tournaments I won. It was for $10,000 on PartyPoker, and to be honest, I probably felt more excited about that one. Now, I don’t want to say that $275,000 isn’t a lot of money. It’s my biggest score and I’m not likely to get one of those every year, but at this point in my career, it just doesn’t surprise me. I have come to expect that the amount of work I put in will eventually pay off, and that time it did.

JR: Rankings have become very important to the online community. You’ve been at or near the top for quite a while now. What’s your opinion of them, and how have they affected your game?

SG: There’s pressure, and it can wear on you, but to be honest, I think it helps me. I know that you can’t win every tournament or close out every final table, but I see the rankings day in and day out, and I can’t help but believe that I’m going to go deep in every tournament I enter and win every time I make the final table. There’s motivation for me to stay on top, but more importantly, I use it as a confidence booster. Of course, I have come to realize that rankings don’t tell the whole story. A year of play, even online, is still too small a sample size for determining all of the great players.

As far as my game is concerned, I have noticed that a high ranking often comes with a target on your back. In the past, unknown players would play more passively against well-known players. But now, it seems like everyone wants to be able to say that he beat a guy like Shaun Deeb in a pot. It certainly has created more action for me, and I’ve had to adjust accordingly.

JR: Well, do you think that you were the best player of 2009?

SG: (Pausing) For multitable tournaments, yes.

JR: Are you implying that cash-game players are better players?

SG: I truly believe that the upper-echelon cash-game players are on a completely different level than we tournament players are. They are just forced to think about things a lot more than we do. Luckily for me, they don’t play very many tournaments, because I honestly think they’d blow us out of the water if they decided to put in the time.

JR: Are cash games an eventual goal of yours?

SG: I was sitting in the Bellagio $15,000 tournament next to Marco Johnson and Dutch Boyd, and the two of them were talking about the fact that in tournaments, only one person walks away happy. Yeah, you can bust out in third or second place and get a nice payday, but even then you are mad at yourself for not winning. They went on to say that in cash games, a small winning session will often be more gratifying than working for three days just to get a minimum cash in a tournament. They may have been exaggerating their point, but I think a lot of it made sense. I don’t want to say that I’ve completely conquered tournaments just because I was the best in 2009, but I definitely want to look into playing some more cash games in 2010 and get better at that aspect of the game.

However, I’m not going to just jump into some $25-$50 game. I’ll probably set aside about $10,000 or so and see if I can run it up. In tournaments, I often get moved to a table and feel like I’m the best player there. But in cash games, it’s not that far off to feel like the fish at the table. I know my place in the poker world, and I’m willing to pay my dues to get to where I want to be.

JR: Is poker still a passion for you? Do you play because you still love the game, or has it become work?

SG: I’m not going to lie, it feels like work a lot of the time. It could be because I accomplished a lot of my goals in 2009 and am just looking for the next challenge. Maybe that’s why I want to get into cash games, just to keep myself on my toes with something new. That being said, I still get excited when I think about the World Series of Online Poker or FTOPS. I still get excited when I’m deep in a tournament. Poker is definitely still a passion of mine.

JR: Finally, what does it mean to be the 2009 Card Player Online Player of the Year?

SG: More than anything, it’s an affirmation to myself. When I first started playing, I was looking up to guys like “JohnnyBax” [Cliff Josephy] and wondering if I’d ever have what it takes to be up there in that same category of players. Finishing the year on top just lets me know that I do belong up there and do deserve to be mentioned with the greats. I’ve always been mediocre at a lot of things, so it feels good to finish the year at number one.

Steve Gross on the Characteristics of a Winner
Poker is not an exact science and there is no such thing as a blueprint for success, but there’s no harm in obtaining a few helpful tips to get you going down the right path. Here, Steve Gross outlines three key characteristics that all winning poker players share.

Patience
“It doesn’t matter how many moves you have in your arsenal, you will continue to bust yourself from tournaments if you don’t exercise some patience. It’s kind of like your ‘slow-down gear.’ Too many players get ahold of some skill, and all of a sudden feel that they should try to win every pot. Just because it’s out there for the taking, it doesn’t mean you should always go for it.”

Versatility
“I think being able to switch gears is extremely important. People are always asking me how I play, but the truth is that I can’t really give them an answer. In addition to being able to switch up your play and adjust to any opponent, you can’t forget about the little things, like stack size, position, and even the tournament structure itself. All of those factors should contribute to your ever-changing playing style.”

Plug Your Leaks
“Watch the best players and study their play. Your game is like a puzzle, and the best way to fill in those missing pieces is to learn from the best and see what it is that they are doing that you aren’t. It really is that simple. Plug the leaks in your game and you’ll soon see some success come your way. After that, it’s all about fine-tuning and tweaking the finished product.”

2009 Online Player of the Year Results

Here’s a look at the 2009 final top 10 standings.

Rank Player OPOY Points 2009 Winnings
1 Steve “gboro780” Gross 10,188 $1,216,413
2 David “Doc Sands” Sands 9,420 $1,018,966
3 Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen 9,100 $730,655
4 Chris “Moorman1” Moorman 8,464 $957,710
5 Shaun “TedsFishFry” Deeb 8,290 $788,451
6 Joseph “hoodini10” Udine 8,052 $882,927
7 Jeremiah “Believer82” Vinsant 7,994 $830,766
8 Jonathan “shipitobv” Delong 7,926 $764,124
9 Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek 7,776 $665,453
10 Daniel “djk123” Kelly 7,724 $1,409,909

The Best of the Rest
No. 2 – David “Doc Sands” Sands – 9,420 Points
OPOY Winnings: $1,018,966
Cashes: 47
Largest Cash: $259,440
Final Tables: 27
Wins: 11

Of all the players in the top 10, David Sands probably played the least amount of tournament poker in 2009, but you wouldn’t know it based on his stats. He made his cashes count, winning more than one-third of the tournaments in which he made the final table. He won a wide variety of major tournaments, and even picked up his first gold jersey during FTOPS XII.

The Hamilton College graduate has called Bozeman, Montana, and San Francisco, California, home, but he now resides in Las Vegas in between stops on the live-tournament circuit. Although his experience in the live arena is limited, he did manage to make two sizeable cashes at the World Series of Poker.

No. 3 – Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen – 9,100 Points
OPOY Winnings: $730,655
Cashes: 70
Largest Cash: $99,792
Final Tables: 35
Wins: 2

Had Orlando’s Thayer Rasmussen managed a few more wins during the year, there is no question that he would have been the top player of 2009. He finished third in the standings the hard way, by making an impressive 70 cashes. Exactly half of them were final-table appearances, but the young pro could close out only two for wins.

Rasmussen maintained a grueling online schedule of play despite increasing his appearances in live tournaments. He has been a popular online player for the past few years, and even has a World Poker Tour final table on his resume. This is Rasmussen’s highest finish in the race’s three-year history; he previously finished 33rd and 29th.

No. 4 – Chris “Moorman1” Moorman – 8,464 Points
OPOY Winnings: $957,710
Cashes: 64
Largest Cash: $204,000
Final Tables: 29
Wins: 4

As the only European representative in the top 10, Chris Moorman faced the disadvantage of competing at off-peak hours. Despite this time-zone obstacle, he still managed to make a staggering 64 cashes in 2009.

His consistency on the virtual felt netted him a sponsorship with Doyle’s Room, where he became one of the “Brunson 10,” a group of young online pros handpicked by Texas Dolly himself. Moorman, from Brighton and Hove in the United Kingdom, narrowly missed winning his first gold jersey during FTOPS XIII, where he finished runner-up in event No. 17. In December, he had a chance to close the gap considerably on Gross when he made the final table of the Sunday Million. Unfortunately, he fell short of the win and had to settle for fourth place in the OPOY standings.

No. 5 – Shaun “TedsFishFry” Deeb – 8,290 Points
OPOY Winnings: $788,451
Cashes: 52
Largest Cash: $90,337
Final Tables: 29
Wins: 11

It’s been an amazing two years for the man who has played more tournaments than anyone. In 2008, Shaun Deeb finished fifth in the standings, and in 2009, he garnered another fifth-place finish. During his two-year run, he has won more than $1.5 million in OPOY-qualifying tournaments alone.

Deeb made headlines in November, when he announced that he was quitting tournament poker. This has since been downgraded into a long, sustained break. He was sitting comfortably in third place when he decided to pack up his mouse and call it quits, and was just one small winning streak away from overtaking Gross and perhaps capturing an OPOY title of his own.