The Main Event - Q & A with Bernard Lee, Part 3

Harvard graduate Bernard Lee made his first appearance to the poker public when he finished deep in the 2005 WSOP Main Event, eventually ending his run in 13th place and earning $400,000 for his efforts. Since then, he has become a regular figure behind the felt, known not only for his consistent results, but also for his contributions as a poker columnist for the Boston Herald and for ESPN.com. He is also the host of "The Bernard Lee Poker Show," and is a regular commentator for the World Series of Poker and it's circuit events. Card Player caught up with Lee the day after he busted out of the Main Event.

Ryan Cadrette: At this year's main event, they added a few levels to the beginning of the tournament, and have doubled the number of starting chips since 2005. How much of an impact do you think the changes they've made to the structure have had?

Bernard Lee: I think it helps us pros a ton, because you get a ton more play. As I said, I had 26,000 chips at the end of Day 1, and whereas last year it probably would have been at 400-800, this year we're at 250-500. That's fantastic. The more play I can get, the more chances I can take by playing those gapped suited connectors and so on. In all honesty, if someone had raised in front of me in '05, and I had pocket fours, I would let it go. I wouldn't even think about calling. Because there's only a 7.5:1 chance that I hit that. Now I will take that chance as long as the person has a lot of chips to go after and I can afford it. But now they have that opportunity. But when the blinds get real high, it's not going to be 5% of your stack to call, its going to be 20% of your stack, and you can't afford those chances. So it has really afforded us pros a bigger advantage because we can play more, and the amateurs are just jamming.

At World Series there are a lot of amateurs you can't get off of hands. This is why I think I end up playing a lot tighter than I would in another event I might play where there's 200-300 people and a lot more pros, I might play the suited connectors a little bit more, because I can get people off of hands. You can't anyone off a hand here. I mean, its just really hard. If you play a hand, like if they limp in from mid position and you raise to six times the big blind, they're calling. If you're on a draw, be prepared that you're going to have to call it with a draw.

I think that a perfect example is that I had pocket tens under the gun, raised to 1,650, and had the big blind jam me for 22,000. And you go, "What? I don't understand." So I went through it in my mind. I had around 40,000, so I still would have had about 20,000 left. And I just went through it in my mind. The first thing was, and no amateur should ever admit this, that this was his first World Series. Don't ever admit that this was the only event you've played in the whole series. That's a really dumb mistake. So if he's not that experienced of a player, if he had aces or kings or queens, he wasn't going to jam like that, because he would want me to call. So the hands that I put him on were jacks, which were a possibility, but so are nines, eights, sevens or sixes, and also over cards. So just the range of hands that he held, around 40% of the hands I was crushing, one I would be dead against, if he had jacks, and all the other ones I'm fifty-fifty. I'm still going to have about the 20,000 starting stack, we're at the 250-500 level, whatever, let's see if I'm right. So I call, and he flipped over A-K, and then I flopped my set and he was gone. Those are the kind of coin flips you're going to have to survive. So it's such an advantage for us to have this kind of structure, because it affords us a lot of play.

RC: And it also keeps them happy because they have so many chips in front of them.

BL: Exactly. And what you also have to remember is that there are a lot of amateurs who have never had 20,000 chips in front of them in their entire lives. I'm not even talking about in the beginning, I'm talking about in the whole tournament. A lot of these people start out with 1,000 chips playing at these local events. So when they get 20,000 chips, it's like they're at the final table. So when they look down at 20,000 chips and the blinds are 50-100, they don't know what to do with themselves. So they're calling 1,500 and 2,000 bets in the first level when they have top pair weak kicker. And they think it's good! And so I think that's a good thing for us, that they just love to donate chips to us. If you have a good first day and get some luck, you can have a lot of chips by the end of the day. And also on Day 2. You've weeded out some of the players and the rest have some more chips, but I think where you're going to see some more tightening up on the play is on Day 4 and Day 5. That's the point at which you're not going to see many flops.

RC: That's how you see the amateurs playing this year. But has the style of play of the average player changed at all over the past few years at the Main Event?

BL: I've got to tell you, I don't think so. I really really don't think so. I would say in WPT and World Series circuit events, it has. I would say it has gotten better. But you also have to remember its a smaller field. But you're talking 500-700 people, and they're not coming from all over to play in the one main event for the whole world that year, and there aren't a billion satellites going on all the time. But you know when you're playing at a casino, that casino is the casino that they're going to try to play at. And not everyone is going to come down to try and qualify. But when they do qualify, they're serious. Sure, you're going to have some players who are dead money. But I think there the level of play has gone up. In all honesty, I don't think the play at the World Series has improved that much. Especially at the beginning, where you have a lot of people making calls that leave you scratching your head. And there are people giving off the most obvious tells, and they have no idea they're doing it. Really they have no idea. If you read just one book, or even like the first chapter of Navarro or Caro, they're doing every single tell in the book. Leaning back when they're going to fold, covering their cards, looking down at their chips, they're doing every single thing. Some of them ask what level we're ending at for the day, or how many minutes there are in a breaks. In the past you got suspicious, because there are some people trying to fool you. But they're completely serious. They haven't looked online, they haven't done any research, they've never come to the Rio before. They're asking where the bathrooms are! It's shocking. The overall play of the amateurs, the first time players, in all honesty really hasn't gotten that much better. They're going to call you with top pair top kicker. Guaranteed. And if you're fortunate enough to hit that set, you're going to get a lot of chips.

RC: Do you have any concluding remarks that you would like to add?

BL: I think that the one thing that's great about this year's world series was that even with the fear that the first two days were pretty weak in attendance, and I think part of that had to do with July 4th as well, that there was such a big turnaround on day 1C and 1D. That is just such a testament to poker, to have almost 500 more people come in from last year. Poker is alive and well. And its not only part of American culture, but it is truly now part of the world's culture. I think that is fantastic for poker. This is not a fad, this is here to stay. We're just going to continue to increase the popularity of poker, and that's good for everybody.

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