Gambler Runs Up $10K Into One Drop Buy-In Playing Blackjack, Finishes Fifth For $1.1 MillionTexan Brian Green Was Without Sleep For Five Days Before Playing High Roller |
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Businessman and poker player Brian Green says he relied on a huge blackjack session to fund his entry into the $111,111 One Drop High Roller at the 2016 World Series of Poker. He ended up finishing fifth in one of the year’s toughest events for more than $1.1 million.
Green told Card Player that he borrowed $10,000 from another poker player and then played a 10-hour session of blackjack at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas. “I ran the money up to $113,000, and my mom was worried about me carrying around that much cash, so I deposited it and then sent a wire [to the Rio],” he said.
According to Green, the last blackjack session that resulted in a buy-in for One Drop was just one of many over the course of five days without sleep. Green said that he “was up without ever being horizontal for five days” because he was “beating the sh-t out of blackjack and couldn’t stop.”
He eventually decided to switch to a different card game. Despite approaching a week without sleep, he late registered for One Drop at around 10 p.m. on the first day of play. Green said that he did get some sleep after surviving to day two.
The 183-player field drew some of the game’s best players, with German poker pro Fedor Holz sitting with all the chips at the end for a $4.9 million payday.
Green said the “whole idea” of that final blackjack session was to try to run it up to a buy-in for the One Drop event. Green said he had made up his mind to play no matter what. “I was lucky,” he admitted. The Texan has been a “big money gambler” since he was “old enough to gamble.”
“I play about whatever there is,” said Green, whose love for gambling led to a friendship years ago with legendary Las Vegas gambler Archie Karas. Karas, as many within the poker community know, is famous for turning $50 into $40 million in the 1990s before eventually losing it all. During his run, he played for high stakes against some of the best poker players in the world and was winning against them for a time.
Unlike a lot of players in One Drop, Green didn’t sell any action. He used the entire blackjack score for the buy-in and didn’t hedge his bet.
“I’m not really a [poker] pro, I’m in the used car business,” he said. “I come out for any World Poker Tour event that I think is going to have $1 million for first.” High roller events where there’s big money on the line are “more suited for my game,” Green added. “One Drop was the first tournament in 17 years that I had butterflies before I came in.”
The Texas all-time tournament money list is something that Green was eyeing when he made the One Drop final table. A win would have put him in the top three, neck-and-neck with Doyle Brunson. “To be able to show my kids that I am third all-time in Texas would have been nice,” he said. “I wanted the recognition, the recognition from your peers that you aren’t a chump.”
Green is still reliving a big hand he played early on at the final table that, if it had gone a different way, could have positioned him for a better finish.
“The biggest part of the whole damn tournament was the fours hand,” Green said. “I knew he had A-K, and if I make that call I got 30 million with 90 million in play. That was my biggest mistake. I was so sure he had A-K, but I just couldn’t do pull the trigger. I even counted down my chips to see that I would have seven million left if I made the call and I was wrong. I was pretty sure what he had based on how the hand was played. It was two million preflop and 1.3 million as a continuation bet. It seemed like A-K to me. The turn was the Q
and he just ships it. I have been kicking myself in the ass all day for that. I thought about the call for six and a half minutes. The only reason I folded was because I asked him the stupid question ‘Will you show if I fold’ and he said ‘yes’ and I just mucked it. He showed A-K high. I’ve been beating myself up about it.”
“I’ll get over it, I just have to win something bigger now,” he said.
Thanks to the One Drop score, Green now has three WSOP final tables to his name. His other two came in 2001 and 2002, respectively. He has 22 lifetime cashes at the WSOP. His profitable summer at the 2016 WSOP has brought his career tournament earnings to $2.3 million.
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