Posted by Steve Rosenbloom
LAS VEGAS -- The romanticized outlaw image of poker pumps out notions of cards and chips and cheats and degenerates on weeklong benders clinging to the No. 1 rule: Follow the money.
True things. All of it. To varying degrees, sure, but it's all true.
Many outsiders, then, express surprise that poker has a social conscience.
Shelly Castellano/Icon SMI
Phil Gordon, for instance, a smart, articulate pro who also writes for the ESPN Poker Club, spearheaded "Put a Bad Beat on Cancer,'' which raised money for cancer research by asking pros to donate 1 percent of their winnings. Bill Gazes enlisted fellow pros and even got tournament star John Juanda to dress up in a bear outfit at last year's U.S. Poker Championship in Atlantic City, N.J., to bring attention to an environmental cause.
Perhaps the most prominent social conscience in the game belongs to Barry Greenstein, a regular at the "Big Game'' at Bellagio with Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Phil Ivey, Jennifer Harman and the rest of the high-rent district. Greenstein made such a good living playing cash games that he donated his tournament winnings to charity, thus earning Greenstein the colorful moniker "The Robin Hood of Poker.''
Those tournament winnings totaled millions, so if Greenstein isn't the most notable socially conscious poker player in the lineup, he's at least batting cleanup.
Less publicized than his good deeds but just as compelling has been Greenstein's reluctance to accept a sponsorship with an online poker site the way so many pros have the last couple years. Most pros would jump at the chance to join an online site because they would have much of their tournament entry fees paid for, a way to make money in their sleep instead of relying solely on their fortunes at the table to earn a living. The online sites, of course, would have snagged a big name to represent them.
But Greenstein told all of them no, and there were a lot of offers, believe me.
"I told them I didn't want to because I didn't want to do the work,'' Greenstein said. "I'd rather be a poker player and make my money that way. Being involved with one of these sites means there are going to be demands on your time. They'll want me to go places, do things, represent them. It's not just free money; they're expecting something out of you, also.''
One of the other reasons for Greenstein's reluctance to partner with an online site -- the most telling, if not the most important -- was that he didn't want to look as though he was pushing pushing poker on kids, or even adults, for that matter.
The topic surfaced regularly in our discussions the last two years, and in many ways was driven home in his terrific book "Ace on the River.'' There, he lays out the poker lifestyle. You could read it and and interpret it as a guide to what it takes to succeed in poker. You could also read it and interpret it as a stop sign: If you aren't psychologically and emotionally tough, if you can't master money management, if you lack other fundamentals required of playing the game itself, then stay away.
So, it was a shock, really, when Greenstein showed up at this World Series of Poker wearing PokerStars apparel, becoming a full-fledged member of the online site that brags of having a hat trick with the last three main event champions: Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem.
What gives?
Turns out, a lot.
Turns out, what gives is Greenstein's ability to continue to give to charities around the world.
"The problem is, I don't get to work anymore because I don't get to play poker [in cash games] because of all these tournaments,'' Greenstein began. "I was really at a point where if I wanted to keep giving money to charity from the tournaments, then I was going to have to come up with other sources of income. I just don't get to work most of the year anymore.
"It was costing me, in entry fees and expenses, about $1.5 million the last two years out of my pocket for tournaments, and then I'm giving the money away.''
Greenstein is a former software programmer who gained fame working at Symantec, and a key part of his deal with PokerStars was the authority to change some of the site's programs.
"I had written into my contract that if they didn't do certain things I wanted from a software point of view, then that's breach of contract and I can get out,'' he said. "So, they've given me lots of control of the software as far as changes. I was a programmer at one time, so that's why it's kind of a good marriage because they've given me that authority. I'm now going to have the voice of a poker player and the knowledge to discuss the programs as a programmer.
"Up till now in other companies, that doesn't exist because normally the programmers are beginning poker players and the poker players aren't programmers, so there's always something missing in the translation. Oftentimes, you'll have the programmers say things like, 'We can't do it the way you want it done.' Well, they can't tell me that, because I'll tell them, 'I was a programmer. Let me come over there, because I can write the code for that, or at least write a flow chart for it.'
"It's working out real well because there are some things that they might've wanted to do differently before, but the programmers were giving them excuses why they couldn't do it a certain way. Now those excuses no longer fly.
"When they gave me that, that's what hooked me. They're paying my entries to the big televised events. In the end, the result for me is I'm allowed to keep giving the profits from my tournaments to charity and I still have an income.''
There is still the matter of the message he might be sending to kids -- the kids he didn't want to get all wrapped up in poker.
"One of the things I told [PokerStars] at the beginning was I lecture to high school and college students from time to time, and I'm always telling them to learn their competitiveness through sports, not through poker,'' Greenstein said. "That will teach them the right things, but it's healthier. I said I'm not going to go around pushing poker on the Internet to youngsters.
"My kids do play sometimes on the Internet. Like any activities -- video games, television -- you certainly want those things done in moderation. So, of course, I will still be pushing that message that playing on the Internet is OK if you're doing it in moderation. If you're young, you should be playing sports.
"I will be playing on the Internet on PokerStars [on platforms] that are made for me and designed by me. But even for myself -- not just for kids, but adults -- it's a real serious thing. Sometimes even to the level of an addiction where people really get obsessed playing on the Internet. With any type of gambling, we know that potential for abuse is there.
"I've never said playing poker is wrong or gambling is wrong. I've done it my whole life. Just don't let it be everything in your life. You've got to have other things. Some people, it's disruptive to them and it's probably better if they get out of gambling.''
Of the many times I've talked to Greenstein -- and understand, I hold him in high regard -- this is the one time when the principled, certain Greenstein sounds like he's still wrestling with a decision that already has been made. He surely wants to continue to do terrific things for people who need help, but he doesn't sound as dead-on as usual, and I tell him that.
"You're right,'' he admitted. "Gambling by itself, and doing it for a living, there's already that thing where as a professional you have to justify doing something where you try to take money from other people. There's no denying that I have at times taken money from someone and it's had a negative effect on their life. So, it isn't just Internet gambling; it's any type of gambling.
"Plus the fact that it's a nonproductive profession. It can be destructive, even to myself. I can't with a clear conscience say there's nothing wrong there. So I think it's not the Internet part. It's that gambling in general has a negative side to it, and to act like it doesn't would be fooling myself.
"The normal thing people say is, 'Well, if you didn't take the guy's money, someone else would.' That's the typical way that people rationalize it. But my own rationalization is that I make money doing it.
"It's funny. In our country, if you make it in the stock market, that's not looked upon as a bad way to make money. It's gambling also. So my way to rationalize what I do for a living is that I also try to do positive things with the money. That hasn't changed with the Internet thing.
"I will never be talking to kids and saying, 'Play at PokerStars; this is what you should be doing with your free time.' I'm never going to do it. The funny thing is, I'm not even going to be saying it to adults. It's not the kid issue. I do think people should be doing more productive things with their time. But if people do it for entertainment, even if they do it for a livelihood like I do, and they still have other things they do to make for a rounded life, then I do think it's OK. That's the message I'll be pushing.''
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