Pay attention. Be decisive. Calculate the odds. Take risks. Analyse people. These are attributes you need to win at poker — and in life. But the dozen “high rollers” who trailed into the GrandWest ballroom in Cape Town this week looked nothing like the tuxedoed-up James Bond in Casino Royale.
Instead, some look as though they’ve just rolled out of bed with — takeaway coffees in hand (games often run long past midnight). Their yawns under the purplish light are catchy as they take their seats at two tables to continue a knockout game which started the previous day, with 14 players paying R200,000 each to join.
South African poker professional Imran Bhojani is an exception, wearing a crisp T-shirt and fully alert. He’s advising international players about the Kauai menu, while ordering a peanut butter smoothie (for the protein).
You have super intelligent people at the table, but for some reason when it comes to poker they’re emotional
— US poker champion & coach, Melanie Weisner
The SunBet Poker Tournament, with R10.5m in prizes, makes South Africa its final stop of the 2023 international poker season, which ended today. Players from the US, Canada, France, Mauritius and other African countries flew in to take part.
Five minutes from the first break, Bhojani wins with the best and rarest hand a player can get. Exhilarated, he calls out his Royal Flush. “I’ve never seen that before,” says the 36-year-old, who's been playing competitively for about 10 years. Stunned, he says: “You saw I was disciplined before, folding [weak cards] all the time.”
Twelve hours later, he’s one of five to make it to the final table, fingers shuffling the steep stacks of chips in front of him. He’s in a hoodie now with sunglasses to shield his laser-sharp eyes. The game is being live streamed on YouTube.
Bhojani, who won the high rollers game and R1.85m of the R2.4m pot late on Monday night, is at the top of his game. He's won prestigious titles in South Africa and, in 2022, came 33rd out of 8,000 players at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, where millions of dollars are at stake.
“Poker is an extremely complex game with many elements to be successful. There are a lot of strategies, and maths is involved. I profile the people when I sit down,” he says, citing the adage, “It takes a day to learn, a lifetime to master”.
“We do a lot of work off the table. After each session we review our hands,” Bhojani says, adding he's paid his “school fees”. He's earned more than $262,000 (about R4.9m) in winnings but also has a passive income.
The founder of game theory, mathematician John von Meumann, chose poker as the perfect game to practice decision-making. Chess players have complete information to plot winning moves while poker players must make strategic decisions with incomplete information, like in real life.
Best-selling author and poker pro, Maria Konnikova — who has a PhD in psychology and excelled in poker while researching and writing The Biggest Bluff — was invited to the World Economic Forum to talk about smart decision-making.
Melanie Weisner, another international champion and friend of Konnikova, is at the tournament this week. She sits down at an empty table to talk about poker and choices. “Poker is a microcosm of the real world. I love the mental warfare,” says the 37 year old.
Men have learnt the hard way not to stereotype her in a world where barely 5% of the players are women; as the ballroom filled up this week, few players were women.
“Women tend to be less risk tolerant and aggressive. Girls aren't ushered into risk-taking growing up,” says Weisner, whose coaching has helped women outside poker — in negotiations from the boardroom to car showrooms.
As an experiment, I joined a “free rollers” game. During lockdown, my partner, friends and I played poker online. After it ended we played a live charity tournament, which hammered home the gulf between the two.
I was uncharacteristically silent, not wanting to reveal my inexperience, though dealer Benedict Thelele knew the truth (I'm a journalist masquerading as a player). I lasted longer than two players but after a rookie error, which cost me a whack of chips, one winning hand and one unlucky break, I was out in under an hour.
Across the ballroom, the Hendon Mob Championship — a series of live poker tournaments — was in full flow. This is the first time it's come to the southern hemisphere.
Another first was Weisner’s ladies’ poker coaching clinic. Her students dominated the final table at the women’s event, which she won. Her poker earnings are worth $954,000.
In 2006, sibling rivalry catapulted her into poker while she was studying music theatre, after her younger brother won $50,000 playing online. “I became obsessed with poker, sitting on the floor of bookstores reading about strategy,” says Weisner, who turned professional two years later.
She went on to play in the World Series and has won high-stakes games, sometimes lasting 24 hours, just like in the movies. Now “Callisto5" consults to filmmakers, on TV shows and at casinos, and plays tournaments. She also started a strategic coaching business. “Poker attracts all the disciplines so you have super intelligent people at the table but, for some reason when it comes to poker, they’re emotional. They don’t apply the same framework. So it’s a question of ‘what’s wrong with how they’re thinking about the game and how to unlock the logic'. You get these amazing ‘aha’ moments.”
Artificial intelligence is accelerating the learning curve in poker, with “algorithmic solver” programs showing the optimal betting and play for specific cards and hands. Professionals, like Bhojani, are learning from these advances and top players use AI to review their decisions. Nevertheless, humans, with their unpredictable behaviour, can be the wild card.
“Poker makes you aware of people’s motivations, and how other people see you,” says Weisner. This not only makes you more effective [in poker and real life] but also makes you more understanding and empathetic. “It can be a little exhausting having your analytical mind running all the time, but I love the way poker makes you think.”
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