Five Questions With Poker Player Barry Greenstein

1. Most players have a favorite starting Hold ’Em hand. What’s yours?
Well, the truth is, no matter what anyone tells you, their favorite starting hand is two aces. Anything else is just some hand they may have won something with. 2-3 offsuit used to be a hand that I’d play to bluff people with when I was younger, and any hand can be effective when you’re playing deep-stack No-Limit Hold ’Em, which is what I used to play. But tournaments are a hybrid where it’s shorter stacked, so you can’t play these garbage hands as profitably.

2. Has the online community ever asked you to say something on TV that was so embarrassing you absolutely had to refuse?
One of the things they’ve asked me to do occasionally is more of an in-your-face type of thing when I beat someone a pot, like they want me to say “Ship it crucial” or “Ship it holla.” But I’ve explained to them that I can’t do anything that would be clearly unsportsmanlike. Even the time on High Stakes Poker, when I won a pot from Erick Lindgren and said “lol donkaments,” that’s one of the most famous incidents now associated with me, I was calling it on myself for making such a big overbet, and I then read that someone else thought I was trying to show Erick up. So I said to Erick, “I hope you realize I wasn’t in any way trying to make you look bad or say anything about you, I was saying it about me making a big overbet.” And he said, “That’s okay, I played the hand like a donkey anyway.” He didn’t take it personally.

3. For entertainment value, what player do you most like to find sitting at your table?
I don’t play to be entertained by my opponents, so it’s not something that I usually think about. But I’d say Phil Ivey, just because when we’re at the same table we joke around with each other a lot because we’re good friends. I know I can put him down and he can put me down and we never take it personally. He’s probably the only one that I would beat out of a big pot and then laugh at him.

4. You seem just about un-tilt-able. When’s the last time you went on tilt at the poker table?
Actually, I’m still on tilt right now, because, in the event I just played in, I’d set up a guy pretty well to put in all his chips, we were two of the chip leaders, and I had two queens and he had A-Q. We got all our chips in the middle and he hit an ace on the turn and busted me. I knew I was going to get him to put in all his chips, and I did, and as a result he’s at the final table. I’m still on tilt, and that was almost 24 hours ago.

5. Every tournament, you give a copy of Ace On The River to the player who eliminates you. Have you ever considered that the players you eliminate may need it more? As the so-called “Robin Hood Of Poker,” isn’t it a bit unusual for you to be giving to the rich like that?

Well, at the final table that I was recently at in Niagara Falls, the tournament director announced to the crowd that I’ll give the copy of the book to whoever knocks me out, and if I win it, I’ll give it to the second-place finisher. And I quickly corrected him, because to me, that would be like an insult. If I knock someone out and give him a copy of my book, it would look like I was saying, “Here, buddy, you have something to learn.” My book is for sale at the normal bookstores and on Amazon.com, but you have to knock me out of a major tournament to get a signed, dated copy with a detailed description of your triumph.