Power from poker

February 8, 2004 BY TOM MCNAMEE Staff Reporter

We were doing homework. Barry was playing poker.

Thirteen years old and the kid was cleaning up in five-card draw and Seven Card Stud.

We were working paper routes, baby-sitting, stocking shelves at Walgreens. Minimum wage was $1.60.

WATCH BARRY WIN

Barry Greenstein won $1.2 million at the World Poker Open in Tunica, Miss., on Jan. 29. The tournament will be shown on the Travel Channel at 8 p.m. on April 21, and again at 5 p.m. April 24.

Barry was eyeing his hole card in house games. He was beating juniors and seniors, college boys. He was walking home on a typical night with another $30 in his pocket, maybe $50.

Barry was a genius. We knew that. He got every math question right on the ACT and SAT. He came up with science fair projects most of us couldn't even understand -- like his paper on "the natural logarithm base e."

But most of us didn't know about the poker. We didn't know Barry was some kind of a genius at that, too. Or that he'd go on to make his living at the card tables, off and on, for decades to come.

We were the Class of 1972 at Bogan High School, 79th and Pulaski, and we did all right.

Scientists. Plumbers. Doctors. Cops. Lawyers. Nurses. Professors. Bricklayers. One arborist. One judge. One forest ranger. One Chicago Sun-Times reporter.

And one world-class professional poker player, Barry Greenstein.

But now, here's the twist. Barry has made millions in rakish style, sure. He's loaded. But now he gives away all his tournament winnings.

On Jan. 9, Barry gave Bogan $110,000 for new computer equipment. He wanted to honor his three math teachers, John Merwick, Rita O'Connell and Ruth Woerner. He flew in on a private jet.

A couple of weeks later, on Jan. 29, Barry won $1.2 million in the World Poker Tour. In the final hand of a game of Texas hold'em, he had a pair of tens against the other guy's pair of fours. He gave every dime to children's charities.

Once, long ago, we voted Barry the classmate "most likely to make a million dollars."

We underestimated him.

'Mom, you're cheating!'

Some things you're born with.

Barry says he could count before he could talk.

Other things you pick up along the way.

"My dad played poker in the Army, and we always had poker chips," Barry said. "I remember when I was 4 years old, we sat around the kitchen table playing poker. Then gin rummy and canasta after school with my mom. I was better. By the time I was 7 years old, I knew I was better than her."

Or so he thought.

"But when I was 11 and my little brother was 7, I came up behind my mom while they were playing and she had gin in her hand -- she was just letting him win," Barry said. "I said, 'Mom, you're cheating!' And she said, 'You think I didn't do that for you?' "

That sort of upbringing should have given Barry great confidence, and if you knew him in high school, lord knows he had confidence, a good trait for a poker player.

Barry grew up in Chicago's Scottsdale neighborhood, the last stop before the suburbs. His father, Jack, was a principal at a public grammar school, and the whole family had an intellectual bent. Today, Barry's brother is an electrical engineer and his two sisters are professors.

In high school, he was small and wiry. He had arching eyebrows that danced above thick glasses. He was cocky -- a lot of us thought he was obnoxiously so -- and had a caustic wit. He paid attention in classes, especially math classes, and that was enough. He says he never studied at home -- "not for a single minute." He was also a wrestler -- so much for the nerd stereotype -- and never gave up.

Once when Barry couldn't win a match for trying, one teacher said to another: "Greenstein's lost eight matches in a row. Doesn't he know when to quit?"

Another teacher, Science Club adviser Richard Barr, answered: "Don't you understand? He's the only kid in the school who can lose eight matches and not quit."

That's another fine trait for a poker player.

When Barry was a senior, he signed up for calculus but never went to class. Bogan had recently obtained a few computer monitors, and Barry's math teacher, Merwick, suggested he check them out.

"I gave him the technical manual on a Friday," Merwick said. "On Monday morning he came in with a program to play 18 holes of golf."

Every day after that, with Merwick's permission, Barry skipped calculus and went to the computer lab, and Merwick gave him an 'A' in calculus anyway.

"If anybody ever heard I gave Barry Greenstein anything less than an A in a math class," he explained, "they'd put me in jail."

'I drove a Jaguar'

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Barry raced through his classwork while piling up poker winnings. When he graduated three years later, he tallied up every dollar his father had spent on his college education -- $7,794 -- and wrote him a check.

"I'm too proud to take your money," his dad said. "I want to put my kids through school."

Barry continued at U. of I., working on a doctorate in math, well into his 20s. "I could have gone to other universities," he explained, "but the poker games were good."

By the time he was 24 or so, he was flying around the world playing blackjack and poker and driving a Jaguar. He was in no rush to finish grad school.

One day, his mother asked, "Where do you get the money?"

"Mom," Barry replied, "I'm a professional poker player."

"How did that happen?" she asked. "We thought you were going to be president of the United States or a famous doctor."

"Mom," he said, "I played cards with you every day of my life."

But then fate messed with Barry's career plans. He met a girl from Decatur and got married. And because he wanted to adopt her kids, he had to get a legit job. As his lawyer explained, "No court's going to award the kids to a professional gambler."

He flew out to California's Silicon Valley, where a start-up company called Symantec offered him a programming job. There was a nice poker room nearby, so he accepted.

Barry stayed with Symantec far longer than he ever expected -- until 1991 -- and helped build it into one of the nation's biggest software companies. But he played poker on the side during most of that time because for all that Symantec was paying him, he had even more expensive tastes.

Having a normal job, though, was good for his kids. "They could say what I did for a living," he explained.

'A melting pot for poker'

Poker got really big in California beginning in 1989 when several popular games that had been banned, such as Texas hold'em, were legalized. Serious players poured into the state and the stakes grew. A single pot of $20,000 was not uncommon.

Barry's family was facing a lot of medical expenses about this time, and he was tired of the pressure. It was time to take the plunge.

"I thought, why am I struggling to make ends meet when I can be a professional poker player and make more money and have more time for my family?" he said.

Through most of the 1990s, Barry approached poker like a job, playing at least six days a week, at least 12 hours a day. He was equally good at many games, which gave him an edge, and he played in private high-stakes "side games" instead of high-profile tournaments. Everybody around the table was rich and some were famous, such as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.

Barry cleaned up. He was full of confidence, like when he played his mom. And he fought through the losing streaks, like when he was a wrestler. By 2003, he decided he had all the money he needed.

Which is when Barry found what he calls his new "calling" -- playing poker for charity.

"My parents said your goal should be that you feel you've made the world a better place for your having been there," Barry said. "Playing poker seems pretty nonproductive, but now I've turned it into something productive."

He plays in many tournaments now because the national publicity is good for his primary charity, Children Inc., which works to help children in the United States and 20 other countries.

He also knows that the money he makes in occasional side games, which he doesn't give to charity, is seen by many as tainted. Critics say that side game players fleece the suckers and destroy lives, and they've got a point.

"I play professionals and very wealthy people, and now I'm kind of insulated from that stuff," he said. "But when you play a few levels down, you are at times affecting someone's family. It's unavoidable sometimes to not beat somebody out of money you know could help their family."

Tournament poker, on the other hand, has a cleaner image, like tournament golf. You don't have to hide anything.

"I used to give money to charity, but I had to lie about how I made it," Barry said. "I didn't want people to know I was a professional gambler. It was like, 'Whose life did you wreck so you could help us?' So I said I was an investor."

Last year, Barry won Larry Flynt's $1 million one-table stud event at Hustler Casino, $100,000 for winning the $500 no-limit hold'em event at Commerce Casino's California State Poker Championship, $38,000 for winning the $500 no-limit hold'em event at the Taj Mahal, and $34,000 for winning the $3,000 stud championship at the Tropicana in Atlantic City.

"The money I've given away, it's clearly the best thing I've done in my life," Barry said.

Applause for a good man

Bogan High School is no more. Now they call it Bogan Computer Technical High School. Other than that and the metal detectors, though, it's pretty much the same old Bogan we all knew, with the banging locker doors and the flirting in the halls and the chlorine smell from the pool and the worried mothers and fathers waiting outside the principal's office and the teachers -- the good ones -- really trying to teach.

Barry Greenstein, back to visit after so many years, looked the same, too, except better. Better haircut, better glasses, and he seemed warmer, like he's leading a little more with his heart.

First, Barry talked to a group of students. The principal, Robert Miller, introduced Barry as a successful alumnus in the computer field. Nobody mentioned his poker playing, although Barry had told the Board of Education in a letter earlier how he makes his money. Miller later said he wasn't even aware of it at the time.

Barry told the kids to work hard in school so as to learn how to think. That, he said, is what he learned from his own teachers -- how to think through any problem, in poker and in life.

Next, Barry talked to a room full of teachers. When he walked in, they gave him a standing ovation. He smiled the shyest smile.

But then, on Barry Greenstein Day at Bogan High, something unexpected happen.

Another man also was introduced. His hair was white and his gestures frail.

It was Merwick -- Mr. Merwick, that is -- the only one of Barry's three math teachers still alive.

The teachers in the room had greeted Barry warmly, but they roared for Mr. Merwick, cheering and hooting for a long time.

Which for Barry was the best moment of the day.

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