#321 - Erik Seidel is Gonna Have to Come out of Hiding Sometime

Erik Seidel is one of my favorite people in poker. I man that, even though he is practically impossible to get to know and my sole interview with him constituted one of my most frustrating days as a writer. Following his runner-up finish in the Aussie Millions, it’s certainly appropriate that I profile him, especially because I’ve spent some time with Erik over the last few years.

But it’s difficult.

Even though Seidel is 6’7”, he is a specter, a wraith, a will-o-the-wisp, the owner of a permanent cone of silence, an everyday entrant into the witness protection program. All I can give you is a mosaic of images, facts, encounters, and rumors:

ENIGMA

How is this for an enigma? Seidel has won eight World Series of Poker bracelets, not seven like many web sites claim. His eighth, in typical Seidel style, was the last event of the 2007 World Series, No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven, barely noticed in the rush to the Main Event. Yet he is known primarily for a hand of poker he lost, the last hand of the 1988 World Series.

ODDBALL

Erik has won bracelets in every odd-number year this century: 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007. It’s probably just a coincidence but everybody noticed it when he won in 2005 and more people noticed it when he didn’t win one in 2006. (More people probably noticed this pattern in 2005 and 2006 than noticed that he actually won a bracelet in 2007.)

GROUNDERS

Seidel is exceptionally grounded, or at least he gives the impression that he is. He has been married to the same woman, Ruah, for over 20 years. Ruah is a warm, wonderful woman. Erik’s daughters, in my brief meeting with them, seem smart, nice, pretty, and funny. My friend Katie Lindsay wrote an article about where poker players spend their money. Amid tales of watches, cars, houses, and one player who admitted to an addiction to athletic shoes, Erik told her that he maintained lists of CDs he wanted and, when he made a bundle in poker, would buy the list.

I have trouble imagining Erik Seidel going broke or being broke and haven’t heard even a whisper of that. He was a stock trader before he was a poker player and I heard a rumor that he traded very successfully in stocks after becoming a poker player.

BACKED

Erik told me an interesting story from the 1988 Series. He had just started playing poker and a big winner in the game at the infamous Mayfair Club. (To the unfamiliar, the Mayfair was an underground games club in Manhattan. It was a seedy place but players Seidel was beating at the time – they had just one poker game – included Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington, Jay Heimowitz, and Steve Zolotow. Others who may have been in the game or were part of the club were Mickey Appleman, Jason Lester, and Noli Francisco.) Erik came out from New York to play the Main Event; he didn’t play any other events. Satellites were still a relatively new phenomenon and most of the Main Event satellites were single-table affairs in the days immediately preceding the tournament.

Erik entered eight single-table satellites and didn’t make it through any of them. Down $8,000, he invited the other Mayfair players to buy pieces of him. He sold 80% of himself for $8,000, not even getting a premium. When he finished second to Johnny Chan, therefore, he had just 20% of his own action.

ERIK SEIDEL IS EVERYWHERE … OR I AM

For me, the strangest thing about Erik Seidel is the number of chance encounters I’ve had with him in places where neither of us could have expected to see the other.

I first met Erik at Howard Lederer’s house. Howard invited me over to complete our interviews on SUICIDE KING in early fall 2004. He forgot, however, that ESPN was broadcasting his razz final-table appearance that night and he was hosting a chat on Full Tilt and Seidel was coming by to join him.

I have subsequently run into Erik at Andy Bloch’s birthday party, at a dinner for people considering buying time-shares on a cruise ship, at a reception for Jimmy Carter, and at the Clark County Detention Center. (About the Las Vegas jail: Ted Forrest and I were going to visit Mike Matusow when he was there in late 2004. Erik Seidel had, by coincidence, decided to visit the same night. When we walked into the large central waiting room, Ted said to me, “Hey, doesn’t that guy look just like Erik Seidel?”)

THE BYZANTINE MIND

From all these serendipitous meetings and all the friends we have in common, we have already been friendly, but not particularly close. On the few occasions when I attempted to develop a professional relationship with Erik, I found his mind impenetrable. For instance, when I first met him at Howard Lederer’s, I mentioned that it was a great coincidence because I was looking for confirmation of a story Ted Forrest had told me. I described a time when Ted was stuck $60,000 when the game broke up and he vowed not to leave the poker room until he won it back. It was early morning, however, and the biggest game was $15-$30 Stud. After throttling that game for a few hours, he told me that Erik walked in and they arranged a game of $300-$600 hold ‘em, heads-up. They called Lederer who agreed to cross-book 100% of Ted’s action, effectively doubling Forrest’s wins and losses. Ted won a bunch, the cross-booking was called off as the game filled up, and he made back the $60,000 by that afternoon.

So Erik, I asked him, do you remember that? Did it happen that way?

“That sounds like something that would happen with Ted Forrest.”

More than two years later, we met at his house after he agreed to be interviewed for THE FULL TILT POKER STRATEGY GUIDE – TOURNAMENT EDITION. Seidel is very reluctant to discuss poker strategy in public, initially even resisting the idea of playing on TV with his hole cards exposed. But it was a Full Tilt project and Howard Lederer arranged it for me so I came by with high hopes.

It was the most frustrating two hours I have spent as a writer. Erik could not have been nicer and I left his house feeling closer and friendlier than I had in the past. But it was impossible getting a useful answer out of him. I’ve taken depositions of corporate officers and directors, guys I was suing, guys represented by the toughest lawyers in New York. Those depositions were under the most adversary conditions possible, and none of those were as tough as getting information out of my buddy Erik at his kitchen table.

I always transcribe or have someone else transcribe my interviews. I conducted interviews on three subjects with Erik: No-Limit Hold ‘Em, Omaha Eight-or-Better, and the famous hand with him and Johnny Chan at the end of the 1988 Championship. I never even transcribed the latter two subjects and it’s painful today to read through the transcript on NLHE, even though all I want is an example of how difficult it was to get a useful answer.

I started off suggesting we’d talking about no-limit hold ‘em and stick with that or try Omaha eight-or-better.

Seidel: “We can try.”

Especially because it was early in the process and the no-limit hold ‘em chapter would be so big, I wanted him to pick a subject or concept and start from there.

Seidel: “I don’t think there is a concept. My thoughts about no limit are just that there really is no guidebook or blueprint about how to play or what cards to play. There’s a great range of cards you can play in different situations and it’s way more of a situational and mental game, I think.”

In more than an hour focusing on this, I couldn’t get him to provide much in the way of situations or examples of what he meant. When I tried to pin him down on starting hands, he said, “. I’m sure you’ll hear about what cards to play from Howard and Chris. I’m sure there’s a lot of variation on what to play and how to play and when to play it.”

I pounced when he inadvertently mentioned that he thought John Juanda was one of the best no-limit tournament players. Why? Because of his superior ability in “complex situations, especially when [the players] have a lot of chips.”

What kinds of complex situations?

Seidel: “I don’t know. I don’t know. There just are hands and there’s information in hands and [other players are] not really used to thinking through the hands the way someone like John Juanda is. He’ll give you examples. You need to save some stuff for him to talk about.”

[It goes without saying that John never told me.]

But I like Erik Seidel and I think he’s a great guy. I’m pleased he had a great tournament in Australia. I’d just have trouble putting my finger on WHY.

POSTSCRIPT

I think there is some good information in this post but nothing really earth-shaking. So I’ll leave you with this: there is a rumor (I’m not going to say where it started) that Allen Cunningham is the byproduct of a cloning experiment involving Erik Seidel.

The longer you think about it, the more sense it makes circumstantially.

But if you want to get at the truth, try asking Melissa Hayden. And if she acts like you’re crazy and the idea is insane, then you’ve got your confirmation.