Back-to-Back-to-Back Bernard Lee

It was reported in the Halloween edition of This Week in Poker that Bernard Lee finished in first place at the World Poker Finals $600 no-limit hold'em shootout. Lee took home $22,893 for winning the tournament by outlasting 329 other players on the way to victory. While this statement in itself is not an outstanding piece of news, the fact the Lee has won a preliminary event at the World Poker Finals for the third year in a row is noteworthy. In 2007 Lee won a $2,000 no-limit hold'em that attracted 406 players and netted Lee a $239,143 win for beating Joe Cappello heads-up. In 2006 Lee won a $5,000 no-limit hold'em event that attracted 228 players and netted him a $368,919 win for beating Cliff Josephy heads-up.



In fact, $745,893 of Lee's $1,345,313 in lifetime winnings have been accumulated at Foxwoods Casino and Resort in the span of eight cashes. Elsewhere, Lee has cashed 10 times to add $599,380 to his career winnings. This includes the biggest cash of his career, the 13th-place finish at the 2005 World Series of Poker main event. That $400,000 cash was the first of his career and since then Lee has been vindicating that deep run in the tournament with the consistent and sustained tournament results of a true grinder. Lee has gone on to make nine final tables in his 18 career cashes. He has won three of those final tables, all at Foxwoods in consecutive years. In much the same way that Boston Area sports teams are intertwined to the home-field advantage provided by legendary venues like Fenway Park and the Boston Garden, Lee enjoys a home-field poker advantage of his own in New England.



NOTE: Lee has since gone on to post his ninth cash at Foxwoods, finishing in eighth place at the final table of the World Poker Finals $3,000 no-limit hold'em event this past weekend.



Lee has gone on to become a student of the game in every aspect, thanks in part to his education background that includes the following credentials: Harvard University, B.A., M.A.; Babson College M.B.A. He was also a senior marketing/new business development manager for a Fortune 500 company before he turned to the game of poker. He takes copious notes when he plays, and he also employs a poker version of a warm-up every time he plays a tournament (read more below). Many players have begun to seek Lee out for lessons about the discipline and analysis that have come from his Ivy League work ethic to improve their games as well.



Lee has also become a force in the world of poker since his arrival in 2005 on the media end of things. Although the humble Lee might refer to himself as the working man's Mike Sexton, he would underestimate the fact that he has become as immersed in the world of poker media as any other player out there. Lee is the Sunday poker columnist for the Boston Herald and he is also a regular columnist on ESPN.com. Lee just released his first book, The Final Table, Volume I, a compilation of his Boston Herald columns, and Volume II will be soon to follow. Lee has also commentated for WSOP gold bracelet events during the summer and WSOP circuit main events. The man eats, sleeps, and breathes poker when he is not at home with his family in Boston. Speaking of Beantown, Lee is also the radio host of "The Bernard Lee Poker Show" on 1510 AM in Boston and www.rounderadio.com. While many people might think of Dan Harrington and his green, Red Sox hat when they think of poker and Boston, it is really Lee who is the voice of poker in New England.



Lee is still searching for that first win at a major tournament that he feels will ultimately vindicate all the work he has been putting into poker, but as you will read below no one is working harder to accomplish that goal. And if one were a betting man they might put their money on the upcoming World Poker Finals at Foxwoods as the place where that win comes due.



Below are some thoughts from Lee about how he approaches the game:



Ryan Lucchesi: You are one of the most analytical players I have seen. How important is it to go back and analyze your play after a tournament, whether in your notes, or one of you newspaper columns.



Bernard Lee: I saw an interview with Phil Ivey, and he said that even after a tournament he goes back and he thinks about all of the hands he played and reviews them in his head and then makes decisions accordingly about how well he did or how poorly he did. You know what; I don't have that great of a memory. I can't remember every hand. I have a good memory if you asked me in this event, "What was your critical hand and what hand did you get knocked out on?" I have a pretty decent picture memory when it comes to that, but I can't remember all of the hands and the specifics unless I'm prompted. So I started just writing some of [the hands] down and I wanted to see when I made a mistake and when I didn't make a mistake, and I will tell you it has been the only reason why I think I have had success so quickly. When I finished in 13th place at the 2005 main event I told everybody that this is not going to be a flash in the pan, I'm not going to be that. I'm going to use this as a launching pad, this is just a start. And the only way that I could have lived up to that statement was to look back at my tournaments, go over all the things I've done wrong. Go over some of the things I've done well. A perfect example is that I finished in fourth place in back-to-back events when I made final tables [in early 2008]. Fourth is almost like the "Big Money Bubble"…most of the money is in places one, two, and three, and fourth is just outside a lot of money. When this happens back-to-back times maybe it is not a tremendous pattern, but I didn't like that it happened back-to-back times. So right before my third final table [of 2008] I looked deeply at every hand I played at the final tables and I saw where I made the mistake both times that led to me finishing in fourth. I knew exactly what I did wrong. And I will tell you, when we got down to fourhanded in this next event that I played in I almost did the exact same move. I actually thought about doing it and then I said, "Stop, this is the move that got you in trouble in the other two events." So I stopped, and instead of raising I just called, and just out of sheer coincidence he flopped three-of-a-kind. I would have been out of the tournament without a question, because had I raised and he called I would have made a continuation bet and been gone. I would have been gone in fourth again [Lee finished in second]. That's just a small recent example of how critical it is to be looking at my hands over and over…My father always said, "Make one mistake that's fine, just don't ever make it again." Once I make that mistake I make sure I've highlighted it…and just never let it happen again. Every once in a while there's a move that I make that I think is really good and it got me a lot of chips, so I'll write that down, because I believe it is not only the mistakes you have to make sure to remember, I think sometimes you also have to remember the good moves that work for you.



RL: It sounds like you really apply the work ethic that got you through your education in how you approach each poker tournament. What things do you do to prepare before a major event?



BL: I'm constantly going over my notes; I actually don't play too much poker before hand…I don't want that, I don't want to think of all the bad beats…what I will do is I will go over my notebooks from my past tournaments and go over hands. I'll reread a couple of books; there is a Cloutier and McEvoy book (Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold'em) that I read before almost every tournament. I go over my notes before every tournament. The other thing about those hands is that I write down every single hand…"How do you warm-up for a tournament…its day 1A of the main event, how do you warm-up?" You can't wake up at 7 o'clock in the morning and then play a five-hour tournament and then walk into the main event and play, you can't do that. But that's pretty much the only way that you can quote-unquote warm-up and play poker. Well, I think I've found a different way. I look over my hands in my notebook. So what I will typically do is go over day one of four-five events, and of those four-five events I will make sure it covers every scenario. One scenario where I was doing great, and in one level I played like an idiot and boom, I got knocked out of the tournament, or one tournament where I just constantly went down and I barely survived, and one tournament where I went up the whole day and basically tripled my stack. The reason why I do that is I have myself warm for any situation. Now I'm thinking about tournaments all the time…I'm thinking about poker hands and really, really going over them so when I sit down at the table I've already played tournaments in my head. Everyone else is sitting there going, "Hmmm…hope I get some good hands today." They look at their first two cards and they just start playing. I look at those first two cards and it's the 200th hand I've seen all day because I've literally been playing all of those hands out in my head.



RL: You've been collecting preliminary tournament titles and final-table appearances for a few years now. By finishing deep in eight events you keep putting yourself in a position to make that first big score. Do you feel like it is close? What will put you over the hump?



BL: My philosophy is if I make correct decisions based off of the information that is given to me. If I play solidly and just keep my head on straight. Don't ever go on tilt and keep a level head and continue to remain humble, and continue to work hard at this game at all times, good things are going to happen to me. I hope that within the next 12-18 months I'm going to be able to either hoist up a WPT title, a WSOP circuit main event title, or a WSOP bracelet, and that would be a dream, and I'm gonna fight hard and continue to fight hard.