Famous come to Fresno for Winter Deep Freeze
By Barbara Engler

Fresno is not usually thought of as a place where you’ll see the “rich and famous,” but don’t tell that to Club One Casino owner Kyle Kirkland. Whether it’s specifically a celebrity tournament or one of the many low-cost, deep-stack events they have featured lately, he knows how to attract the stars.

Most recently, this was evident when Club One hosted the Winter Deep Freeze Jan. 14 to 17. This multiple-starting-day, $100 buy-in Hold’em tournament had over 700 entries and a prize pool that exceeded $60,000. As if that weren’t enough, featured players at the tournament included former major league baseball player Jose Canseco, Internet poker phenomenon Shaun Deeb, and Poker Hall of Famer Barbara Enright. We sat down with all three just before the tournament began to talk about poker tournaments and why they came to Fresno for this event.

Jose Canseco first came to Club One when he was invited to participate in a celebrity tournament as part of the Central Valley Poker Classic series and had such a good time he’s more than willing to return. “They treated us great,” he said. “The setup here is awesome. The staff here is just incredible because they really cater to you. It’s real classy. I had a great time and I’ve been back twice since.”

Canseco says he’s been playing poker for at least 20 years, dating back to his minor league baseball days when long bus rides would find the players engaged in poker, Blackjack, and, as he put it, “any type of game possible that will occupy your time.”

He says he prefers tournaments now to cash games, as they force him to be a little more careful with his chips. He’s played the WSOP Main Event twice now and both times was eliminated on a tough beat. He says that even though he loves poker, “I have the worst luck in poker possible.”

His WSOP stories do provide some proof: “In 2007 I was all-in with kings and a big stack went all-in with threes and flopped a three and knocked me out. The next time was 2008. I think it was against Amir Vahedi. [Ed. note: Vahedi passed away on Jan. 8, 2010 from complications of diabetes.] He knocked me out with runner-runner. I flopped a straight and trapped him on the all-in. Again he was a heavier stack than I was and he hit a runner-runner for a flush.”

One guy who knows about such variances of chance and what to do about them is Shaun Deeb. He is generally acknowledged to have played more poker tournaments than anyone in the world (he used to play 30 multi-table tournaments at once online) and he’s also known for having taken an initial deposit of $30 on PokerStars and turned into $33,000 within a few weeks.

Deeb has since retired from tournament poker and is now traveling the world, playing a little poker along the way just for the fun of it.

By the way, he’s 23 years old.

He has come to play at Club One a couple of times now, and says that he and Kirkland became friends a few years ago when Deeb was a blogger on a poker website of Kirkland’s. “I think if more places were like this I would go to even more events and probably would never have quit tournaments,” Deeb said. “If I could have a Club One everywhere, I would go. It’s just too much fun.”

You can tell he’s in his element when he’s asked to give some advice to a player participating in an event like the Deep Freeze. He gets a little excited and the words just come tumbling out: “The most important thing in a quicker structure like this one with 20 minute levels is understanding stack size and push/fold. Literally all the equity in this tournament is in the push/fold stage. When you’re under 15, 20 big blinds and when the people to your left are even shallower, just start going all-in. A lot. And you’d be amazed how profitable that is when you actually run the calculations.

“It’s most profitable in late position. If it’s folded to the small blind and you have 15 big blinds effective, with an ante, go all-in. Every time. It’s so profitable. You’re hoping for fold equity, so the less people behind it’s going to be more profitable. When you’re in early position and you have like 7 big blinds definitely shove really wide and just hope that no one wakes up with a hand behind you.

“It’s the people who pick up pots without showdown and steal and maintain their stack size. That way, when they actually wake up with a hand and there’s a shove in front of them a) they cover them and b) they have enough chips to make it worthwhile. You don’t want to double up with just five big blinds. If you have 11 big blinds … it’s so exponential in tournaments. So when you pick up those two and a half big blinds from shoving one hand, now the next time you double up you’re going to have an extra six big blinds total. It can just be really, really important.”

Another special guest at the Deep Freeze who knows more than a little about poker tournaments was Barbara Enright. The highlights of her resume include three WSOP bracelets, only female to ever make the final table at the Main Event, and in 2007 she became the only woman to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.

These days she mostly plays online from her home in Hollywood, but she still goes to Las Vegas every year at World Series time. “That’s the best time of year for tournaments. It’s like pig heaven for tournament freaks,” she said.

Her tournament advice is, “When you play tournaments you always have to be aware of the clock. When there’s 20 minute rounds versus 40 minute rounds versus however long rounds … you can sit there forever in a two-hour round tournament like the World Series Main Event, but with 20 minute rounds certain hands have to look better to you than they would with 30 minute rounds. You have to always be conscious of the the clock and push a little more.”

She first came to Club One on Kirk­land’s invitation to play in the celebrity event in 2008. She enjoyed herself enough that she came back again in 2009 to play in it again and this time wound up in a two-way chop with another player for the big bucks.

“Would I travel this far for a $100 tournament if it wasn’t like the best?” she asked. “I love Kyle. I love the people here. The staff go out of their way to make you comfortable and happy. The games are great. That’s why I travel so far. For a $100 tournament I wouldn’t go across town. I wouldn’t go to the Bike for a $100 tournament. I’d come to Fresno though.”