Andy Bloch Poker

Nit roll or slow roll? That’s a great debate worth having when it comes to this week’s classic Poker After Dark hand. Let’s examine one of the oddest poker hands in the canon between Andy Bloch and Howard ‘The Professor’ Lederer.

A CLASH OF PERSONALITIES

In some Poker After Dark hands, it’s easy to focus on the hand in question because we love both players. With so many heroes at each table of six, it was often a case of viewers preferring one player they liked slightly more than another and not being too disappointed whoever won it, just as long as it was fun to watch. This is no such hand.

In recent years, Howard Lederer has become synonymous with the Full Tilt Poker scandal and subsequent Black Friday closedown of 2011. With the weight of responsibility hanging loosely around his neck (along with Ray Bitar and Chris Ferguson), Lederer has hardly been seen since the events of eight years ago.

Andrew Elliot Bloch (born June 1, 1969) is a professional poker player. He holds two electrical engineering degrees from MIT and a JD from Harvard Law School. While studying at MIT, Bloch became part of the MIT blackjack team, featured in the book Bringing Down the House. Bloch said he has made. Vietnamese American professional poker player who is a five-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, most notably as the winner of the 1998 World Series of Poker Main Event and the 2008 World Series of Poker $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship. Since 2007, Andy Bloch has been on NBC's late-night poker show, Poker After Dark, five times. After some bad luck in his first three tries (including losing heads up to Gabe Kaplan), he finally won in his fourth attempt, in the 'Brilliant Minds' week. When Chris went over to Andy's table he saw that Andy was poring over a binder of computer-generated tables, the result of Bloch's extensive simulations of hand versus hand, hand versus table, etc. Ferguson had done precisely the same sort of computations prior to launching his highly successful career in tournament No-Limit Hold'em. Andy Elliot Bloch is one of the most interesting of the older school of players, famous not only for his poker but his part in the infamous MIT blackjack team which operated throughout the latter part of the 20th Century, immortalised in books such as ‘Busting Vegas’ and ‘Bringing down the House’.

A RECENT HISTORY OF NITROLLS

When it comes to nitrolls, some of the best (or worst you might say) have happened in very recent history. In 2015, German player Andreas Gann risked the ire of the world by nit-rolling Donacha O’Dea with the nits when he tanked over calling all-in with the nut flush on the flop. O’Dea miracle a full house on the river for what many fans called justice.

A year later, there was an even more appropriate nitroll to this hand, when, at the 2016 Aussie Millions, Mikkel Habb took an eternity to call Sam Abernathy’s all-in. Habb held pocket kings and was in great shape against Abernathy’s sad-looking sixes. But, just like in the O’Dea hand, a six came on the river to reward the player who hadn’t nitrolled.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

While much has been made of Chris Ferguson, who was the 2017 WSOP Player of the Year thanks in no small part to the structure of the qualification thresholds that year, less was known about Lederer and Bitar in the years after the FTP scandal. Bitar famously pleaded that he had a heart ailment, allowing him to escape lightly from the ensuing court case in the aftermath of the scandal.

Lederer had disappeared for a long time, having given a bizarre non-apology at the time and having been hounded out of the argument by high profile players such as Daniel Negreanu. But he resurfaced a couple of years ago, playing a WSOP $10,000 buy-in 2-7 Draw Lowball event in 2016. He failed to cash, meaning the last time he did make money from a tournament entry was in 2011, just a year after this hand took place. He may have walked back into Bobby’s Room, but he did so to anger from the poker players he met.

BLOCHER BET

Andy Bloch led a more philanthropic life after he took ‘a very long time’ debating over whether to call The Professor’s big slick with his pocket kings. He’d always donated his FTP online winnings to charity but continued that theme in live tournaments too. He still plays poker, but the former MIT student who brought down the house by counting cards also released a blackjack DVD that promised to teach anyone how to beat the system.

While it wasn’t all about charity donations when it came to poker for either of these two very different men, both would look back on Poker After Dark as a watershed moment in their career. For Bloch, the peak of his fame. For Lederer, the last time he sat down at a poker table pretty much universally liked.

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Andy Bloch specializes in game analysis, and is mostly interested in the mathematical and psychological aspect of poker. A perennial student, forever learning, he is known as a formidable player at the tables. He is also recognized as an active participant in online poker communities.

In 1992, Andy Bloch won one of the World Poker Finals events, a $100 No-Limit Texas Hold'Em tournament. It was his first time playing no-limit Texas Hold'em. Later, he made two final tables at the WSOP in 2001, won first place at the Seven-Card Stud Event at Foxwoods in 2002, and made two World Poker Tour (WPT) final tables the first season, finishing 3rd both times. He is also the second season winner of the Ultimate Poker Challenge's $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em tournament.

Bloch grew up in Orange, a small suburb of New Haven, Connecticut. He started playing poker seriously in 1992, the same year he got his two electrical engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1993 he had an argument with an employer and was fired. He told his parents jokingly that if he couldn't make it as an engineer, he could always go into poker. As a matter of fact, poker stayed high on his list of interests.

He proceeded to get his JD from Harvard Law School. He skipped the last week of law school classes so he could play in the 1997 WSOP Main Event. Tom Sims was looking for a volunteer to 'sweat' and record all his hole cards in a low-tech hole card cam trial, and Bloch presented himself. His records were made into a 2-part article in the prestigious Card Player Magazine.

Andy Bloch Poker

He passed the bar exam in 1999. But he decided to delay his law career and pursued poker professionally instead. This career was further delayed when he realized his poker career was picking up. He stayed an activist at heart. In 2003, he was arrested at an anti-war protest in front of the White House. He defended himself as a licensed lawyer.

Andy Bloch Poker

In the journal portion of his official website, Andy Bloch has announced that he has chosen to boycott the World Poker Tour (WPT) until the tournament body has decided to change the way the players' names and identities are being used. When he has the time, he also runs a vastly popular unofficial World Poker Tour Fan Site. He also plays in Fulltiltpoker.com as part of Team Full Tilt.