 As
appeared on MSNBC.com
Riding the fame wave
By Bob Harkins, MSNBC.com
Posted July 3, 6 a.m. ET
Whether you’re a millionaire or
a pauper, a well-known Las Vegas grinder or an amateur
from Iowa, everyone who plays poker has the same goal:
win a big tournament and earn yourself more money
than you can count.
But the real test is what you do for
an encore. If you are like Ciaran O’Leary, and
you are a player with a heart, you might give it away
– or at least share a portion of it.
O’Leary did just that when he
finally made his big score. A 33-year-old Irishman
now living in Seattle, O’Leary won the third
event at this year’s World Series of Poker,
a $1,500 Texas Hold’em tournament. He outlasted
2,997 other players (a record at the time for a non-main
event), winning $727,012.
After he won, the man they call “Big
C” – a nickname derived from the frequent
mispronunciation of his name (it’s KEER-AHN)
– kissed the dealer’s hand. He mugged
for the television cameras and pretended to throw
a thick brick of bills into the crowd. Then he took
$250,000 of his winnings and parceled it out amongst
a close circle of friends, a group of fellow pros
who all know what it’s like to toil away at
poker far away from the spotlight.
“These are all world-class players
that just have been scratching at the door for a long
time trying to get through,” O’Leary says
of his group. “Fortunately for me I was one
of the ones where somebody opened the door and let
me in. And now I’m at that next level, at least
from a recognition standpoint.”
It’s been a long road to this
point for O’Leary. A decade ago, he came to
the United States with two skills: carpentry and poker.
After a brief stop in Boston, he hopped on an Amtrak
for a cross-country ride to San Francisco. He immediately
put both of his skills to work, finding work at a
construction company and finding plenty of poker action
at casinos in the Bay Area and in Las Vegas.
“(Travel) is in our genes, the Irish,”
O’Leary says. “We love to see the world.
I fell in love with the place here, I fell in love
with a woman here, and I kinda stayed here.”
Now he’s got a wife and two young
boys. He’s moved from the Bay Area to Seattle
and runs his own business as a general contractor.
But poker is always in the background.
“I play golf and I try to be as
good as I can be,” he says. “I play a
lot of pool. There’s lots of things that I kind
of dabble in. But for me, poker, I love the fact that
you compete against people directly. In golf you play
against the course. The emphasis in poker is in out-dueling
your opponent.
“There are a lot of smart people,
it’s a multi-cultural sport, and that’s
the beauty of it. You can play a guy who can’t
speak your language but you understand the same game.”
It’s a culture O’Leary enjoys
being a part of, and with a comfortable mix of confidence
and humility, knows he belongs.
“I believe there are about 20
elite players (in the world),” he says. “Top
of the line. Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Ted
Forrest, Chris Ferguson. Players of that nature who
have proved they can do it for a long, long period
of time.
“Then you have about 200 players
who are next, and that’s everybody from Phil
Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, the Grinder (Michael Mizrachi),
Layne Flack. Players like that who have shown that
they’re good. They’ve won World Series
events, they’ve won World Poker Tour events.
“And after that there’s
about another 2,000. I was in that 2,000 along with
my friends for years.”
And what separates the top 2,000 from the truly elite?
Not much, O’Leary says.
“It’s about getting the
break, getting the big win that is going to put your
face out there. All of a sudden people are going to
recognize you, and all of a sudden people are going
to be intimidated by playing against you. It’s
amazing.”
O’Leary recounted his main event
experience in 2004, a year he thought would be when
his big break came. He was playing so well that summer,
he earned three free seats into the World Series main
event via satellite tournaments. And he was one of
the early chip leaders when he came across a well-known
pro from Denmark named Gus Hansen.
“It was amazing to see the intimidation,”
O’Leary recalls. “It was almost like they
were throwing away pocket aces pre-flop. That might
seem extreme, but that’s the intimidation factor
that these players have on young players who are new
to the game.”
“Big C” was not about to
be intimidated, but Hansen nonetheless got the better
of him, cracking his pocket aces with 9-7 off-suit.
“If I don’t have that bad
beat, I almost surely cash in that event.”
Three years later, O’Leary has
finally hit his jackpot. And now, facing his recent
success and the accompanying attention, He is prepared
to strike while the iron is hot. He has eagerly embraced
the media, doing countless interviews for outlets
from Seattle to Ireland and everywhere in between.
He’s taking offers from potential sponsors,
including Web sites that want him to play under their
banner.
He even had a man come up to him shortly
after his victory and tell him “Big C”
was going to be in a video game. His reaction? “Um,
don’t you need my permission for that?”
“Don’t worry,” the
man said. “Someone will be in touch.”
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