 Big name in poker has ties to C-U
By J. Philip Bloomer Champaign was a different town in the 1970s, a bit smaller and a lot more wide open. A nudge-and-a-wink forgave a lot of nocturnal indiscretions considered taboo today. One thing that hasn't changed since then is Barry Greenstein, except that he's alot richer. And one of those one-time taboo activities poker is enjoying phenomenal popularity, respectability and a ubiquitousness that has high school kids putting aside their Xboxes to play Texas Hold 'Em like their TV heroes. It's gotten so bad, 14-year-olds are turning up their noses at the thought of playing with plastic chips. "Gotta have clay chips," said one, who happens to share my
last name. "They feel Unsavory as that may seem to some, one of those TV poker heroes is one in real life, too. That would be Greenstein, a fixture on the World Poker Tour who may have won more money than anybody at the game. He's certainly given away more of it than anybody, some $2.5 million over the last two years. They call him the Robin Hood of Poker, and he's attracted a lot of attention for his philanthropy, including at the University of Illinois where he's been featured in the Illinois Alumni magazine and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences newsletter for his $100,000 gift to the UI. Thirty years ago, he was already a legend locally, a whiz in the UI math department, a phenom in the local ring game circuit and a good stick in the Illini Union pool room. One of the prominent ring games occurred at the old Heath & Sons Funeral Home on Elm Street by West Side Park. The top floor game brought in a lot of personalities, entertainment possibilities and intrigue. Passwords and a fair amount of change were required for entrance. Greenstein said he was brought to those games more as an authority than as a player. This was a teen-ager, remember, a short, dark and rather dour one at high-stakes poker games featuring more than a few nefarious characters. Some people might say things like that and you want to smack them. With Greenstein it's just a fact. "The other players weren't so happy to see me. Fortunately for them, I was able to find bigger games, so I didn't show up too often," he said last week. Greenstein, 50, of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., has a new book coming out in June. He said he's including a story from the funeral home game. Even though he'd been playing poker since he was a child, and winning decent money all through his years at Bogan High School in Chicago, he was still a new college kid in Champaign just starting to make his name. "One name I remember is Ralph Green. He was in his 70s when I was 17 and first played in Champaign," Greenstein said. "I was complaining about my bad (run of luck) and Ralph said to me, 'Son, you have nothing to complain about. You're doing the second-best thing in life: playing poker and losing." He's not losing any more. He'll exceed $2 million this year in tournament winnings. He won $1,278,378 in the World Poker Open alone in January. The tournament winnings go to charity, and mostly to Children's Inc., $1.4 million to date, for food, clothing and other necessities for children in 21 countries including the United States. Greenstein could be doing a lot of things. But then he already has, from scoring 100 percent on the math sections of the SAT, whizzing through computer and math programs at the UI, flying around the world to play high-stakes games, helping grow the software firm Symantec from the ground floor then quitting because he was making much more at poker. There's more to his story at barrygreenstein.com. And it's all interesting, not only because of his local connections but because he's such an anomaly. Greenstein admitted to some reservations about contributing to the playing trends among youth. "I am uncomfortable when teen-agers ask me for poker advice, even though I played a lot of poker when I was in my teens," he said. "I have told my teen-age son Nathaniel and my teen-age nephew Michael that I will not teach them poker until they have finished their educations and accomplished something productive." Such a principled perspective is rare in the poker world, and given
Champaign You can reach J. Philip Bloomer at (217) 351-5371 or via e-mail at
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