Andy Beal

Andy Beal
Billionaire banker from Texas &
high stakes heads-up limit hold'em poker player

Net Worth: US$8.5 billion (March 2013)

• Born November 11, 1952 Lansing, Michigan, U.S
• Lives in Dallas, Texas.
• Father of six
• Divorced two times (spouse1, Simona Beal)
• A self-made billionaire
• Banker
• Founder and chairman of Beal Bank and the now-dissolved Beal Aerospace Technologies
• Graduate, Sexton High School, Lansing MI but dropped out after becoming bored with the classes.
• Attended Michigan State University and Baylor University
• At age 19 he bought a house for $6,500 and rented it for $119 a month which led to his first gain as a businessman.
• Played blackjack as a youth.
• 1981- He started buying property that no one else wanted and made it profitable.
• 1988 – Opened first bank in Dallas (later renamed Beal Financial)
• 1993 – Discovery of conjecture (mathematical number theory). Has offered $100,000 for its proof or disproof.
• 2000 – Bought over 1 billion commercial loans and collected on the debts.
• After September 11, 2001 – Began buying airline bonds. He makes about $70 million a year from those bonds.
• 2001 – Began visiting Bellagio to participate in high stakes poker games. Andy Beal was 48 years old in 2001
• BETWEEN 2001 AND 2006 – Began playing The Corporation
• His long series of ultra high-stakes heads-up battles were featured in the Michael Craig book The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King
  
  
  

High Stakes Heads-Up Limit Hold' Em

Greatest Feat:
During visits to Las Vegas between 2001 and 2004, Beal participated in high-stakes poker games against professional players. The games included USD$100,000 to $200,000 limit Texas Hold 'Em poker. On May 13, 2004, at the Las Vegas Bellagio, Beal won one of the largest single hands in poker history, $11.7 million.  The games have been chronicled in the Michael Craig book, “The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time.”

While the games outlined in Craig's book ended in 2004, Beal returned to Las Vegas from February 1–5, 2006 to again take on "The Corporation" in a $50,000/100,000 Limit Hold 'Em match at the Wynn Las Vegas Casino. Opponents included Todd Brunson, Jennifer Harman, Ted Forrest, and others.

Phil Ivey vs Andy Beal

On February 5, 2006, Beal was down $3.3 million (USD). He then returned to the Wynn Casino a week later, and won approximately $13.6 million from the Corporation during daily poker sessions from February 12–15. The games resumed February 21–23, with world champion poker player Phil Ivey representing the Corporation against Beal at limits of $30,000/60,000 and $50,000/100,000. During these three days, Beal lost $16.6 million to Ivey.

Andy Beal High Stakes Heads-Up Limit Hold' Em strategy:

Step 1. Play nearly every hands
            Raise (most of the time) every pot he enters
Step 2. Check-call all the way down to the river with any A-high hand
            8-bets the turn with two pair
Step 3. Obsession with preventing tells

Why is Andy Beal so good?

a) Obsession

b) Specialization
c) Mathematical approach

d) High stakes

e) Ultra-aggressive
f) Impossible to read



Carl Icahn once said of Beal, "I always thought of myself as a good player. But I'm not in his league."

Andy Beal - The Banker versus The Corporation

http://www.poker-soft.com/pages/Reviews/Craig.htm

http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-forum/index.php?showtopic=51657
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0446694975/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=strenfight-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0446694975&adid=0K8EF53ZGBZBMD417TPV&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fheads-up-limit-hold-em.blogspot.ca%2F
http://pokerworks.com/poker-news/2006/02/20/andy-beal-s-conundrum.html
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2006/02/beal-corporation-finished.htm


Originally published in: http://www.heads-up-fixed-limit-texas-hold-em-poker.com/p/andy-beal.html

Andy Beal - The Banker versus The Corporation

Andy Beal

Born November 11, 1952, the 6.6 Billions Dollars Man (as evaluated by Forbes in 2011) Andy Beal made his fortune in banking and real estate.  Andy Beal is a natural born businessman.  In his teenage years, he was no only a gifted student,  but he was already a hard working young entrepreneur.

The Texas banker is not only known in the financial sector.  He is also notorious for his ultra high-stakes poker and mathematics activities.  Andy Beal was a blackjack player in his youth.  He has never played poker seriously until March 2001, when he was 48 years old.  Which prove that it's never too late to start playing and excelling at poker.  On his first day, he sat at a $15/$30 Limit Hold'em table.  Then, after winning a couple hundreds bucks, he moved to the $80/$160 table.  The next day he played at the $400/$800 table.  Here, in the big league, he encountered and dominated Todd Brunson in an heads-up match. 

The next day, with almost no poker experience, he played some of the best poker players in the world at stakes from $1000/$2000 to $4000/$8000 at a full-table game and won more than $100 000.

Despite his indeniable success at the full-tables, Andy Beal feel he was more suited for Heads-Up Limit Hold' Em.  But he wanted to play astronomical stakes with the pros.  And even the wealthiest pros didn't have the sufficient bankroll to challenge the Texas banker.


The Banker versus The Corporation

However, Doyle Brunson came up with the idea of forming "The Corporation", a group of pros to join their efforts and bankrolls to contending with "The Banker".  This elite group included Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Todd Brunson, Ted Forrest, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Barry Greenstein, Chau Giang, and others.

With his limitless bankroll, Beal hoped to play in such ultra high-stakes that it would perturb the play of the pros.  At the end of their several encounters in 2004, they were playing $100 000/$200 000 Heads-Up Limit Hold' Em with more than $20 millions on the table in what would be the Richest Poker Game of All Time.  Andy  Beal is recognized as the poker player who won the most money in a single day.  On Tuesday, May 13, 2004, at the Las Vegas Bellagio, Andy Beal won $11.7 millions from The Corporation (Legendary player Chip Reese, Hamid Dastmalchi, Gus Hansen, and Jennifer Harman).

After the famous 2001 to 2004 encounters, Andy Beal returned to Las Vegas at the Wynn Casino on February 1, 2006 for a five-day Heads-Up session, once again versus "The Corporation".  Taking on Todd Brunson, Jennifer Harman, Ted Forrest, and others playing $50 000/$100 000 Limit Hold' Em, Beal was down $3.3 millions on February 5, 2006.

Then, a week later, from February 12 to 15, Andy Beal took his revenge and won approximately $13.6 million from The Corporation.

However, the party crashed for "The Banker" Andy Beal when he ran into Phil Ivey from February 21 to 23, 2006.  Representing The Corporation, Phil Ivey, known as the best overall poker player in the world, won $16.6 millions from "the Banker" playing  $30 000/$60 000 and $50 000/$100 000 HULHE.  Which put an end to "The Banker vs. The Corporation" sagas.

Learn the entire story about Andy Beal vs The Corporation and gets inside Andy Beal's head while he plays the bests in the world.




You too you can encounter the Phil Ivey experience on Full Tilt poker.