We all like to debate who the top players are, which sites have the toughest competition, what our favorite blind structures are, etc. Hardly debatable, though, is the fact that Pete "TheBeat" Giordano has been the most consistently strong tournament player on PokerStars for four years.In 2001, he won the "Best All Around Player Award" for the WCOOP (World Championships of Online Poker), which was the closest thing they had to a "Player of the Year" at that point. Then in 2002, they came out with the TLB (Tournament Leaderboard), and he has finished each ensuing year in the top 5 of that.
Pete, at the time a sales representative for Hewlett-Packard, had been playing for several years when he noticed, around 1998, that there was a big tournament coming up at the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. He went down to play in the tournament and came in first place, and he has been hooked on tournament poker ever since. He was still busy with his job and family, so he didn’t play or travel much for a while after that, but he would still go to Atlantic City once a year to play tournaments, and he would do very well in those, including another top 2 finish where he went heads up against none other than the great Phil Ivey.
A couple of years later, Foxwoods opened up, and he could start playing more often, as it was closer to his Liverpool, NY home. He was playing mostly on the east coast still, and then about 4 years ago, he played a satellite at Foxwoods for the WSOP main event, which he won. He was still rarely playing due to his job and family life, and he was a bit worried that he wouldn’t have much of a chance against the players in the World Series, many of whom were playing every day. He decided at this time to get an online account and practice for the WSOP.
Pete had noticed that he was making a lot of the same mistakes over and over again when he played, and he attributed that to inexperience. He figured playing online would give him the experience he needed, so he could stop making these same mistakes over and over. He felt he was a competent player, as many are, but he wanted to be unconsciously competent—he wanted to be at the point where he could make the right plays all the time without thinking too much about it. He practiced online for a while, and that year, he made the money at the World Series.
"I was making good money," he said, "and I always thought to myself, 'I'd love to go pro.'" In late 2003, he ended up getting downsized by HP, and all of a sudden, his job became sitting at home making money playing poker. "That's my whole job now," he told me. He has ensured his family’s financial security by sticking to medium buy-in events online and not putting up his own money for large buy in live events. "When I win a satellite to a big event, I go and play it, but I would never put up the money unless I won a satellite," he said.
Fortunately for Pete, he has had little trouble winning satellites to any of the live events in which he's wanted to partake. Beyond that, he's been able to cash in most of the bigger live events he's played, including all 4 of the ones he played last year, which were Aruba, Foxwoods, WSOP, and Bahamas. He’s also cashed nicely a few times in the World Series, and then there was perhaps his greatest accomplishment in poker, a WPT final table appearance (Foxwoods 2002). He got to sit at a TV table with Layne Flack, Phil Ivey, Ron Rose, Howard Lederer, and Andy Bloch—does it get any better?
This year, he's already won satellites for Aruba, the WSOP main event, and Costa Rica. How does he do it? "I think it's because I'm the type of player who just waits back in the middle of the pack. I'm always putting myself in position to make a run for it." Pete knows when to start turning up the heat in these tournaments, which has helped him out quite a bit. "There is a point where I get more aggressive than most people," he said. "When you get close to the payout, people start playing very conservatively, and that's when I change my gears. You show me any weakness, I'm gonna start playing twice as fast. These guys know they get nothing [if they finish below the payouts], so they go in their shell. I never go in my shell. Once these people think they have a chance to win, they start playing conservatively, and I start playing aggressively."
His style in general? He plays very aggressively, making big bets often, but he's never afraid to throw away a losing hand. "I can get off a bluff even though I have half my chips in the pot already," he told me. "I raise a lot preflop, but if someone comes over the top when I don't have a big hand, I'll throw it away. I just like to put myself in position to make a run to the final table. I don’t care if I have chips or I don't have chips, because I think I can win it from any spot. I'm not gambling like some others are. Most of the time, when I’m winning a tournament, I'm coming from the middle of the pack." This style has certainly worked for Pete, who was nicknamed "The Beat" before he ever played online by friends who felt he got lucky more often than most. Clearly his success can be attributed to a bit more than luck...
And speaking of final tables, nobody makes them more often online than TheBeat. In order to have the kind of TLB points he has acquired each of the last 3 years, you must make at least 100 final tables per year. That’s about 2 a week, and for someone playing around 20 tournaments a week on PokerStars, making the final table 10% of the time is pretty darn impressive. He also plays occasional tournaments on other sites, particularly the biggest ones, and he makes sure never to miss the big Sunday tournaments on PartyPoker and PokerStars.
Even at his high level, Pete still struggles against certain opponents. "I have a problem playing very aggressive people. I don’t enjoy playing gank, because he's more aggressive than I am, and I'm pretty aggressive. He could be playing any two cards, and he's willing to put his tournament on the line at any time. These very aggressive players like gank, sdouble, and P0ker H0, I don't like to be at the table with them because something bad can happen. When you know somebody's aggressive, he makes you make loose calls against him. You end up playing a little more stupid." Some of his most respected opponents on PokerStars are sandow, mackerel t, and RiverLoser.
One thing that concerns Pete is the number of kids who think they are invincible in the poker world. "I just worry that they think they can do it full time," he said
