Ihsan 'Sam' Farha is a professional poker player. He is best known for finishing as runner up in the World Series of Poker main event in 2003 and has won three bracelets at the WSOP.
Sammy Farha is one of the most iconic characters the poker world has ever produced. We all remember his signature cigar and the way he handled himself at a poker table. Farha used the fact that live poker is a social game to the fullest and that made his game incredibly exciting to watch.
- Sam Farha Doubles Up. Sam Farha moved all in for 85,000 and Isaac Baron made the call. Farha exposed the A A and was in great shape versus the A Q of Baron. The board ran out Q-9-3-5-2 and Farha.
- Sam installed our entire hardware and software system for an office of three lawyers and six support staff. He is a genius when it comes to anything electronic. If your business needs any.
- Sam Farha, der sich selbst als Official Poker Rankings bezeichnet, gilt als aggressiver und unberechenbarer Spieler. He is a spokesman for Harrah's casino in Las Vegas. He is a spokesman for Harrah's casino in Las Vegas.
- Beyond Moneymaker and the dotcom card rooms, another man played a big role in the significance of that final table – Houston's Sammy Farha. The Lebanese-born professional poker player at the time.
He was one of the pioneers of the loose-aggressive play style and he's largely responsible for making Pot Limit Omaha as popular of a game as it is now. Farha has three WSOP bracelets to his name (all of them won in Omaha events) and a long successful career as a live cash game player.
Sammy is also an old soul, he was never too thrilled about the introduction of hole card cameras in live events and televised poker. He was also very close to preventing the poker boom from ever happening or at the very least, delaying it. Sammy Farha is a very important figure in the poker history and in this article we're going to take a closer look at some of the hands he played over the years.
He's a Talker
This hand tells us a lot about what kind of player Sammy Farha is. His preflop strategy was extremely loose yet sensitive to the table dynamics. His marginal decision to call the flop was informed by the amount of money in the pot and the fact that a recreational player decided to come along for the ride.
As for the river decision, he went with a solid pot size value bet in order to polarize his range (clearly a good practice against a potentially bluff catch happy opponent) and aim for the maximum value. After that, the Sammy Farha show started. Most players would've just quietly waited for the opponent's decision, but Sammy always aimed at using the social aspect of live poker to his advantage and gain some additional value simply by talking to other players.
Getting Aggressive Before it Was Cool
A great example of a play way ahead of its time. In this hand, Sammy used his stack as leverage to make a very profitable shove with loads of dead money in the pot. Phil Hellmuth had a similar idea but he clearly telegraphed his intention of stealing all the dead money generated by the family pot and given the fact that he wasn't exactly holding a monster it's hard to interpret the things he said as the attempt of downplaying the strength of his hand.
Unfortunately, for Farha, he lost a hand in a very unlucky fashion, but this doesn't change the fact that he used a great bluff 4bet play at the time when the 3bet and 4bet game wasn't really that well developed even among the professional players.
The X Factor
Here's an example of a hand showcasing how devastating the loose preflop strategy favored by Sammy Farha had the potential to be. While it wouldn't be a great idea to randomly start calling 3bets with K6s in the extremely competitive environment of today's online cash games, live poker circa 2007 was much more forgiving and Sammy utilized that to the fullest by turning small and moderate preflop mistakes into big post-flop wins by making his ranges really difficult to read.
Calling down three streets in a 3bet pot against Patrik Antonius certainly wasn't easy, but the fact that Sammy blocked some value combinations with his King, and that the turn was extremely unlikely to improve his hand in the eyes of his opponent, made the final call a lot easier (and more profitable) than it otherwise would've been.
Taking One for The Team
This famous hand against Chris Moneymaker in the finals of 2003 WSOP Main Event could've changed everything. It's very likely that if Sammy Farha listened to his instinct and bluff-catched the busted backdoor flush draw that Moneymaker was bluffing with, I wouldn't be writing this article and you wouldn't be reading it.
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Sam Farha Wiki Biography
Ihsan 'Sam' Farha is a professional poker player. He is best known for finishing as runner up in the World Series of Poker main event in 2003 and has won three bracelets at the WSOP.
| Full Name | Sam Farha |
| Net Worth | $100 Million |
| Date Of Birth | 1959, Beirut, Lebanon |
| Place Of Birth | Beirut |
| Profession | Professional Poker Player |
| Education | University of Kansas |
| Nationality | Lebanon |
| Nicknames | Ihsan Farha , Sammy , Mister Cool , Ihsan 'Sam' Farha , Sam |
| IMDB | http://imdb.com/name/nm1980447 |
| TV Shows | High Stakes Poker, more |
| # | Quote |
|---|---|
| 1 | You have to gamble to win. If you don't gamble, you can't win. |
| # | Fact |
|---|---|
| 1 | Finishes 83rd (Out of 639 entrants) at the WPT Championship for $46,410. Also releases his book 'Farha on Omaha' with Storms Reback, offering insight into the various games of Omaha. [April 2007] |
| 2 | Wins his third gold bracelet, was well as $488,237 in the $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo 8 OB Championship. This is the same tournament (At a $5,000 Buy-in) that he won for his second gold bracelet in 2006. Ironically, this was the first time he'd played in the event since winning the tournament in 2006, so, while he didn't win in consecutive years, he did win the tournament the first and second times he played in it. [June 2010] |
| 3 | Finished in 5th place (Tie) at the National Heads-Up Poker Championship (winning $75,000) [March 2006] |
| 4 | Takes 452nd - out of 7319 entrants - in the 2010 WSOP $10,000 main event, for $31,647. As of this tournament, his total poker winnings total $2,838,238. [July 2010] |
| 5 | Finishes 6th (Out of 192 entrants) in the $10,000 WSOP Mixed event for $85,728, and 30th (Out of 453 entrants) in the 10,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold 'Em event, for $21,657. [June 2008] |
| 6 | Wins Second WSOP bracelet in the 2006 WSOP $5,000 Omaha 8 or Better event #12, also taking home a cash prize of $398,560 [July 2006] |
| 7 | Took 316th place (Out of a field of 5,619 players) at the World Series of Poker main event in 2005. [July 2005] |
| 8 | Finishes 3rd out of the 64 elite player field in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, for $125,000. [March 2009] |
| 9 | Real life Professional Poker Player. Runner up at the World Series of Poker in 2003. Called the 'Humphrey Bogart' of Poker, due to a resemblance to the late actor. |
Actor
| Title | Year | Status | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intercontinental Poker Championship | 2006 | TV Series |
Self
| Title | Year | Status | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 World Series of Poker | 2010 | TV Series | Himself |
| National Heads-Up Poker Championship | 2010 | TV Series | Himself (2010) |
| 2009 World Series of Poker | 2009 | TV Series | Himself |
| National Heads-Up Poker Championship | 2009 | TV Series | Himself (2009) |
| 2008 World Series of Poker | 2008 | TV Series | Himself |
| National Heads-Up Poker Championship | 2008 | TV Mini-Series | Himself |
| 2007 World Series of Poker | 2007 | TV Series | Himself |
| High Stakes Poker | 2006-2007 | TV Series | Himself |
| National Heads-Up Poker Championship | 2007 | TV Series | Himself (2007) |
| Lucky You | 2007 | Himself | |
| World Poker Tour | 2003-2007 | TV Series | Himself |
| Poker After Dark | 2007 | TV Series | Himself |
| The Players at the Table | 2007 | Video documentary short | Himself |
| Intercontinental Poker Championship | 2006 | TV Series | Himself |
| National Heads-Up Poker Championship | 2006 | TV Series | Himself |
| 2006 World Series of Poker | 2006 | TV Series | Himself |
| 2005 World Series of Poker | 2005 | TV Series | Himself (2005) |
| National Heads-Up Poker Championship | 2005 | TV Series | Himself |
| 2004 World Series of Poker | 2004 | TV Series | Himself (2004) |
| World Series of Poker | 2003 | TV Series | Himself (2003) |
Sam Farha 2020
