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Being nominated for an Oscar is the goal of every actor, but not James Woods. Woods has already accomplished this and much more. He already has the nomination, as well as three Emmys and a Golden Globe. Now the star of Against All Odds wants his next accomplishment to be in the poker world. He is an intense player who knows the game and as the host of HollywoodPoker.com, Woods is just a tournament away from adding poker champion to his list of accomplishments.
How did you get into poker?
I’ve always played poker. I’ve always been into poker, gin and all card games. My mom is a great card player—she plays all the time. I just love the math of it, and I love all the gaming theories involved with no-limit hold’em. When I was at MIT in the ’60s, that was when gaming theories were first being developed. My professor and my adviser, who was the undersecretary of defense, were using gaming theory in Vietnam and obviously hadn’t perfected it at that point, but it works very well in poker. There are situations where, for example, it mathematically makes more sense to bluff a little bit than never to bluff at all.
What drew you to the game?
Poker to me is everything you would ever want in a contest short of actually taking somebody’s blood. There is math involved, there is psychology involved, there’s guts, there’s gambling, there’s the sheer sense of observation, manipulation and self discipline, which I think is the biggest aspect. I think the single biggest aspect is to not defeat yourself through exhaustion, lack of patience, fear. Once in awhile I’ll give myself a mantra. You have to focus. I always imagine that I am behind enemy lines in World War II and I am in a bar and I’m a spy and my German better be perfect, because if I make one little mistake. It’s the same thing in poker. You have to watch, because one little twitch or gesture can be the turning point in a two-and-a-half-million-dollar event.
A buddy of mine that is a phenomenal cash-game player, he plays in games where the pot is a half-million dollars, and he said, “I don’t want you to come back with any check other than 1 or 2 million dollars. If you are not going to come back with 2 million just knock yourself out of the tournament. Do not play to make second money…PLAY TO WIN.”
So I am going to play to win, that’s it. I’m playing to win. That means that if I have a short stack and I get pocket tens, I’m all in. I’m just all in. I’m not going to think, “Well I could save a little…” No.
What is your greatest poker strength?
It’s odd because I am a very scientific person and mathematically oriented because I did go to MIT, and I was always scientifically oriented, also. I am very fond of the math and I’m very good at reading people. My greatest strength is an intangible strength and I can’t explain what it is, and I am so scientific that I am almost embarrassed to say this. I just have instincts. I don’t know what they are, but I have almost infallible instincts. I just feel things. Now, I can make bad plays. I was making a play once and I said to myself, “Just fall on the ground! Don’t put these chips in, just fall on the ground and they will think you had a heart attack or something and you won’t be embarrassed, because if you put these chips in you are so going to lose this hand. Don’t be a moron, don’t put the chips in…” which I did and I immediately lost to a set that I knew the guy had. I didn’t follow my instincts. I have never been wrong with the exception of one time in my entire life on what my instincts said. I have lost a lot of hands but my instincts have never been wrong, except once.
What was that hand?
It was a hand against Amir Vahedi. The flop was A-J-5. I’ve got pocket fives. I’m betting to try to trap him…I figure he has A-J and he probably figures I may have an A-Q or A-K. So I bet it big and he calls me, and I’m thinking I have him. On the turn I started talking, telling him I wasn’t going to slow-play him and that I had the hand. He called it. The river was another rag. I would have gone all in if I had a million dollars, but I made another big bet and he called it. Pocket aces. He turns over pocket aces! I wouldn’t have bet that he had pocket aces if my life had depended on it. I thought it was the perfect situation, but I never in my wildest dreams read those aces. I had invented or imagined a scenario that didn’t exist and that’s one of those things. I have to be careful not to invent scenarios that don’t exist.
Do you think there is a lot of luck involved?
It is still gambling. There isn’t a single person who has won a tournament that hasn’t had five miracles along the way. I don’t care how great you are. I’m an actor and many times I will still be in tournaments and the greatest players in the world are out. This happens on a regular basis. I will cash and then, “Oh, there goes Jennifer Harman…there go the greatest players in the world.” They played the right hand and it’s still gambling.
What kind of similarities and differences are there between poker and acting? How has acting helped you at the poker table?
You know a lot of what makes acting great is the unexpected and the kind of mercurial ways that people do brilliant and unexpected things. If they do what is expected in acting it’s kind of dull and uninteresting, but if there’s an electric moment where you say, “Wow,” that’s a stunning sort of moment of reality, the way that person played this or that. Great actors are like that, whether it is (Robert) De Niro or (Meryl) Streep or the younger ones who are great, Leonardo DiCaprio, people like that.
With poker players it is the same thing. The way John Phan plays a strange hand like 9-7 of hearts, you will see him playing those wonderful hands. I don’t mean like Gus Hansen, wild and crazy, just playing kind of creative hands. I was also watching Alan Goehring at the L.A. Poker Classic. He plays every single hand but that is his way to the end. That guy plays after the flop better than anybody I have ever seen. I have never seen anything like it. He will just be in every hand and take the chance, but once he’s on the flop he can maneuver his way through the battlefield. That’s the guy you want to drop behind enemy lines because he will pick his way through the minefield, believe me. So they are very similar in many ways and the ups and downs are just what you’d expect, you do a great take and you want to jump up and down. When your aces hold up it’s a miracle.
Do you have a favorite tournament?
The Bay 101 is a fun tournament. The bounties (bonus payouts for knocking out top pros or celebrities) are great because it makes you play a different kind of way. I’m sort of a bounty, anyway. One of the reasons I’m such a tight player, except against pros (because you can play more sophisticated poker with them), is I always get these guys who don’t know any better. “Well, Mr. Woods, I can always say I lost to James Woods.” And I say to them, “Pal, I’ve got a better pair than you. I know you’ve got fours. I’m just doing you a favor; you’re a 4.5-to-1 underdog. I’ve got the better pair.” He says, “Well, I can always say I lost to James Woods.” Here we go…all in. Of course, the first card off is always a four. I have to say being a bounty has made me sort of play tighter and use the classic tight and aggressive play that I do. Against pros I will be much more creative and inventive, or I try to be. They are people that you can actually make plays against and they will lay down hands.
So people treat you differently at the table because you are an actor?
I get people who think just because I am an actor, I am just going to fold to them. I had one guy thinking that he was going to teach me a little lesson, and I knocked his ass out of the tournament! It was like, good, thanks for underestimating me. It was fine. I love it. He was kind of arrogant about it like he was going to be a big shot. I just said have a good time, you can read about it tomorrow.
James competed in the heads-up championship the last two years, losing to Johnny Chan and Scott Fischman. His impressive film credits include My Name Is Bill W., The Onion Field, Casino, Riding in Cars With Boys and of course his Oscar nomination for Salvador. He attended MIT on full scholarship and, believe it or not, one of his first parts on the big screen was in The Gambler.
You can read the entire article at Poker Pro Magazine's website: http://www.thepokerpromagazine.com/jameswoods.php
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