It's All About the Players

Even if you don't know Texas Hold 'em from Five Card Stud, you've probably noticed that poker is everywhere these days.

Millions of viewers watch it on television, and there are now thousands of professional players on the tournament circuit. Chances are, your kids may even be playing poker in the basement right now. It's a serious craze among teenagers.

Some of the best poker players in the world show how they win at the game -- not by having the best cards, but by being the best readers of people, and being the best liars.

"It's all about deception," says Galloway, who calls herself a grinder. She's not looking for the big kill; she's looking for a steady income.

Her office is the casino. Her goal? To make $5,000 a night. And her strategy? Whatever works.

"It's all about lying," says Galloway. "I mean, poker is a game of lies."

What separates the men from the boys on this battlefield is knowing your enemy. "That guy that has the Gulf ball cap on? I can tell he is new by the way he handles his chips, the way he bets his chips, the amount of money he pushes into a small pot," says Galloway, who's sizing up the players.

"The guy in the blue shirt, when he has a hand, he immediately puts his glasses on. It is a sign of weakness. It tells me that he is afraid that something he does is going to give his hand away."

Galloway read Rather like a dime-store novel. "Show me how you would look at your cards," says Galloway to Rather. She says this is one way for her to spot a beginner at the game.

"Well, I tend to look at mine this way," says Rather.

"OK. OK, now, the guy sitting next to you, he just saw your cards. Believe it or not," says Galloway, laughing. "He just saw your cards."

"Isn't that cheating?" asks Rather.

"Well, that's the part of cheating. It's like if you're gonna show me your cards. It's your responsibility to protect your cards," says Galloway. "So, you want to take the cards and put them out in front of your chips. And you want to cover and be very careful and just look at the corners -- just the corners of the cards. Now, nobody can see your cards."

When you watch one of those big time, big money poker tournaments on TV, Galloway is likely to be there -- but not up on stage. Instead, she plays at tables out on the periphery, trying to take money from guys who've just lost.

"They're mad and they've got to try to get even," says Galloway. "I just wait there for them to come in. I'm so bad. I am so bad."

She's bad … and good. On this night's take, she wins almost $5,000.

At the center table, under the TV lights, the stakes are higher. Here, winners are transformed from backroom card sharks into big-time celebrities.

Daniel Negreanu, a high school dropout, became the 2004 Poker Player of the Year after winning nearly $4.5 million.

"If I come to a table where I'm sitting with eight people that I've never seen before, I think within 15 to 20 minutes, I can have a rough idea how they play poker, based on what they're wearing, based on things they say," says Negreanu.

Jennifer Harman is one of the few female super stars. Harman went to college to become a doctor until she figured gambling was more lucrative. She has won more than a million dollars at tournaments, plus millions more in casino poker rooms.

Does she study the cards, or the people?

"I study the people," says Harman. "Poker is very psychological. You try to get into people's heads. Try to figure out what they're thinking. Try to figure out what they're thinking about you. It's a very complex game."

Chris Ferguson, better known as "Jesus," is one of the brainiest players. He has a Ph.D. in computer science, but dropped studying technical books for analyzing poker players.

"If someone's bluffing, they might throw their chips in very slowly. Whereas, if they have a monster hand, they might naturally go something like this [noise]," says Ferguson. "You might interpret this like, 'Oh, the guy shrugs his shoulders. Oh, he's weak. No, but that's actually a sign of strength. And people wouldn't even be aware that they are doing that."

"That's where poker really gets interesting," adds Negreanu. "When you get to the level of like level one, like what do I have? Level two, what does he have? Level three, like what does he think I have? And then, what does he think I think he thinks I have? There's so much cat and mouse psychology.""If you are in a big game, and you're trying to decide whether to call or fold, do you ever find a little lump in your throat and say, 'I can't swallow, 'cause he might -- might tip him off to what I'm thinking,'" asks Rather.

"When I'm bluffing, I'll be thinking about who won the baseball game last night. I'll be thinking about what I'm gonna watch on TV tomorrow. I'm gonna think about the laundry I have to do," says Harman.

"I'm not gonna be thinking about the hand at all. So I don't really want to give off anything. So, yeah, sometimes, you feel like you have a lump in your throat. Sometimes you feel like your heart's in your stomach."

"When you look at Jennifer [Harman], and if you didn't know her, you would see this petite, little blonde - like with this cutesy, little smile, and you wouldn't think she's even capable of understanding sophisticated bluffing strategies," says Negreanu. "She innately has an image that sort of precedes the idea that she even knows what she is doing. 'Oh who, little oh me. I won another one?' You know?"

"So this is the poker table version of the face of a choir girl, but the heart of an assassin," says Rather.

"There you go," says Negreanu, laughing. "Exactly."

And when the cards are dealt, all three keep their eyes not only on their opponents but also on themselves.

"I see some of the things I do, so I'm constantly changing up what I'm doing," says Negreanu. "So somebody might watch TV and see me do something, and they'll go, 'Oh, that must mean he's bluffing when he does it.' But I see it, too. I've got the tapes just like everybody else."

Negreanu says he studies the tapes "like an NFL coach would study the NFL."

"It's about exploiting weaknesses," says Negreanu. "If I find a guy at the table who's really weak, I'm going to do everything I can to exploit those weaknesses. It's just war. That's all it is."

At this war, Negreanu was again the victor, and won the spoils – all neatly stacked and delivered. This time, he won nearly $1.8 million.

"When I first got out to Vegas, it was my first live tournament with the World Series," recalls Moneymaker. "And I went out there and I was completely nervous. So I wore shades and a hat to cover everything up."

But he had an uncanny ability to read his opponents -- so good that he made it all the way the finals. There, Moneymaker found himself playing head-to-head against veteran Sam Farha, and picked up a subtle signal.

"Whenever he riffled his chips or played with his chips with his right hand, he was gonna bet at you or he was gonna call your bet," says Moneymaker. "Whenever he started using his left hand, that was sort of his weaker hand. And he was gonna be folding or, you know, he was gonna probably fold the hand."

Moneymaker held his insight close to his vest while waiting to spring it at a crucial moment.

Finally, this was the moment. Moneymaker had a losing hand and he knew the only way to win was by bluffing, forcing Farha to fold. While Moneymaker revealed nothing, Farha was sending out mixed messages.

"You will actually see him go through the morphosis of playing strictly with his right hand and then moving over to his left hand," says Moneymaker, looking back at the game. "Now he's, I guess, starting to question what he's gonna do. This actually went on for about five minutes."

Moneymaker, however, says he would not have made it this far if it had not been for the kindness of a stranger: "A person told me the third day of the World Series that whenever I was bluffing, I would flair my nostrils," says Moneymaker. "I didn't know I was doing it. I was doing that every time I was bluffing."

"So if I'd been playing you during that period and picked up on that, I might have been able to take you?" asks Rather.

"Yeah," says Moneymaker. "I would have probably been out of the tournament."

"This was a very long process where I really thought he was gonna call me for a while, because he kept using that right hand. That was my big thing," says Moneymaker, looking back at the tournament. "He calls, he wins."

This later became known as "the bluff of the century." And on the very next hand, Moneymaker won it all -- $2.5 million.

Moneymaker's triumph helped popularize poker, making it seem like anyone could win.

Well, maybe not anyone. Galloway gave Rather what she called the poker player's essential kit.

"I felt a need for you to have these things if you're sitting down at the poker table," she says. "One, your baseball cap. You'll have to wear that. … It gives you a level of intimidation. If you're wearing your suit, looking all nice like you do, then no one's gonna feel threatened by you."

The second item? Cheap sunglasses. Rather tried them on.

"See, now you look like a poker player," says Galloway, laughing.