MEET THE CHAMPION – ANDY FRANKENBERGER
The 2012 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em champion is Andy Frankenberger, from New York, NY.
Frankenberger is a 39-year-old professional poker player.
Frankenberger was born in New York City. However, he spent much of his childhood living in Massachusetts.
Frankenberger was an exchange student for one year. He lived in Siberia, Russia. During that time, Frankenberger became fluent in Russian. He decided to pursue language studies when he attended college.
Frankenberger attended and graduated from Duke University. He earned degrees in economics and Russian.
Frankenberger worked on Wall Street as an equity derivatives trader. He was very successful financially, and also enjoyed his work immensely.
Frankenberger made what many would consider to be an unthinkable decision to leave his career. He took some time of and gradually became interested in poker.
Frankenberger’s first recorded live tournament cash took place in January 2010 at the Borgata Winter Open. Since that time, he has won more than $2.5 million in live tournaments.
Frankenberger has a stellar poker resume, considering that he has been active for only about four years. He won the 2010 WPT Legends of Poker Main Event. He also won the Venetian Deepstack Championship in 2010. Frankenberger was also awarded the WPT’s “Player of the Year” honor for 2010. To top things off, he won a WSOP gold bracelet in 2011 and again in 2012.
For this victory, Frankenberger collected $445,899 for first place.
According to official records, Frankenberger now has 2 wins, 3 final table appearances, and 5 in-the-money finishes at the WSOP. He also has three WSOP Circuit cashes.
Frankenberger is to be classified as a professional poker player (in WSOP records and stats).
WINNER QUOTES (POST-TOURNAMENT INTERVIEW)
Question: How do you feel at this stage of your poker career?
Frankenberger: I’ve had my share of controversies in my brief career, but I couldn’t be any happier right now for how I’ve started out.
Question: In the time since you had your first major win until now, has the amount of time that you want to play the game changed?
Frankenberger: Yeah. Well, you know, I left Wall Street having no idea that I was going to play poker professionally. With the successes, I decided to do so. And it was a great decision. I’m really enjoying myself. I’m traveling, playing poker. And I couldn’t be any happier with the decision.
Question: Does beating Phil Ivey make it any sweeter?
Frankenberger: Yeah. I’d have to say, winning a bracelet is everyone’s dream, but beating Phil Ivey is like a fairytale. I can’t even believe it just happened. He’s such a great player; I learned a lot from playing with him at the final table. I adjusted my game. He plays unlike anyone else that I’ve ever played. Obviously, I have a very short career, but I tried to adjust my game to his style. And what else can I tell you?
Question: You have a very unorthodox style. So does Ivey. What was the dynamic like, playing against someone who wasn’t your standard player?
Frankenberger: You’re right; my style is pretty unorthodox as well. I try to adjust to my opponent, and one of the things that I realized against Phil Ivey was, this mid-raise the button just ain’t working. He’s betting big and putting me in tough spots. It’s better to play big pots against him because the one thing I had going for me was: he didn’t want to play big flips against me. And I don’t blame him. He’s a better player than I am, so why should he want to flip when he can play small pots? So, I had to use that to my advantage, and just kept going pot on him and stop playing the small pots that I kept getting crushed on, and just, you know, put him to tough decisions. He was folding pretty quickly, when I was betting pots. So, you know, when I bet pot, and he fold, I showed the 5-10, just to put in his head, “Hey, I might be doing thislight. I want to get a call when I actually get the hand. I’m gonna’ want him to go along.” So, I just tried to adjust to that reality, which is he’s gonna’ outplay me post-flop, so let’s just try to get in his head a little bit pre-flop.
Question: Do you pay any attention to the people who might not understand how you play? And do you think this win will silence the people who might have some stuff to say about you?
Frankenberger: I don’t think there’s anything I can do to silence the people. I mean, people love to criticize people who have success. That’s part of the game. I’m a very competitive person, so I’ve just had to learn to deal with that. I really haven’t even looked at the sites since earlier in the series, when I read some stuff that kind of annoyed me. People are saying, “Oh, this will show that the last one wasn’t a fluke.” Well, when I won the last one, they were saying, “Oh, this shows that the WPT player of the year isn’t a fluke.” So, whatever. I’m just gonna’ stop reading them. And hopefully my record speaks for itself at this point. But I am a very competitive person, so it’s tough. I had to work on that.
Question: What’s the most important thing that you take away from a victory like this?
Frankenberger: Well first, I just love the competition. It’s like the ultimate intellectual game, poker. You know, there’s money on the line. There’s odds. There’s numbers. I love all that stuff. And I’m really happy that I have the ability to make a living playing poker. I’m really, really fortunate. Couldn’t be any luckier to be able to do this for a living.
Question: Which win was more satisfying – the first or the second?
Frankenberger: Wow. Which is more satisfying? I would have to say this one. Just beating Phil Ivey. I mean, it’s a tournament where a lot of people love to say, “Oh, he gets lucky. He wins flips.” I mean, you’re gonna’ see in the final table; I lost some flips too. Pot-Limit Hold’em is not all about getting it in pre-flop. I had to battle my way here. So, given the toughness of the field...obviously in the 1500 I had pretty good players, but it’s kind of like avoiding the mines in the mine field. But this tournament was just loaded with good players, and I just tried to adjust my game throughout. You know, coming away with the victory in this one just feels extra special.
Question: What’s with the pink pants?
Frankenberger: Well, I was deciding what I was going to wear today. And I was like, “Oh, it probably won’t matter. I probably won’t make the final table. But if I do, it sure would be cool to have my pink pants on at that point.” And the red shoes…I could’ve either gone with my black shoes, my running sneakers or my flip flops, so I’m like, “The red shoes it is.” They’re my lucky pants. What can I tell ya? If you see me at a final table, I’ll have them on again.
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