Ihsan "Sam" Farha (; born 23 February 1959 in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

) is a Lebanese professional

poker Poker is a family of Card game#Comparing games, comparing card games in which Card player, players betting (poker), wager over which poker hand, hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, with varying rules i ...

player. He is best known for finishing as runner up in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in 2003. He has won three bracelets at the WSOP in his career.

Personal life

When the civil war erupted in Lebanon in 1975, the Farha family moved to the United States in search of a better life. The young Ihsan "Sammy" Farha went on to earn a degree in business administration from the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

. While completing his studies, he also learned to play pool, ping ball, and the video game

Pac Man ''Pac-Man,'' originally called in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The play ...

so well that he earned substantial money by playing these games against others for cash. After graduating from college, he moved to Houston, Texas. That is where he had his first encounter with poker, in the eighties. Shortly after, he made a trip to

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

. His winnings at the poker tables made him realize he could make a living playing cards. Farha then decided to quit his job and moved to Vegas.

World Series of Poker

Farha's biggest tournament finish was in the

2003 World Series of Poker The 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was a poker tournament held at Binion's Horseshoe. The tournament is seen as a turning point in the history of competitive poker, as amateur Chris Moneymaker's victory in the main event despite no prior tour ...

Main Event In sports, a card lists the matches taking place in a title match combat-sport event. Cards include a main event match and the undercard listing the rest of the matches. The undercard may be divided into a midcard and a lower card, according to ...

, where he finished second to

Chris Moneymaker Christopher Bryan Moneymaker (born November 21, 1975) is an American poker player who won the Main Event at the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP). His 2003 win is said to have revolutionized poker because he was the first person to become a wor ...

for $1,300,000. On TV, Farha was identified as an "investor", a job Farha said he never actually held but was rather an identity he held to convince people to start a game with him. On the second day of play, Farha lost a major pot to

Barry Greenstein Barry Greenstein (born December 30, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American professional poker player and former mathematics postgraduate student. He has won a number of major events, including three at the World Series of Poker and two on th ...

leaving him with only 10% of the average stack. He was considering leaving at this point and was talked into staying in the tournament by Greenstein. He lost the final hand to Moneymaker when he went all-in with a pair of jacks on the

flop Floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance in computing, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate measur ...

, only to be called by Moneymaker who had flopped bottom two pair, which held after the final river card was dealt. In a rematch between Farha and Moneymaker a few months later, organized by

PokerStars PokerStars is an online poker cardroom. It is the largest real money online poker site in the world, controlling over two-thirds of the total online poker market, and can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for Windows, macOS, Androi ...

, Farha won. They played against each other again in a special "grudge match" during

2011 World Series of Poker The 2011 World Series of Poker was the 42nd annual World Series of Poker (WSOP). The WSOP is the most prestigious poker tournament in the world with the winner of the Main Event considered to be the World Champion. It was held at the Rio All Suit ...

, which was won by Moneymaker in best-of-three format.

World Series of Poker bracelets

All of Farha's WSOP bracelets have come in

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

events.

Other poker activities

*Farha has also finished in the money in the

National Heads-Up Poker Championship The National Heads-Up Poker Championship was an annual poker tournament held in the United States and produced by the NBC television network. It is a $25,000 "buy-in" invitation-only tournament organized as a series of heads up poker, one-on-one ...

, once for $75,000 and the other time for $125,000. He also has three cashes in

World Poker Tour The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the ...

events, for a little over $100,000. *Farha co-authored a book ''Farha on Omaha'', a detailed guide on Omaha poker strategy. Farha intersperses basic strategies with his own personal strategies, so players can learn not only the game but also the style of Farha himself. *Farha is working on a book, tentatively titled ''Luck is Far More Than Enough'', a

reality TV Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 199 ...

poker series, and a

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

. *Farha is a

spokesman A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...

for

Harrah's Harrah's Entertainment (later named Caesars Entertainment Corporation, previously The Promus Companies) was an American casino and hotel company founded in Reno, Nevada, and based in Paradise, Nevada, that operated over 50 properties and seven go ...

casino in

. *Farha has appeared on the GSN series ''

High Stakes Poker ''High Stakes Poker'' is an American cash game poker television program. The poker variant played on the show is no limit Texas hold 'em. The first four seasons ran from January 16, 2006 to December 17, 2007 on GSN. The next three seasons ran f ...

'', in seasons 1-4. Farha also made a cameo appearance in the 2007 film '' Lucky You''. *As of 2017, his total winnings exceed $2,800,000 in live tournament poker, although he tends to primarily play in high-stakes Omaha

cash game Cash games, also sometimes referred to as ring games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" Poker chip, chips and money at stake, often with no predetermined end time, with players able to enter and leave as they see fit. In co ...

s. His eleven cashes at the WSOP account for $2,586,105 of those winnings.

References

External links

Card Player profileGlobal Poker Index profile

Hendon Mob profileWPT profileWSOP profile

PokerPlayerProfiles.com profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farha, Sam 1959 births Living people Lebanese poker players American people of Lebanese descent World Series of Poker bracelet winners Sportspeople from Beirut People from Wichita, Kansas University of Kansas alumni People from Houston Sportspeople of Lebanese descent