Sammy Farha Poker Strategy

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.

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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