Ihsan "Sam" Farha ( ar, إحسان فرحة; born 1959 in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

) is a Lebanese professional

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

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.

Private 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, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

. While completing his studies, he also learned to play pool, ping ball, and the video game Pac Man 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 (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. 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 held at Binion's Horseshoe. Preliminary events Main Event There were 839 entrants to the main event. Each paid $10,000 to enter what was the largest poker tournament ever played in a brick and mortar ca ...

Main Event, 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 worl ...

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. He has won a number of major events, including three at the World Series of Poker and two on the World Poker Tour. Greenstein donates his p ...

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

, 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 that was a part of The Stars Group until it was sold to Flutter Entertainment on May 5, 2020. It can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for the Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It is the large ...

, 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 largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

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.

, 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 fi ...

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 unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

poker series, and a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

. *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 fr ...

'', 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" chips and money at stake, often with no predetermined end time, with players able to enter and leave as they see fit. In contrast, a pok ...

s. His eleven cashes at the WSOP account for $2,586,105 of those winnings.World Series of Poker Earnings
worldseriesofpoker.com *Farha is also known for his TV appearances on

Poker After Dark ''Poker After Dark'' is an hour-long poker television program that originally aired on NBC, premiering on January 1, 2007.

, High Stakes Poker, and the NBC Heads-up Championship.

References

External links

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