Andrew (Andy) Bloch

Andrew (Andy) Bloch (born June 1, 1969) is a poker player who started playing seriously in 1992, entering some small $35 weekly tournaments once a month. By the end of the year, he had won one of the World Poker Finals tournaments, a $100(US) entry fee no-limit Texas hold’em tournament. That was the first time he ever played no-limit texas hold ‘em .

In 1997, he skipped the last week of law school classes to play in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. He was the guinea pig in a low-tech hole card cam trial. Tom Sims was looking for a volunteer to “sweat” and record all his hole cards, and he agreed. His records turned into a 2-part CardPlayer Magazine article. After passing the bar exam in 1999, he decided to delay his law career and went back to poker.

That career got delayed even further after making two WSOP final tables in 2001, a first place finish back at Foxwoods in 2002 (playing seven-card stud), and two World Poker Tour (WPT) final tables its first season, finishing 3rd both times. Bloch has since chosen to boycott the WPT in protest to its player release process.

He holds two electrical engineering degrees from MIT and a JD from Harvard Law School. He also runs the unofficial World Poker Tour Fan Site.

Bloch was the second season winner of the Ultimate Poker Challenge.

Bloch is also an accomplished blackjack player and was featured in the blackjack documentary The Hot Shoe, as well as starring in his own instructional blackjack DVD, Beating Blackjack, which explains card counting. Andy Bloch was a member of the MIT Blackjack Team featured in the book Bringing Down the House.

He is a member of “Team Full Tilt” at Full Tilt Poker.

At the 2006 World Series of Poker, Bloch finished 2nd in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event when his 9-c 8-s failed to improve against David “Chip” Reese‘s A-c Q-c in the final hand, on a board of J-s 7-c 7-s 4-h 4-s. The heads-up battle lasted 286 hands and was the longest recorded in WSOP history.

In 2006, he defeated Phil Laak heads up to win the Pro-Am Poker Equalizer taking in the grand prize of $500,000. The tournament was broadcast in early 2007 on ESPN.

As of 2007, his total live tournament winnings exceed $2,900,000.

Charities

Bloch, a player representative for Full Tilt Poker, donates 100% of his winnings on the site to various charities around the world. In fact, after qualifying for the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event via a tournament on the website, Bloch decided that any money he won in the event would go directly to charity. He is also contributing $100,000 of his winnings from the Pro-Am Equalizer to charities working in Darfur.

Quote

• “Poker is a godless game, full of random pain.”
• “There’s no such thing as bad beats, just bad plays that get lucky.”