Finished second in the 2003 WSOP main event.
Nothing much rattles Sam Farha. Growing up in Beirut may have something to do with that.
Sam was born with a strong competitive streak. He spent hours in arcades playing video games, pinball, and pool. He was even featured on the cover of a pinball magazine, and won $5,000 from a single game of Pac-Man.
Civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975 and Sam's father moved his family as far away from the bloodshed as he could. They settled in Kansas, and Sam attended the University of Kansas and graduated with a business degree. From there, he moved to Houston and started plotting his career through the nine-to-five world. That's when poker entered the picture.
Sam's escape from the grind was friendly games of poker. He and his friends quickly found out that he brought something extra to the table. He made his first trip to Vegas and turned $2,000 into $7,000 overnight. It would take four more years of trips back and forth to Vegas before Sam decided to go pro.
In 1996, Sam won the World Series of Poker's $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event, and won his second championship gold bracelet 10 years later in Limit Omaha Eight or Better. In 2003, in the event that kicked-off the modern day poker craze, Sam finished second in the WSOP Main Event.
Sam's laid-back demeanor and Rat Pack ambivalence belay a hyper-aggressive game. And with his signature dangling cigarette (most of the times unlit because of casino policy) and tough guy looks, his opponents can also count on one thing – his unpredictability.
