The young Josh Arieh (pre-double bracelets and travelling professional lifestyle) discovered in Atlanta, Georgia, that one could bet on games like pool, and then that there were games whose sole purpose was the betting. The actual cards in poker are often incidental, and Josh seemed to be naturally gifted at reading people and the game – and before he was strictly of legal gambling age found ways to hone the natural aggression and confidence in his game into something he could take to local private games and cardrooms, and on to Vegas.
Following Josh Arieh’s 1999 bracelet win in the WSOP $3,000 Limit Hold’em event, his tournament career shows a series of successes, in a wide variety of games. The year after his first WSOP victory, he ended up taking second place in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event, but he can’t have felt too hard done by seeing as his opponent was Johnny Chan. Following that, in between playing in cash games, writing about and even teaching poker, he’s made final tables in No-Limit Hold'em, Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Omaha 8-or-better (Omaha Hi-Lo) and 7-Card Stud.
The point at which the young professional player truly had the spotlight turned upon him was the 2004 WSOP Main Event, in which he made third place and $2.5 million. The year Greg Raymer took the bracelet was also the year that television coverage showed the world what Josh Arieh could do, on repeat, on ESPN. His aggressive mouthy style got him branded with the “new breed” label, but he’s been professional for over a decade, and is certainly not a recent convert to the game.
His extrovert personality and table talk have come close to getting him the wrong sort of reputation (chastising Harry Demetriou, for example, with a rather public rubdown) but he insists that having apologised he’s at least aware of the lines of gentlemanly behaviour often crossed by the great and good of the poker world. Overall he’s a respected player, and definitely recognised on the high-stakes tournament circuit, which he now follows comfortably. That might have something to do with the difficulty of ignoring him on a final table, especially a televised one, where he felt his presence was overdue. Josh sounds like he’s more than comfortable under the lights playing for the big money, and his confidence is clear from the high-pressure version of the game he plays, all the way through a tournament.
Not having set out to become a poker pro, his experience (mainly of winning, early on in Georgia) shows in the fearless way he tackled the biggest event (then) in poker history. Supported by friend Erick Lindgren, he maintains that he could have (should have?) won the event, and that’s the kind of positive attitude which led to his third place finish in the $10,000 WPT event in Borgata, and his victory in the $2,000 Pot Limit Omaha event in the following year’s World Series.
Currently residing in Atlanta with his wife Angela and two children, his recent tournament success has given them the breathing space, bankroll and time which most circuit-travelling pros would relish. From all accounts, the support of his family means a lot to Josh, and he spends his time playing in live events and online, as well as engaging in some other poker-related activities, such as writing for Bluff magazine. If you’ve seen him play on TV, his sensibly grounded-sounding advice in his writing might come as a bit of a surprise, but his warnings of the ups and downs of the professional player ring true: “Your road to professional poker is going to be a long grind, it’s not something that happens overnight. Take it from me, I’ve been broke a million times, but I learned a lesson every time I went broke.”
While checking what Josh had been up to in between winning his $3,000,000 plus in high stakes tournaments and cash games, I found my way to www.atlantapokerschool.com. It appears that on his home turf he has been running (cancelled, sadly, at present) a series of poker tutorial classes, covering topics from ‘Playing from the blinds,’ and ‘Betting strategies and pot odds’ to ‘Tells and betting patterns.’ Josh’s Course Outline indicates that the school took the format of a series of lectures followed by Q and A with the man himself. From his clearly-written articles, I would imagine him to be quite capable of explaining some of the intricacies of the game to his eager disciples. The homepage for the school says that for $210 your night of instruction from one of the most successful players around was well worth the buy-in.
