Willie "Mr Miyagi" Tann

Mr Miyagi?


Wille Tann has gone under many guises over the years; from ‘The Dice Man’ to ‘The Governer’, but his favourite moniker at the moment is that of ‘Mr Miyagi’ from The Karate Kid, the trainer and mentor of young ‘Daniel-san’. Everyone who has seen the film will remember the wise and wizened old master who speaks in a truncated oriental voice full of deep philosophical mutterings whilst also maintaining a low and humble profile, and this is pretty much Tann in a nutshell.

The tagline for the movie goes, ‘He taught him the secret to Karate lies in the mind and the heart, not in the hands’ and similarly Willie has become something of a mentor to a number of the younger generation in recent years, most notably the editor of The Ecologist and heir to the Goldsmith fortune, Zac Goldsmith.

Goldsmith subsequently went on to finish third overall for $75,000, which was something of a result considering that first and second were the greats of the European scene, Donnecha O’Dea and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot. “He paid me a good price” Willie comments with a smile when asked about the cost of tuition, but like a gentleman he won’t go any further. Luckily, thanks to a new partnership with Betfair poker, he’ll be sharing some of this winning advice with you for free in coming months!

The long and winding road…


Wille Tann came to England as a law student in the early sixties from Singapore: “I started playing poker when I was 18 or 19 years old, and came to London, to Lincolns Inn, where I played with my fellow students in house games. I was winning a lot of money and so I stopped playing with them, and started playing in ‘spielers’ (casinos) all over London.”

From there he basically dropped out of law school to play full time and has never had a long term job since as he was winning so much: “I though I could make a better living playing poker. I’ve been in a few other businesses – the restaurant business, the hot towel business, I’ve been a bookmaker at the race tracks - but poker had always kept me going.”

This was hardly the London of today though, where the Victoria Casino takes pride of place on Edgeware Road and the Gutshot Cardroom in Clerkenwell sees swathes of bankers, lawyers and students gather every evening for £5 and £10 tournaments. When asked about these changes Willie literally sighs with the weight of experience: “Aaah… the image of poker has changed dramatically through the years. We used to play in seedy, smoky places - it wasn’t respectable to go to a spieler. But nowadays you can play with top people in more salubrious places, much more dignified and well presented. The places we used to play were just dives.”

Fittingly perhaps, to go with this change in the public perception of poker there’s also a side to Willie that most don’t know about. Far from being the urban casino dweller that one might imagine from seeing him out and about on the poker circuit, he actually lives some distance out of London in a small village in Hertfordshire called Bovingdon, where Tudor Houses, churches and greenery are more common than casinos. He also has a family away from poker: “I’ve been married for almost 30 years now. I have one son who went through Westminster and Oxford and is now a lawyer himself.”

Brave new world


Of course one of the main factors driving the change in poker’s popularity is the internet, where hundreds of thousands of people play online everyday. When asked about it Willie is jovial at first at how easy it is to win there: “You can play badly because no-one sees you play badly - compared to a live game where you’ve got to play well”. But he also sees it as a massive breakthrough: “In the 21st century poker has changed so much, everyone can learn to play on the internet. And experience is the main thing - through the years I've played for so long. The more you play and practise the better you get. Experience” he repeats “is the key, always experience”.

And since the internet poker boom is showing no signs of a slow down, Willie is optimistic about the future: “Oh, it’s just going to get bigger and bigger. Last month I went to play on the Professional Poker Tour, where we no longer have to put up a buy-in because the sponsors do it. This is revolutionary, the future of the game, making it like golf or tennis. Poker should be recognized as a sport as there’s a lot of skill besides the luck factor. There’s so many, many ways of playing a hand, no one book can teach you to play a certain hand in a certain way and bet based on the circumstances, how to win a pot.”

Get better with Betfair Poker


In the coming months then, Willie will be sharing his poker experience and experiences with you in the form of tutorials and stories about his career. At the cornerstone of these are the five P’s: “Patience, perseverance, psychology, practise and position.” We’ll be looking at each one of these in depth so that you can start out on the pathway to poker success.