Poker hobby pays off richly for ‘Idaho Bandit’

Michael Kinney, of Sandpoint, knows how to win big.

He stunned many professional poker players when he became a Texas Hold’em champion overnight as an amateur player with only a few years in the game.

He knows what to look for in his opponents: whether they wear sunglasses, how they sit, how they drink their water, how they dress, if they’re superstitious or younger and willing to gamble.

Now he’s finding a fair number of opponents on television as he wins tournaments featured on the Travel Channel’s “World Poker Tour,” where he’s earned the nickname “Idaho Bandit” for bluffing his opponents.

The game has become one of his favorite hobbies. He took to it by chance.

“I didn’t plan on playing,” said Kinney, 37. “It was just something to take my mind off work.”

His first hand at the game was during a vacation to see his dad, Michael “Mic” Kinney Sr. in Reno, Nev. His dad was in a hurry when picking up Kinney from the airport because he was on the way to a poker tournament.

The elder Kinney had played Texas Hold’em for 35 years and told his son he should try his hand at a small poker tournament. So he did.

He took second place.

“I was hooked,” he said. “I started playing smaller tournaments whenever I could.”

He used what little free time he had to learn about the game by reading books, playing online tournaments and playing with a group of buddies in Sandpoint.

For the past three years he started taking his hobby seriously and sought out bigger, better games.

Now, he can rattle off the probability of getting an ace every 220 hands. He knows each card is 14 percent of the hand, the winner takes 35 percent of the entry fees and every new card is a new math problem.

Number skills that have helped him in his construction business now help him at the poker table.

“Anybody can play, but if your math is good with probability, it’s even that much better of a game,” he said. “You have a clear advantage.”

He said a lot of players watch games on TV, but he didn’t know poker existed at that level.

Then he landed on national television as he joined the “World Poker Tour” on April 1. He took home $629,469 and beat out 342 other players.

Since the tour, he’s played in other large tournaments in Reno and in Paris. Last week, he went to Reno for the Pot of Gold tournament and will compete in the Battle of Champions tournament Nov. 14.

Ira Greene, a contractor in Sandpoint, has been playing for about three years. He also played in the Pot of Gold tournament last week, returning calls from his cell phone between rounds. He said Kinney sparked his interest in Texas Hold’em and has helped him become a better player, along with the poker group in Sandpoint.

He knew they were good players and Kinney proved that by winning the tour. But back in Sandpoint, he’s a patient mentor to new players.

“He’s still just Mikey,” he said. “He’s still my friend, and nothing’s changed.”

Kinney said large tournaments are held about every month in Nevada, but he said his trips to Reno are rarely planned.

In most cases, they’re spur of the moment when he can sneak away from work, he said.

Kinney said the game takes only minutes to learn, but it takes a smart person at least a year to know how to win.

Since his recent big wins, he’s seen several challengers ante up at the chance to take his title. But his win was more than just beginner’s luck, he said.

“Anybody can get a good hand, but trying to win when you have the worst hand possible and bluff them and do it with skill – that’s the best part of the game,” he said.

While the game is played with the cards, it is all about the betting, he said. The choices on each hand, whether aggressive or lax, can determine how the game turns out. Making the wrong choice can cost more than just losing your chips.

In one of the tournaments he played shortly after winning the World Poker Tour, he went from first place to 11th on two bad decisions, he said.

He made $103,000, compared with the $3 million he had a chance of winning.

“It was an expensive lesson,” he said.

Despite his losses, and his winnings, he continues to work full-time as a building contractor in Sandpoint. His company, Kinney Construction, builds more than 30 homes a year, and he sees work as a sure thing and poker as anything but.

He’s owned his own business since he was 21 after going to trade school at 15.

Kinney said winning is fun, but it’s not his focus.

“Poker is just a hobby, like somebody else would hunt or fish,” he said. “I like to play cards.”