Renaissance Man: Barny Boatman on Life and Poker After 50th WSOP Cash
After 18 years playing at the World Series of Poker, Barny Boatman has seen it all. A bit of a renaissance man, the U.K. rounder notched his 50th cash in style this week – finishing seventh in the $1,500 Millionaire Maker on Wednesday for $175,865.
It wasn’t quite the ending he was hoping for, but a good score nonetheless and a great finish for a nice milestone in his poker career. And it didn’t come easy.
"I stopped coming as much until I won the bracelet in 2013, and then I got a real taste for it."
“It was very exciting,” he says. “It was a long grueling tournament and I had long periods where I was having to grind with a very short stack. That final day, I came in at the bottom of the chip list. So getting back into it and having a chance was very fun.”
Poker Life
The win brings Boatman’s career live tournament winnings to $3.5 million. That total includes two WSOP bracelets. His first came in 2013 in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event for $546,080, and his second came in 2015 at the WSOP Europe where he won the €550 Pot-Limit Omaha event for €54,725. During that span, he also has a runner-up and third-place finish and became the first player to reach three consecutive final tables.
“It's a little milestone,” he says of his 50th cash. “Me and my brother Ross used to come, and we'd play satellites for $1,000 to try and get in the Main Event and managed to get in a couple of times. But sponsorship came along [and] we got to play more stuff.
“I stopped coming as much until I won the bracelet in 2013, and then I got a real taste for it. I like the big field events like the $1,500 and $1,000 events. Those are the ones that are fun and a good value.”
Boatman is an original member of the “Hendon Mob” group of players, who all hailed from in and around the Hendon area, a suburb just north of London. The three other original members of the mob include Joe Beevers, Ram Vaswani, and Boatman’s brother Ross Boatman. The four became successful at branding themselves, and were regularly featured on the show “Late Night Poker” in the UK. The show was a precursor to modern television broadcasts like the World Poker Tour, WSOP, and others in that it was the first program to show hole cards.
As poker boomed in the 2000s, Prima Poker and Full Tilt Poker began sponsoring the group and the Mob reached some fame in their approach to the game and skills at the table. The four also founded the Hendon Mob website, which tracked thousands of players' tournament winnings. The site was eventually sold to Global Poker Index in 2013.
Despite not winning the Millionaire Maker, he was taking things in stride afterward.
Life of Adventure
When not at the tables, for much of his life, Boatman was up to something unique – living a life outside the box. That included traveling at a young age to various parts of the globe ranging from Barcelona to Hong Kong to Australia with jobs ranging from bartender to teacher to computer programmer.
"Spain is like a hundred countries in one country, and for the depth of my knowledge and relationship with the country, I would say Spain has been my favorite."
Not afraid of a little risk taking, along the way he jumped out of planes skydiving and zipped through streets on motorcycles. He’s scuba dived in the Caribbean and in Egypt, and snowboarded with a large group of friends in Lake Tahoe.
“That was great fun because you could play poker in the evenings as well,” he says of the Tahoe outing. “So that was an ideal trip for me.”
In recent years, Boatman has lived in Spain. The country is a perfect fit for him, he says, and he loves the country’s diversity and culture. Travel and exploring the world has always been a big part of his life.
“Brazil is a really beautiful country,” he says. “And I love Ireland. "Spain is like a hundred countries in one country, and for the depth of my knowledge and relationship with the country, I would say Spain has been my favorite.”
Looking Back
After 18 years playing at the WSOP, Boatman has a series resumé many would envy. His WSOP days started when the event was still being held at Binion’s Horseshoe in downtown Vegas. He’s seen the game’s explosion after online poker and Chris Moneymaker’s win. He’s seen the rise of poker young guns, Black Friday’s effect on the game, and the poker’s growth globally.
Boatman’s first WSOP cash came in 2000 in a $3,080 No Limit Hold'em event, in which he finished 18th for $7,220. The following year, Boatman cashed in the Main Event, finishing 33rd for $30,000. He followed that up in 2002 with his first final table appearance.
It’s been a great run and Boatman was back in the action on Thursday hoping for more success in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha. With so much WSOP experience, what are some changes that stand out through the years?
“Well, it’s some ways good and some ways bad,” he says. “But it used to be that you knew everybody and there were little crews – the French mob, the Spanish mob, whatever. Now it's so huge. I mean it's kind of corporate, it's big business, but at the same time they run it better every year. There's a lot of incredible events and these huge fields are fantastic.”
Writing Life
For a time, Boatman worked as a freelance journalist and is back to publishing in recent months with the release of the new anthology “He Played for His Wife and Other Stories,” which features numerous authors such as Anthony Holden (who also served as editor), Jennifer Tilly, and Jim McManus. Boatman penned a story titled “Drawing Dead” for the book.
“It's really exciting,” he says. “I've been involved with so many projects that didn't come to fruition for one reason or another. It took a long time. I wrote my story for that book a few years back, but it was worth the wait. I'm in great company there in the book.”
“I've thought about writing a fictional book that's kind of a little bit based on my experiences.”
Since the book’s release, the project has inspired Boatman to get back into writing and he’s got a few projects he’s contemplating.
“It has encouraged me, obviously having something published in that way,” he says. “I've had bits and pieces published, but this is a much bigger deal and has encouraged me to do more writing, which I'm doing.”
With such an interesting life, one might think a Barny Boatman autobiography might be an interesting read, but he’s got another plan.
“I've thought about writing a fictional book that's kind of a little bit based on my experiences,” he says. “That way I can say what I really think about various people by making them fictional characters because a lot of them are still alive. There's some things I'd like to be able to say that people wouldn't be too happy about. It's not about offending people, there's just some people I can't outrun.”
Barny Boatman Stats (June 2018)
| Total Live Earnings | $3,498,589 |
| All Time Money List: | 369th |
| England All Time Money List: | 20th |
| Global Poker Index: | 923rd |
Barny Boatman Key Scores
| Year | Event | Buy-in | Tournament | Entries | Place | Prize in $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | WSOP | $1,500 | NLHM | 2,247 | 1st | $546,080 |
| 2011 | EPT | €4,900 | San Remo Main Event | 837 | 4th | $310,212 |
| 2015 | WSOP | $1,500 | Extended Play | 1,914 | 3rd | $204,464 |
| 2018 | WSOP | $1,500 | Millionaire Maker | 7,361 | 7th | $175,865 |
| 2015 | WSOPE | €550 | PLO event 7 | 503 | 1st | $62,467 |
Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas. His work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions. He is also the host of the True Gambling Stories podcast, available on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, PokerNews.com, HoldemRadio.com, and TrueGamblingStories.com.
