Jeff Lisandro

Australia’s number 3 ranked player in live tournaments has, as his name suggests, Italian roots, and he grew up near Salerno after being born in Perth in Western Australia.

Having been taught poker at a very early age by his mother, he didn’t start out his adult life as a poker pro, instead focussing in the real-estate market. When he did eventually decide that cards were his future, he spent a few years grinding away on the tournament circuit while making his actual living as a cash game specialist.

His first big tournament success came at the Bellagio 5-Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas in 2003 where he took down the $1500 Pot Limit title for $122,217 but 7-card stud is where Lisandro really excels, where 3 of his 5 WSOP bracelets have been won.

Aside from the Stud bracelets, the likeable Aussie –nicknamed the Iceman -  has also taken down titles in Razz and PLO but surprisingly for such a versatile poker pro he has yet to make an impact in the H.O.R.S.E. events at the World Series.

December 2004 saw him lift the $25K HeadsUp Limit Hold’em tournament in Las Vegas, defeating Howard Lederer in the final for a $194,000 payday, and a few months later came one of his biggest successes in poker, taking down the $10K WSOP Circuit Championship event in Lake Tahoe for a staggering $542,360. He considers this one of his best-ever results as he defeated Phil Ivey heads-up for the title.

Depsite his obvious talent and successes, Lisandro also became famous when he was involved in an unseemly altercation at the 2006 WSOP Main Event, when he was basically accused of cheating by Prahlad Friedman, who believed that Lisandro had not put his 5000 chip ante in.

Despite Lisandro claiming he had (later proved correct on TV) Friedman continued to needle Lisandro about it – and eventually Lisandro, understandably given Friedman’s behaviour, lost his temper and threatened to ‘take his head off’ on a couple of occasions. The incident can be viewed here on PokerTube.

The unfortunate incident notwithstanding, Lisandro eventually went on to finish 17th in the Main Event, picking up $659,730.

The following year saw the first of his WSOP bracelet wins when he defeated a final table which included Daniel Negreanu in the $2K 7-card stud event. This win came just after narrowly missing out on the $5K Pot Limit Hold’em title when he lost heads-up to Allen Cunningham in another star-studded event which saw Humberto Brenes finish 3rd.

 The following year saw him again come close in the WSOP, taking runner-up spot in the $5K No Limit 2-7 Draw event adding $347,704 to his bankroll and in 2009 he proved that the WSOP was his favourite tournament by taking down 2 bracelets, the 7-card Stud hi-lo $10K title followed a few days later by the 7-card Razz, scooping over $600K in the process.

Further titles in the WSOP would be won in WSOP Europe in 2010 and WSOP Asia-Pacific in 2014, with Lisandro’s total earnings in WSOP events amounting to over 80% of his career tournament total.