Poker was about reading opponents like a police detective, outplaying and outwitting them, always remaining ahead. If poker was about luck, as Mike says, the same guys wouldn't be sitting at the final table of the World Series every year, right? Poker was about skill and intuition. 'People insist on calling it luck,' he kept saying sarcastically.

Editor's note: This article appears in the August 28 issue of ESPN The Magazine.