Brandon Lilly, Poker's Next Superstar?
Dec. 18, 2006 - 5 days ago, Brandon Lilly arrived in Las Vegas with friend/manager Brian Schulman. We keep bumping into him and every time we do, he's winning another tournament. Check this out...
Mirage, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 1st Place for $3,200.00 - $230 buy-in
Harrah's, Thursday, Dec. 14th, 1st Place for $700.00+(?) - $100 buy-in
Binion's Friday., Dec. 15th, 1st Place - $1,000 - $100 buy-in
Binion's Ultimate Poker Challenge, Saturday/Sunday, Dec. 16-17th, - 1st place for $14.5K - $660 buy-in
Do you notice a pattern here? 4 tournaments in basically 4 days and 1st place in all 4 of them. (Pending final results of the UPC event). Lucky streak? Without a doubt. Does this 21-year old from Phoenix know how to play poker? You figure it out.
Brian tells us that Brandon and he have been friends for about 6 months. Brian had perhaps a little more money than Brandon and was willing to risk some of it on him when they entered into a very informal sponsorship relationship after Brandon asked him to do it. Brian is no doubt certain it was the right decision, scoring big on his very first opportunity. Already knowing his friend has an amazing ability to know his opponents' cards, during the Mirage victory, Lilly called out his reads correctly 9 times. Online, Lilly 
turned a $10 free promotion into $10K in about a month, playing small tourneys and working his way up. He has recently dedicated his life to poker, playing up to 16 hours/day. It is his passion and dream. "How did he get so good?", we asked Brian. "Practice, combined with genius" was the short answer. He started in a home game years ago, playing with friends many of whom later moved to Las Vegas to play poker professionally. One of those friends has made at least $1 million playing poker. All of those friends readily admit that Lilly is better than any of them.
Brian's quest is to get Lilly some media coverage and sponsorship deals. One of the deals that was put together in a hurry by a friend of ours, and a wealthy Bellagio player who is in the Italian suit business will probably end up falling through because this businessman had to leave town the day Brandon Lilly was to be on TV and hurriedly left the business arrangements to be worked out by a friend of his and our friend. Brandon was to receive an above average sum for wearing the logo on his cap and perhaps wearing one of the Italian suits. Well, a good suit couldn't be tailored in time, and the lettering on the cap didn't show up on TV because the guy who made the cap used dark lettering on a dark background, why we have no idea. When the suitmaker returns to town, the sum of money will not be asked for because our friend, who worked 4 hours on the deal on 0 hours sleep the night before, is smart enough to know that the suit guy won't be happy. The question that remains now is, will the suit guy be smart enough to know to sponsor Lilly in the future when given the next opportunity and given perhaps a bit more time to do it right? Without a doubt, we think. Meanwhile, our friend has already entered into another arrangement with Lilly to try and get him some other sponsorships, perhaps some of the more conventional types, like online poker site endorsements with the .net logo.
Watch out for this guy, Brandon Lilly. He appears to be the real deal.