Most professional poker players spend the lion’s share of their playing time in live games. The big-name tournament players are famous because of the television coverage of their live play. Lots of these players play online, but it’s not like the live tournament scene. Most celebrity poker players are sponsored by an online poker site. They wear the site’s logo in live events and play on the site for periodic promotions or whenever they want to.
Full Tilt Poker has professionals Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowan, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Allen Cunningham on their team.
PokerStars has Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Barry Greenstein, Isabelle Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Tom McEvoy, Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Rouso, and Humberto Brenes.
UltimateBet sponsors professionals Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Jim Worth, Devin Porter and Annie Duke.
The Poker Players Alliance is a non-profit organization that was created to be one voice for the promotion, integrity and protection of poker players. Its initial issues were protecting professional players from companies profiting from their likeness without paying out royalties. Since the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act came into effect late last year, the organization has had a new primary cause.
The organization has grown to over 747,000 members and has hired former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato as its Chairman. Many big-name players are members, and Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Greg Raymer are on the Board of Directors. The organization works tirelessly to have the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act repealed, and recent developments indicate that they are making progress.
They were in full support last April when Rep. Barney Frank introduced a bill that would open up the U.S. market for gaming. The PPA also ran the successful “Write Your Congressman” day on June 15, 2006.
There are two three-time WSOP main event winners. Only Johnny Moss (1970, 1971 and 1974) and Stu Unger (1981, 1982 and 1997) were able to achieve that feat. They both won it twice in a row, as did Doyle Brunson (1976 and 1977) and Johnny Chan (1987 and 1988).
Other big-name winners include Chris “Jesus” Ferguson (2000), Phil Hellmuth (1989), Dan Harrington (1995), Scotty Nguyen (1998), Huck Seed (1996), Robert Varkonyi (2002) and Carlo Mortensen (2001).
Recent winners have won huge amounts, with the biggest winner being Jamie Gold ($12 million) in 2006. In 2007, Jerry Yang won $8.25 million and Joseph Hachem pocketed $7.5 million in 2005. Chris Moneymaker (2003) set the poker world afire when he won the main event, and $2.5 million, after winning his way into the tournament via an online satellite tournament. Greg Raymer was the other big main event winner, winning $5 million in 2004, and almost won it again the next year in 2005.
Greg Raymer used to be a patent attorney that also played poker on the side. The 2004 World Series of Poker changed all that.
Raymer earned his way into the 2004 WSOP main event through an online poker site and became a favorite of the TV cameras due to his fun nickname and unusual glasses. Raymer is nicknamed “Fossilman” because he likes to collect fossils and actually uses one as a card protector at the tables. Raymer’s unusual glasses have holograms on the lenses which either show a pair of creepy eyes or two dinosaurs, depending upon the angle at which you’re looking at them.
The camera may have found Raymer because of his gimmicky specs, but it stuck close by him because he played great poker. Raymer lasted all the way to the final table and ended up heads-up with David Williams for the $5 million prize and title of Poker’s World Champion. On the final hand, Raymer’s pocket eights trumped Williams’ A-4 when the board ended up 4-3-5-2-2. Raymer pocketed the $5 million, which at the time was a record win, and was awarded the prestigious WSOP bracelet.
Raymer proved his poker prowess was no fluke a year later at the 2005 WSOP, after finishing an impressive 25th out of a huge field of 5619 players. Also that year, Raymer entered the inaugural British Poker Open in London and finished third, while taking on some of the best poker players Europe had to offer.
Since winning the WSOP main event, Raymer has stopped working as a patent lawyer and is a representative for PokerStars alongside other WSOP champions Chris Moneymaker and Joseph Hachem. Raymer doesn’t play in as many tournaments as most poker pros, instead preferring to spend time with his family in Raleigh, North Carolina. When you amass $5 million in one tournament you can probably do that.
Go head to head against real poker pros at Bodog Poker.
