Player Bios-$o$o's New Idea

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Alright guys so I had an idea.... We all have our favorite players, but sometimes we dont know everythign about them or how they are outside of poker. So what im gonna do is have this section available for people to list names of there favorite players and I will get there bios for you to read! I hope this goes over well because I think it is a great idea.
Thanks and start posting!
Ty

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I'll start out with a couple fan favorites Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, and Mike Matusow. After that it will be up to you guys to give me some names!
Lets start with Daniel(these are taken from Pokerlistings.com)
Everybody loves Daniel Negreanu! Young, good looking, talented and popular, he is the poster boy for poker around the world. He was nicknamed “KidPoker” in 1998 – when he became the youngest WSOP bracelet winner so far at the age of 24 – and to this day he shows no signs of slowing down. With his own books, software, a syndicated column, a blog, an online video diary and an instructional poker video site, Negreanu has brought poker into the 21st century and made it friendly and attractive for everyone.

The son of Romanian immigrants, Negreanu always dreamed of an unconventional career before discovering his talent for poker at age 16. He dropped out of high school with just one credit to go, and dedicated himself to improving his poker. It was not easy: he built a bankroll in Toronto only to lose it in Vegas, go back and start again.

In 1997 he finally broke through at the Foxwoods World Poker Finals, which allowed him to enter the WSOP the following year and win his first event. As any hot young star making money in spades, he went off the tracks for a year or so, but found his focus again and went on a roll that ended in two Player of the Year titles in 2004 (WSOP and Card Player magazine). The unstoppable Negreanu has made over $10,100,000 in tournaments: he is the third highest tournament earner in the world, and the first one among players who have not won the WSOP Main Event. He is also the top money winner in the WPT.

An eternal youth, Negreanu’s lifestyle consists mainly of video games, golf and poker and he appears often on the Fox Network, MTV and ESPN. But don’t write him off as a shallow, wealthy celebrity: Negreanu always finds time to greet fans warmly, and he places a high importance on friends and family. He is a vegan since 2003, and his mother makes him vegan packed meals to take into tourneys. The bubbly Negreanu was married to Lori Lin Weber for 2 years, but they have split amicably and are currently separated.

Negreanu’s game analysis (by Barry Greenstein):

Aggressiveness: 7
Looseness: 7
Short-handed: 8
Limit: 8
No-limit: 8
Tournaments: 9
Side games: 7
Steam control: 5
Against weak players: 8
Against strong players: 7

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When speaking of poker players who have been just as great at making a name for themselves with their words as they’ve been with their play, Mike Matusow would have to rank right at the top of the list. In fact he has been nicknamed “The Mouth” for his brash talk and questionable antics at the table, which could oftentimes be construed as bullying.

However, it was Matusow who was often the target of bullying when he was a youngster growing up in Los Angeles, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Born in 1968, Matusow survived the bullies he often encountered as a kid and graduated from high school. Mike never really attempted to go to college like many other poker players, opting instead to try to become an auto mechanic. But this didn’t work out for him and he ended up working for his family in a furniture store.

Besides his former ambitions to be an auto mechanic, Matusow’s other passion revolved around gambling. He got his first taste of it at the age of 18 in Las Vegas’ Maxim Casino when he played video poker so much that he suffered repetitive strains in both his arms and shoulders. Going beyond just the injuries, gambling had developed into a very unhealthy habit for Matusow as he began stealing money from his mom’s purse to partake in it and eventually he wound up in Gamblers Anonymous meetings.

What Mike Matusow didn’t know though is that these struggles he went through were actually a blessing in disguise, as he was basically training himself for a successful future career in poker. Matusow’s game began to really improve when he became a dealer at Sam’s Town Casino, where he used this opportunity to pick up tips from the people who were playing. Add in the fact that a professional poker player by the name of Steve Samaroff took Mike under his wing and you had a very promising career at hand.

After his shifts as a dealer, Matusow began to play games like Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hi/Lo. Eventually, he shelved the dealer job and decided to try his hand at making it as a pro player on his own. Matusow wasted no time jumping into the big leagues as his first cash was a big one at the 1997 WSOP: playing in a $2,000 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo tournament, Mike managed to finish second only to Scotty Nguyen and bank over $81,000 for the finish.

And while Scotty Nguyen might have beaten Mike Matusow in the 1997 WSOP, he helped Mike tremendously during the 1998 WSOP. This is because Matusow decided to pay one-third of Nguyen’s $10,000 buy-in to the Main Event. The investment paid off big-time as Nguyen took first place and won $1 million, $333,333 of which went to Matusow for paying a third of the buy-in.

Mike Matusow wouldn’t have to rely on Scotty Nguyen for any more big breaks though, as he soon started earning plenty of money due to his own merit. In the 1999 WSOP, he won a $3,500 No-Limit Hold’em event which earned him over $265K and his first gold bracelet. Matusow would get another bracelet in the 2002 WSOP for winning a $5,000 Omaha Hi/Lo Split 8 or Better event and his most recent victory came in the 2008 WSOP where he won the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em 2-7 Draw w/Rebuys tournament. He earned a nice sum of $537,862 for that win.

Despite his 3 WSOP bracelets and numerous high finishes in other tournaments, Mike Matusow’s career hasn’t been without controversy. He did jail time in 2004 and 2005 after being caught with cocaine and has had to struggle with a drug problem over the years. Matusow is also disliked by just as many fans as those who root for him due to his brazen personality that was never more evident when he berated Greg Raymer during the 2004 WSOP Main Event. But his controversial personality has also landed Matusow on numerous TV shows like High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark. Perhaps his best known television appearance was on the WPT Bad Boys of Poker II show where he finished second to Tony G.

These days, Mike Matusow likes to keep busy by playing online poker at places like Full Tilt and PokerStars in addition to his live tournament appearances. To this date, he has earned well over $6.8 million dollars in tournament play.

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Phil Ivey was born in California in 1976, but his family moved to New Jersey when he was months old. Growing in a city famous for its gambling, Ivey’s family wanted to prevent him from becoming another hustler, so his grandfather famously cheated Phil Ivey while teaching him to play Five-Card Stud at the age of 8. But Ivey was not discouraged, and he was playing for money as early as 16.

Young Phil Ivey was working as a telemarketer at 18 when he bought an ID for $50 from a colleague called Jerome Graham. He played so often and so long at Atlantic City casinos he earned the nickname “No Home Jerome” until he was finally able to come with an ID of his own and introduce himself as Phil Ivey – a fitting start for a legend.

Phil Ivey has earned the nickname of “the Tiger Woods of Poker” (which he reportedly dislikes) for his skill, concentration and great success in the game. Not yet 30, Ivey already has 5 WSOP bracelets, having won his first WSOP bracelet at age 23 at the Pot-Limit Omaha Event. Thanks to his excellent play and devastating aggression at the tables he has earned a number of poker accolades, including “Poker Player of the Year” by Bluff, All In and UK Gaming Awards in 2006 alone.

In spite of his tournament success, Ivey prefers to play high stakes cash games, which he finds more lucrative; according to Barry Greenstein, “when he has played in a tournament event, he has played tired because of the cash game the night before (I know because I have been in the games with him.) He also has had to adopt a style geared to build up quickly or get knocked out quickly during the event, so that he won’t wear himself out for the cash game later that night.” This might explain Phil Ivey’s lack of resonance in major tournaments in the past few years.

The legendary Phil Ivey is known for his over-the top victories, from winning $536,000 from Phil Hellmuth in a Chinese poker side game to taking over $16 million from Texas billionaire Andy Beal as part of poker über-team “The Corporation.” Ivey is also known for his avid sports- and prop betting, and it is rumored that he lost over $2,000,000 in 2008 when the Lakers lost.

Married to his high school sweetheart, Ivey currently lives in style in Las Vegas. He has an exclusivity agreement to play online at Full Tilt Poker.

Phil Ivey’s game analysis (by Barry Greenstein):

Aggressiveness: 8
Looseness: 8
Short-handed: 9
Limit: 8
No-limit: 7
Tournaments: 9
Side games: 8
Steam control: 7
Against weak players: 8
Against strong players: 8