Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek
Casey Jarzabek, known as “bigdogpckt5s” across most sites, is a staple of the high-stakes MTT community. Jarzabek began on Absolute Poker, crushing the SnGs at the highest level. He has placed first in the weekly tournament leaderboard upwards of 25 times on Absolute Poker, showing his dominance on the site from 2005 through 2007. Jarzabek eventually moved on to MTTs, where he has been a force to reckon with. He has outrights wins in two FTOPS, winning Event #9 in November of 2008 for $277,930 and a HORSE 500+35 for another $75,600 in February of 2009. He has also won the FTP Sunday Brawl, the Sunday Mulligan, Pokerstars Second Chance and the Sunday Warm up. Overall, Jarzabek has an estimated $5,500,000 in online winnings, including wins in fourteen Sunday majors across various sites. Casey is also a spokesperson for Bubble Protection and a signed pro for Lock Poker. At different points in his career, Jarzabek has been ranked #1 on officialpokerrankings.com on both Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars. He has also began his ascension on the live circuit, with a 2nd in a WPT preliminary event as well as several WSOP circuit final tables. He currently resides in St Catharines, Ontario.
Mike Sowers
Mike Sowers, 26, is one of the top online and live tournament players. Since he began his career at age 19, he has competed around the world in some of the biggest and most prestigious events. Mike has final tabled every live circuit series including WPT, EPT, and WSOP events (including 4 final tables in 5 years at the WSOP). His career winnings online exceed $3,000,000 and his live winnings exceed $2,500,000. He is an active learner and is always looking to improve. His greatest attributes are controlled aggression, table dynamics, and preparation off the felt.
Andrew “foucault82″ Brokos
Mike “goleafsgoeh” Leah
Mike Leah is a professional poker player and MTT specialist hailing from Toronto, Canada. Known online as “GoLeafsGoEH” online, Mike got his start playing online and already has over $2.8 million in winnings. His online scores include a 3rd place in wcoop main as well as badugi wcoop title He also had win in the 2010 FTOPS #24 for over $92,000, a second place finish in the Full Tilt $750K Guaranteed for $86,000 and a host of other high 5 digit wins including a UBOC title.
Mike also boasts an impressive live record. In 2009 he finished second in the LA Poker Classic for $152,600. That same year he won two Venetian Deepstack events for a total of over $400,000. Mike continues to play online from his home and Canada and is also a regular on the live poker circuit. In fact, he had 5 cashes in this summer’s World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. His future goals include his first major live tournament win and, of course, a WSOP bracelet!
View a sample video from Mike Leah
Daryl “aaaaaaaa” Jace
Daryl jace is a professional poker player and MTT specialist from Saugus, Massachusetts. Known online as “aaaaaaaa” and “fkscreennames”. Daryl started playing online over 9 years ago back when he was 14. He currently has 3million in winnings and over 1.1 million in profit. His remarkable online scores include 5 sunday million final tables with 2 wins, 5th in the WCOOP main for 200k , 1st in FTOPS main for 385k , 4th in 500$ WCOOP for 200k. As far as the live tournament circuit goes he has 2 deep runs in the WSOP main get in 2009 ( 196th) and 2011 (89th). Daryl is currently traveling the live circuit , trying to make a living as a live pro.
Ben “KidCardiff6″ Warrington
Ben Warrington is widely regarded as one of the best online tournament poker professionals in the world, residing in Spain Ben turned pro in 2009 after having studied at Cardiff University.
Ben would describe his 2010 as a mixed bag, however, with 12 First Place finishes, 57 Top Tens and numerous colossal cashes across many sites; it is an enviable bag by any standards.
In June 2010 Ben took down the Full Tilt $200k Guarantee for $70,600; a month later he powered his way through a formidable field of opponents to take an outright first place in the Full Tilt $1 Million Guarantee Rush Event for $185,000, and in October Ben struck again for a cool $63,500 for finishing 2nd in the PokerStars Sunday 500 ($500k Guaranteed).
On PokerStars Ben has Final Tabled every tournament above a $50 buy-in on numerous occasions with the exception of the prestigious Sunday Million, which for Ben is now the final jewel in the crown.
According to PocketFives.com Ben ‘benwa1’ Warrington has been placed as high as 1st in the UK and 49th in the world for online tournament poker, boasting a Triple Crown and online winnings surpassing $1.5 million.
Despite having mainly played online poker over the last two years Ben still found time to take $17,799 at the Welsh Open Main Event, $12,040 at the Full Tilt Poker Series in Spain and more recently $20,502 at EPT Barcelona.
Dan “BourbonFTW” Witcher
Dan Witcher started playing poker in his fraternity back in 2004-2005. A regular in the weekly small stakes cash games, he would often joke around that he was going to play poker professionally one day. After meeting a group of players that did just that, he was able to tweek his skills, and eventually prove himself as a force online. Dan went on to chop the Sunday warm up on Poker Stars for 114k, win the 150k for 59k, and the 75k for 29k within a month’s time. No stranger to live tournament success, Dan won 1st in the 2008 $500 Venetian Deep Stack for 43k and just recently won 3rd in the 5k WSOP circuit event at Ceasars AC for 81k. Dan is now one of the most respected and feared players both live and online.
Justin “looshle” Pechie
Justin Pechie started playing professionally at the age of twenty one, grinding online limit holdem and multi-table tournaments. Since 2006 he has been playing mostly online tournaments under the screen name ‘looshle’, amassing nearly $1,700,000 in winnings, which his largest cash totalling $110k after chopping the PokerStars Sunday Warmup. In 2011 Justin won his first bracelet and $167,060 in a limit Holdem shootout event at the World Series of Poker. Justin currently lives in Arizona and can be found playing limit holdem and large tournaments on FeltStars.
David “betudontbet” Emmons
David “betudontbet” Emmons is one of many American MTT pros that has made the move overseas (in his case Mexico) to continue the online grind. David has nearly $2.5 million in online winnings including 2nd place in the PartyPoker $100K High Roller in January 2012 for $29,000 and the 3rd place in the PokerStars Super Tuesday $1k for $37,000 . He also has a Triple Crown and a MiniFTOPS jersey on his resume. On January 29, 2012, he had his biggest score to date, winning the Championship of Online Poker Main Event on PokerStars for almost $383,000. David is currently ranked #1 in the world on PokerStars according to Official Poker Rankings.
Lee Childs
Many people know Lee Childs for his 2007 WSOP final table appearance. However this is just one of the many accomplishments for Lee in poker. In December 2009 he won a Deep Stack No Limit Holdem WSOP Circuit Event and collected $63,733. Going back to 2007, in the space of a week in October collected $121,841 from two events. The Inaugural Caesars Palace Classic NLHE event was the first with $69,601 won for his second place, and the following week $52,240 was collected in the Project Life Saver Executive Poker Tour Main TV Event which he won. His overall live earnings are now well in excess of $1.6Million. Lee is also one of the most successful online players with $1.5Million in winnings to his name, mainly on Full Tilt Poker. As recently as November 2010 he collected his biggest online cash to date with $144,512 for a fifth placed finish in a $640 NLHE MTT. He has outright wins in the 750k on FTP and the Stars Nightly Hundred Grand. He also has quite a few 100rs wins to add to the notches on his belt. TPE is excited that he has decided to join our pro roster.
Danny “DannyN13″ Noseworthy
Danny “DannyN13″ Noseworthy is a 23 year old professional poker player from St. John’s, Newfoundland. He started out hosting/playing $5-$20 games in his own basement throughout high school at the age of 17. After even getting cards banned from school, he took a few stabs online before realizing he had no bankroll management and wanted to actually learn the game. Danny deposited $600 on Full Tilt April 1st, 2009 and has not looked back since. He started out as a 6 max turbo SNG player before making the transition to a MTT grinder later in the year. After having moderate success, Danny caught his first real break in 2010. On April 25, he took 3rd in FTOPS Event #7 for $67,000. Since then, he has almost $500,000 in MTT winnings and over 100 final tables. His outright wins and five figure scores include the PokerStars Nightly Seventy Grand, $11 Re-buy on stars, the PokerStars $109 $50K guaranteed, multiple $109 turbo wins, the Full Tilt Poker Multi-Entry $60k guaranteed, the Full Tilt Poker $163 daily $60k guaranteed and many other turbo MTT wins and more. He is known as a turbo specialist and also took 2nd in a $235 daily Rio live tournament this summer for $18,000.
James “Rivermen123″ Lambert
James Lambert is an American MTT pro who credits TPE with laying the foundation for his success. Lambert began learning the game of poker in late 2009, started playing full-time in October 2010, and was able to survive Black Friday by increasing volume on the smaller U.S.-facing sites. By early 2012, “rivermen123″ had become one of the top regulars at small and mid stakes MTTs on the Merge Network. Lambert had his largest career cash in May 2012, when he shipped the $215 Daily High Roller on the Merge Network for $10,200. He has final tabled Sunday majors on U.S. sites four times, including a third place in the Bodog 100k for $9k, and also final tabled two Poker Maximus tournaments on Merge in early 2012. Lambert graduated from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2009 with a Communication degree. Before becoming a full-time poker pro, he worked for nine years at a St. Louis investment firm.
Jeff “hurricanejeff” Romano
Jeff is in his 3rd year as a professional poker player from Boston Massachusetts. Primarily a sit n go grinder, Jeff started grinding low stakes sit n gos and freerolls in college. After plenty of online deposits he finally started to get the hang of things and was able to build a bankroll by playing 24 tables at once. Soon after he mixed in MTTs and was able to win 2 WSOP main event seats from freerolls, in addition to his $150,000 in profit. He plays a very loose aggressive style in MTTs based off of player feel more so than mathematics.
Jamie Kerstetter
Jamie Kerstetter is a 29 year old professional poker player living in New York City. She started her poker career as a cash game player, building her bankroll in $2/$5NL and $5/$10NL live games while attending law school at The University of Michigan. She worked as a tax attorney for three years before deciding to leave her legal career behind for poker. In 2009, she started to focus on online MTTs where she played under the screen name “and the law won.” For two years before Black Friday, she was ranked in the top 1% on OPR. After online poker shut down in the US, she spent her time playing live cash and traveling the WSOP circuit, where she set a record for the most cashes at a circuit stop with 5 cashes in one week in Harrah’s Atlantic City, and proceeded to qualify for the 2012 WSOP National Championship. She has 41 live cashes on Cardplayer, including 7 in the WSOP and a recent win in an Omaha8 Venetian Deepstack. She is the newest pro signed by Feltstars, a Merge Network skin that is open to players in the US.
Christopher “MovesLikeDarvin” Moon
Chris Moon, known as PyroTechnics on Merge, MovesLikeDarvin on True (and formerly known as EastLansing and MakeItReign on Tilt and Stars), is a 23-year old, Michigan-based poker pro. He got his start in poker playing live cash games in charity rooms and Indian casinos and later transitioning to online MTTs. Like some of his peers, Moon chose not to make the move overseas after Black Friday and instead transitioned back to live cash (up to $10/$20 NL and $2/$5 PLO) while also playing online on American-friendly alternative sites.
His post-Black Friday successes include:
- 1st in Merge 100k in June 2011 – $20k (another FT in November)
- 1st in True 50k in June 2012 – $11k (and 2 other final tables since then)
- 1st in Merge High Roller in January 2012 – $9k
- Over $75k in prizes ($30k profit) w/ 62% ROI on Merge since BF
- Over $20k profit on True/America’s CardRoom in 2012
- 14th place finish in LSOP Lima for $8.5k
Away from the live and virtual felt, Moon fills his free time with other intellectual pursuits. He graduated from Michigan State University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and a minor in Philosophy and Law. He is currently revising and pursuing publication of a labor economics paper on affirmative action policies in the National Football League. He is also writing a biography of his late grandfather, a conscientious objector to World War II. He plans to pursue a JD/MBA degree in the near future.
Kevin “Merby” Doerksen
Kevin Doerksen is an adjunct professor of mathematics. He earned his Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University in 2011 and has been teaching mathematics ever since. He started playing poker in 2004 and used its income to help pay his way through grad school. He is passionate about teaching and loved the opportunity to combine his two passions by putting together training videos for tournament poker edge.
Ben Hayles
Ben “gamb64″ Hayles is a 37 year-old English poker coach who has been playing for 15 years and coaching for 5. He began as a low stakes tournament player on Ladbrokes and William Hill, had lots of success with all tournament formats, including headsup SNGs and in recent years has been consistently in the top 10 annually on the low stakes Pokerstars 6-max SNG leaderboards, though most of his time is now spent coaching, which, as a qualified teacher, he has a real flair for. He’s coached over 250 players in the last 5 years and can be contacted at benssun2@hotmail.com
Nikolai “Halowax” Sears
Nikolai “Halowax” Sears is a HSMTT regular (formerly known as Euthanaces on FTP and YaGotBurnt on PS). He specializes in NLHE and PLO and his first video for TPE is a Intro to PLO MTTs for tournament players. Niko has several large scores and prestigous wins under his belt including a 2nd in Double Deuce, a Brawl chop, three 100r Victories, 3rd in FTP Million and most recently, a win in PS the $500 PLO Monday major. Several of us at TPE have known Niko for a long time and he is without a doubt one of the most creative and analytical minds in poker today. We welcome him to the TPE family.
Brendon “Brendooor” Rubie
Brendon Rubie, commonly known on the poker circuit by his online alias “Brendooor”, is freshly 21 years of age and has been treating his poker as a full time job for over two years now. Whether it be traveling the Australasian poker scene or grinding hours upon hours online he has definitely made a name for himself in all areas of poker.
Born in Sydney and bred on the Central Coast NSW, Brendon spent most of his years growing up playing music in bands and working at the local cinema serving popcorn and running the projection room upstairs. When he started getting into poker he was reading poker books, playing with friends and playing online at any chance he could. Forget what everyone says about young poker players starting with $50 and never looking back, Brendon would build and lose his bankroll over and over until he locked in a secure tournament win and bankroll that would allow him to quit his job and play full time.
For the most part of 2010 he has sat as the #1 ranked player in Australia and still to this day he sits comfortably up there, also currently ranked 48th (march/11) worldwide. His major online achievements are:
- $1k Monday – May 5 2009 – (1st) $93k
- FTOPS XVII Event 31: $535 – August 16 2010 – (1st) $92k
- MiniFTOPS XII Event 12: $109 – September 14 2009 – (1st) $75k
- Wednesday Quarter Million – February 8 2011 – (1st) $64k
- $750k Guarantee – June 27 2010 – (2nd) $80k
Even though his resume looks impressive online he is no stranger to the live poker scene. He has had deep runs in Melbourne Championships 2009, Macau APPT (Asia Pacific Poker Tour) 2010, Sydney APPT Grand Final 2010 and a couple of preliminary events around the circuit. But there are two tournaments that he holds close to his heart. The first is the APPT Opening Event 2008 in Sydney that he won for $50k, which would allow him to quit his job and go full time. The other is the Melbourne Championship 2010, which he won for a career record of $118k. Outside of poker Brendon enjoys spending time with family and friends, watching movies, playing music and dining out. He lives in the heart of the beautiful Sydney Australia and believes that everything he has achieved so far in his poker journey is just a start of big and better things.
Find him on Pokerstars as “brendon1717″.
Marc “aznAllin007″ Alioto
Marc Alioto began playing gin rummy with his grandfather at the early age of seven. In elementary school, he took his logic to the game of chess, and competed in tournaments around the Bay Area. Growing up in the 90s, he took his competitive spirit to the fantasy driven game of Magic the Gathering. After playing football and basketball in high school and three years of studies at Santa Barbara City College, it was clear that Marc could put his mathematical skills to better use outside of the academic arena. After working at the family restaurant in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf for a few years, Marc felt that he was not meeting his full potential and needed to move on. While dabbling in home games and playing at local cardrooms, Marc found his next challenge: poker. Two years of grinding, both online and live, resulted in a lot of frustration and headaches. Devastated that he finally met a game he couldn’t beat, Marc entered a $7.50 satellite and worked his way up to a PCA package in the Bahamas. Watching Elky win and remembering all the hands played online with the self-made genius, Marc came back to the states motivated once again. He began 12-20 tabling Double or Nothings and 9 Men Non-turbos and hasn’t looked back since. On any given day, you can find Marc playing Sit n Go’s at every entry level.
Shaun “Cougars4444” Hendrickson
Shaun Hendrickson, who goes by Cougars4444 on most sites, started playing on PartyPoker while in college about six years ago. Beginning at the micro stakes, Shaun had his first breakthrough when he won a $5 tourney for $2,000. Then in 2006 he started playing more on PokerStars at the low limits with huge success. Over the past six years Shaun has over $100K profit in $50 freeze-outs and below. His star continued to rise, both winning and taking 2nd in the Stars $5 rebuy in two-weeks time. Since then he has steadily climbed the ranks with multiple wins in the $20 rebuy on Full Tilt Poker as well as outright wins in the Stars $10 rebuy, $25 freeze-out and his biggest score to date, a $19K win in a $50 freezeout. Shaun is a graduate from The Florida State University and currently resides in Orlando, Florida.
Jon “Wein” Wein
Jonathan Wein began playing poker seriously in college, beginning with six dollar turbo SnGs on Stars in 2004. After years of working on his game, he finally hit his first big score in 2007 with a win a $100 tournament for just shy of $10,000. After that, there was no stopping him. He has wins in the UB $200k, The Stars Nightly Hundred Grand, and the Full Tilt Nightly, and three different 100 rebuy events, totaling $160,000. In May of 2009, Wein placed third in event #1 of the Full Till Online Poker Series, netting another $81,000 to his bankroll. Wein’s most impressive performance is a 3rd place finish in the Pokerstars Sunday Million for $128,805,. He followed that up with a chop of that same event two months later for $182,921, while also placing fourth in the $100r the same day for $34,320. Overall, he has just over one million dollars in tournament earnings online in limited volume. Wein, known as “IveGotToeJam” on Pokerstars, held the #1 ranking on officialpokerrankings.com from late January of 2010 until late March of 2010, when he was overtaken by fellow TPE pro, Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek. Wein holds a Masters degree in Special Education and has plans to work on his doctorate, but has chosen tournamentpokeredge.com as an outlet for his urge to teach. He is a 24 year old professional poker player who lives on Long Island, New York.
Charles “Hagbard Celine” Sizemore
Charles Sizemore first began playing poker as a hobby about five years ago. Since then his hobby has grown into a passion, and for the last two years he has made a living playing multi-table tournaments both online and live. He has wins in a $500 WCOOP 2nd Chance for $67,000, the UB 200K for $45,000, the Poker Stars Nightly Hundred Grand for $18,000, has twice won the Full Tilt $75K Guaranteed among countless other wins and deep finishes in online tournaments. Although he doesn’t play much live, he plans on amping up his presence on the live felt in upcoming EPTs, NAPTs and then in this year’s WSOP. Although his results aren’t quite as spectacular as the other TPE pros, he’s certain he’ll be the first with a bracelet
Tim “TTWIST” Kelly
Tim “TTWIST” Kelly was introduced to poker by his older brother when he was 18. Born in Brantford, Ontario, CAN in 1975, Tim is married and has two sons. Tim made the transition from limit poker to no limit hold ‘em in 2005 and played mostly for fun with friends and family. In 2006, Tim started playing online, mostly at Poker Stars at the micro-low stakes, trying to learn the game. After winning a small satellite to the Sunday Million and subsequently finishing 119th, along with another deeper run a couple months later, and he was hooked. Working as a robot programmer in the auto industry by day and poker player by night, Tim worked hard on his game and eventually built the roll to turn pro. His first big cash came after final-tabling the $5K WSOP Circuit event at Harrah;s in Atlantic City, cashing for over $43K. The success carried into 2009 with a 2nd in the Full Tilt Poker 20K for $4,300, 1st in the Full Tilt Fifty-Fifty for $10,900, 1st in the Full Tilt 34K for $14,300, 3rd in the Full Tilt 60K for 17K before final-tabling his first Sunday Major, finishing 3rd in the Sunday Mulligan on Full Tilt for $26,200. He has continued crushing into 2010, with an outright win in the Ultimate Bet 40K Sniper for $10,600 and in April fulfilled a long-time goal of winning a Sunday Major by taking down the Sunday Second Chance on Stars for $55,130. Tim has 125 career final tables and $400K in career earnings to date.
Derek “Killingbird” Tenbusch (founder and contributor)
Derek Tenbusch, who plays as “Killingbird” online, began playing poker 5 years ago grinding SnGs and small stakes MTTs. In 2008 he won a Step 6 on Poker Stars, turning a $7 investment in to $12,500, giving him the bankroll he needed to start playing mid-stakes MTTs. Since then he has wins in the Daily Double, an MSOP final table, Fifty-Fifty final table and dual final tables in the Big Doubles on Full Tilt Poker. He also has several outright wins including several 4 digit scores on Poker Stars. In all, he has over $150,00 in tournament winnings. Derek has his Masters degree in Communication from Central Michigan University and lives in Cary, NC with his wife and son. He is a co-founder and co-CEO of Tournament Poker Edge.
“RonFezBuddy” (founder and contributor)
RonFezBuddy is a marketing manager for a software company by day, but spends a few nights a week playing the mid to high stakes tournaments. He began as a recreational sit and go player, and has steadily climbed the ranks of the online poker world. RFB was ranked in the top 700 on both FTP and Pokerstars in 2009 and has over $200k in lifetime profits. He has won the Stars nightly $100k, the Stars $70k twice, the Stars $10 rebuy twice, the Stars $20 rebuy three times and final tabled the FTOPS Main Event for his largest score of $57k. He lives on Long Island, New York with his wife and two children. RonFezBuddy has an MBA from the NYU Stern School of business and is a co-founder and co-CEO of TournamentPokerEdge.