Erick Lindgren was born in Burney, California and didn’t start focusing on poker until his mid-twenties. He now lives in Las Vegas and plays live cash games in the casinos often as well as major poker tournaments throughout the year. Erick first seen success at the poker tables in 2002 shortly after making the decision to become professional with a win at a major tournament at the Bellagio.
After winning his first major UltimateBet tournament in 2002 Erick has started playing a lot more poker and becoming a much more recognized player. Only a few months after winning his first major event Erick went on to win a WPT event and then a couple months later won another WPT PartyPoker event. After winning these events throughout 2002-2003 he went unnoticed for a little bit and didn’t win any major events.
In 2005 Erick managed to finish second place in a WSOP event which was his best finish up to that point on the WSOP circuit. After his second place finish he came in fifth at the LA Poker Classic and then won first place at the Professional Poker Tour tournament only a week afterwards. Erick also won a big event in the Aussie Millions which was the $100,000 buy-in event where he earned $1 million.
2008 was the best year thus far for Erick Lindgren and he managed to win his first WSOP bracelet in the $5000 Mixed Holdem event. Apart from winning his first bracelet in the WSOP in 2008 Erick also cashed in four other tournaments throughout the year which earned him the WSOP Player of the Year award. Erick won over $1.3 million in 2008 alone through live events and has earned $7.3 million throughout his career in live tournaments. Erick has won one WSOP bracelet and two WPT titles since starting to play poker and he still has many years of playing left in front of him. Erick is also one of the most consistent poker players and has finished in the money 19 times in WSOP events and 16 times in WPT events.
Erick is also the proud author of a pokerstars.com strategy book he wrote which is called “World Poker Tour – Making the Final Table”. The book teaches strategy to players for multi-table tournaments and how you can survive huge playing fields with a little amount of chips. Erick has proven to be one of the best tournament poker players in the world and his book is definitely worth reading if you’re planning on playing any live MTT events soon.
When Erick isn’t playing poker on FullTilt, he enjoys spending time with his poker buddies and they usually golf and make prop bets together. One of the prop bets Lindgren needed to complete once was to play four rounds of golf on a scorching hot day in Vegas and score under 100 every round. He also needed to walk with his clubs and couldn’t use a cart. He managed to complete the bet and won $350,000 by completing it.
T.J. Cloutier (Thomas James Cloutier) is a professional poker star and one of only a few who has been inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. T.J. has proved over a lengthy poker career that he has the skills to beat anyone at the table on any given day and definitely deserves to be one of the select few who have been elected into the Poker Hall of Fame.
T.J. was born in Albany, California and grew up as an athlete who played a ton of sports in school and out of school. Cloutier attended the University of California, Berkeley and was on an athletic scholarship for football and baseball. T.J. has played in the Rose Bowl once during his time in university, but he was never able to graduate with a degree because his family had financial hardships which needed to be dealt with and were a higher priority at the time then schooling.
After dropping out of university Cloutier was drafted into the US Army. After serving time with the US Army Cloutier moved to Canada and played in the Canadian Football League (CFL). His career was ended though when he underwent a career ending injury. After the injury T.J. tried his luck with his own business which was in the food sector, but that didn’t pan out as expected. T.J. then started working on the oil rigs in Texas as well as playing poker in his off time.
Once T.J. realized that he could make more money playing poker then working out on the rigs he quickly quit his job to play poker everyday. Cloutier specializes in Holdem although he has won WSOP bracelets in other poker games as well throughout his career. T.J. has won six WSOP bracelets and finished in the money 54 times in WSOP tournaments which is an incredible number. Cloutier hasn’t seen as much success playing on the WPT or EPT and hasn’t won any titles, but between the two circuits he has finished in the money ten times in his career. Cloutier has made 39 final table appearances in WSOP events which is only trailing Phil Hellmuth who has made 41 appearances.
Over Cloutier’s www.PokerStar.net career he has won just under $10 million in live tournaments which is great considering that when T.J. started playing the prize pools we’re much smaller then they are nowadays. Almost $5 million of Cloutier’s winnings have come when he is playing in WSOP events.
When T.J. isn’t playing poker he is usually busy writing poker content so that this generation of poker players have the knowledge they need to see success. He has co-written four books outlining strategy for tournament play, Holdem, Omaha and NL & PL Holdem. Cloutier has also just finishes writing his own book titled “How to Win the Championship – Holdem Strategies for the Final Table. The book was released for sale in 2006 so make sure you pick up your copy if you haven’t yet.
T.J. is one of the best poker players in the world and his poker resume is enough evidence for that statement. Not many other poker players have been able to win as many tournaments as T.J. or win as much money as he has in his poker career.
Erik Seidel isn’t that well known by most poker fans and players around the world, but he has quietly become one of the best poker players in the world. Seidel was born in New York, United States and lived there most of his life until moving to Las Vegas where the poker action is non-stop. Before Erik started playing poker he was an excellent backgammon player and played in all of the major backgammon tournaments around the New York City area. After Seidel left backgammon because it wasn’t making him enough money he started playing the stock markets.
Since he lived in New York it was very simple for him to get into the stock markets and he was always very good with numbers. After playing the stock market for awhile Erik started playing poker at the Mayfair Club in New York. The Mayfair Club is famous for being a world class gaming club and some of the best poker players in the world started playing at the club together.
Erik’ played in the 1998 WSOP Main Event where he finished in second place only losing to Johnny Chan heads-up. The final hand of the 1998 Main Event is actually featured on a movie called “Rounders” which is Seidel’s one and only movie appearance thus far in his career. Apart from being in a movie Erik has seen a ton of television time including appearing on Poker After Dark.
Erik has seen a ton of success in the WSOP, but has only won one WPT title. In WSOP events Erik has managed to win a total of eight WSOP bracelets. Over his career he has finished in the money 53 times on the WSOP circuit and 17 times on the WPT circuit. With eight WSOP bracelets he has more bracelets then almost every single poker player in the world which is amazing considering that he doesn’t get seen too much in the media.
Seidel has won nearly $10 million in live poker tournaments which puts hear near the top of the all-time earners leaderboard. Erik has accomplished more then basically every poke player through his career thus far and he continues to play poker today. Erik has always been one of the quietest players and when he wins he doesn’t seem to get enough recognition.
Erik can be seen playing poker in the biggest live tournaments still plus you can watch him play from time to time with other professional poker players online at Full Tilt. He is apart of the Full Tilt Team and usually plays the high stakes game there when he has time. The past couple yeas most of Erik’s success has come at the Aussie Millions where he has picked up two second place finishes back-to-back years. He won over $1.5 Aussie Dollars with the two second place finishes which is quite a bit money for second place.
Seidel will definitely be remembered in history as one of the world’s best FullTilt.net poker players and there is no doubt that he deserves to be.
Joe Beevers was born in Marylebone, London and has lived in London for his entire life. Joe learnt how to play cards at a very young age by his father who was into cards and by age ten Joe was being taught how to count cards when playing blackjack. At the age of sixteen Beevers dropped out of school and played cards most of the day with his father and friends on the different online poker sites. Once Joe turned eighteen he joined a blackjack card counting team with his father and two other people.
After playing blackjack in most of the London casinos over a stretch of time they needed to close down the team and stop playing. The reason they needed to stop playing was because they were basically banned from every casino in London. Out of a total of 23 casinos in London at the time Beevers and his father were banned from a total of 21 of them. Beevers and his father would also frequent the horse racing tracks and make wagers on the horse races a few times every week.
When the online blackjack counting gig ended Beevers found some work at NatWest and at CitiBank. He also went to Middlesex University as a mature student and spent four years earning his Bachelor of Arts in Finance and Accounting. After graduating from university Beevers was running bets to the dog racing tracks for an acquaintance that ended up turning into a lifelong friend. The acquaintance at the time also was a member of the Hendon Mob once it started. The Hendon Mob was a group of poker players from FullTiltPoker who played a lot of televised poker and challenged other teams of poker players. All of the players played poker in the Hendon, London area, but Joe Beevers was the only player who actually lived there.
Joe Beevers doesn’t have too many wins in tournament play and hasn’t been able to win a WSOP bracelet or WPT title in his career. He did place in the money eleven times on the WSOP circuit, one time on the WPT circuit and one time on the EPT circuit. He has won just about $2.5 million from live tournament play and is also a frequent online poker player. You can probably guess that Beevers is sponsored by Full Tilt Poker as they do have just about every great poker player sponsored on there team.
Joe Beevers played a major role in assisting poker in becoming a spectator sport which could be watched by the masses. The game is now watched by millions of people worldwide and has become a massive phenomenon which nobody would have guessed ten years ago. The main piece of Poker Stars.com equipment which needed to be tested was the hole card cam which would allow people watching to see the player’s cards at the table. The camera was frowned upon by most poker players initially, but as it was tested on Late Night Poker it started becoming more popular with the players. When the hole cam was being tested Beevers played in almost every match and was a strong supported of the camera.
Dan Harrington was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is one of the world’s most recognized poker players and has been for decades. Dan attended Suffolk University and later found work as a bankruptcy lawyer. He is also a professional backgammon and chess player and has won major tournaments in both of the games. When Harrington attended university he played all three games quite a bit and even played some poker against Bill Gates when Gates was going to Harvard.
While Dan was in university he also worked with a group of people that found a way to take advantage of roulette tables. After university Dan found another group of people who found a way to take advantage of the blackjack tables at casinos. After making money through playing those games he started playing poker full-time. Dan started playing a lot of poker at the Mayfair Club in New York where a lot of great poker players started playing.
Dan has played in a lot of poker events in hi career and has won two WSOP bracelets as well as one WPT title. He has also won money 9 times on the WSOP circuit and another 8 times on the WPT circuit. There is no doubt that Dan’s best year came in 1995 when he won the WSOP Main Event as well as finished on the final table in several other events the same year. When Dan won the 1995 WSOP Main Event he took a home a prize of $1 million.
During the whole final table of the event though Dan was offering to split the prize pool between the remaining players and invest it to become rich. Nobody wanted to take Dan up on the deal and at the end of the day Harrington ended up winning and taking home all of the money.
Over Dan’s career he has won a total of $6.5 million in live tournaments which puts him amongst the best poker players in history for all-time earnings.
Dan is also one of only five poker players ever to win the WSOP Main Event and a WPT title.
Dan is also widely known in the PokerStars.com world for writing some of the best poker books in history teaching players how to play the game. His books have sold thousands of copies since being released and if you really want to learn how to play poker then I suggest reading Harrington’s books. He has written two series including “Harrington on Holdem” Volume I, II and III and “Harrington on Cash Games” Volume I and II. If you haven’t read the books yet you should be able to find them online on Amazon or some other book store.
Harrington is one of the poker players which pioneered poker online and helped it become the sport which it is today. He isn’t the most established tournament poker player in the world, but his accomplishments both on and off the table has helped the poker world become what it is today.