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.