My first experience with poker was playing five-card draw with my grandma. She mostly let me win and I ate a ton of her delicious cookies which we used as chips. That was in the early eighties in Oklahoma and I was about five or six. Aside from the occasional game with the family, I didn't play much again until I was attending the Manhattan School of Music. A piano player named Eliot put together a game just about every night in the dorm lounge and night after night he would take down the whole table. I couldn't believe it! That was when I realized that this thing was beatable and took a strong interest in it. I played HU with Eliot and picked his brain on a daily basis. We even went to AC quite a few times together and I can confidently say that I learned my foundation from him.

I was also reading some poker books on the side and playing on Party and Paradise nightly. I was doing well enough to have some extra money for the rent from playing $1/$2 and $2/$4 limit cash games. Then the Federal Gov't passed that ridiculous legislation restricting US players. At that point I basically stopped playing for awhile and focused on music.

After graduating from school, I went to work for Carnival Cruise Lines as a musician for a couple of years. Those years were a blast, but eventually came to a close when I realized that I couldn't keep a life on land and be out at sea simultaneously. So I made the decision to come back to land in fall of '08. I now split my time between freelancing as a musician in New York, multi-tabling SNG's, and last but not least, with friends and family.