Patrik was born to a working-class family in the suburbs of Helsinki, Finland, on December 13, 1980. His father worked as a bread delivery man and his mother found work at a day-care center to help make ends meet. A rambunctious and competitive youth, Patrik played soccer, tennis and hockey, and worked hard to keep himself out of detention.

He was particularly gifted at tennis, and by the age of 13 had been singled out by his coaches as a child with Wimbledon potential. He dropped the other sports and began a tennis training regime, but suffered a serious setback a couple of years later when a bulging disc in his back forced him to stop training for a year and a half.

It was around this time that he and his friends began playing poker almost daily at the tennis club. Patrik had first anted up at age 11 in a backyard game where the stakes were 50¢ to spend at the candy store. At the tennis club the stakes were significantly higher: $50 pots and bragging rights.

“It was a great time in my life,” Patrik says on his Web site, “right after school playing tennis and poker all afternoon.”

The games continued throughout high school and the stakes eventually outgrew the club. Having just discovered Pot-Limit Omaha, the young rounders began playing home games till the early hours of the morning, often only stopping when a parent got up to go to work.

When Patrik turned 18 he brought his game to Casino Helsinki, the only casino in Finland at the time, where he took down the weekly $25 No-Limit Hold’em event and its $225 prize on his first try. A Hold’em champion without ever trying, Patrik won the tournament despite having never played the game before.

The aspiring tennis champ graduated from Helsinki Business College shortly after with a high school degree and was conscripted into the army for mandatory service. He was accepted to the Army Sport division and, although much of his gruelling six-month service was spent camping in the woods, he was allowed to practice tennis whenever he was back on base.

Upon release from the army Patrik was primed to start serious training for his tennis career, but fate had other plans. The young Finn suffered another back injury just before his first professional tennis tournament was scheduled to take place, crippling his dreams of tennis superstardom and forcing him to the sidelines permanently.

With a bulging disk in his back and his tennis dreams broken at his feet, Patrik had to find something to occupy his time. He began studying business and meandered through different jobs: modelling, serving tables at restaurants, selling products door-to-door and even coaching tennis, but nothing paid enough, and nothing was as satisfying as tennis.

Convinced he was destined to do something unconventional with his life and determined to make use of his competitive spirit and drive, Patrik began to focus more and more on poker – the one hobby he’d stuck with throughout the years.

He increased his home-game play and bellied up to the $2/$2 Pot-Limit Omaha tables more frequently at the casino. It took some time, but after a couple of years of dedicated play and bigger stakes, the self-schooled poker pro began to build a solid bankroll. Shortly after, in the summer of 2002, Antonius hit a hot streak, winning consistently and fattening up his bankroll even more.

The spell was broken when he left Helsinki for a three-month culinary internship in Italy in the fall on 2002. As an apprentice at several different restaurants, Patrik didn’t play poker for the duration of his stay and managed to blow a large chunk of his bankroll.

When he returned to Scandinavia in January 2003, he continued his studies at Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia and decided to take his game online. He made the first of what would be many online deposits and within two months had multi-tabled his $200 deposit into $20,000. It was then that he realized he had to take a break from school to focus on poker exclusively.

“The idea of being able to play anytime and more than one table at a time was unbelievable. I was hooked,” says Antonius. “I started studying the game and my opponents even more and immersed myself in the game.”

And he meant business. From March to December 2003, Antonius played 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and boosted his bankroll to an astonishing $80,000. His knowledge and skills increased too as he took on the best online players and learned from their play, and soon he was being hailed as one of the top online players in Europe.

During these years of poker playing Patrik’s back had healed enough that he began to consider playing tennis again. Several of his Finnish tennis buddies were studying at U.S. schools on tennis scholarships, and he decided to try his luck as well. He applied and was awarded a one-year sports scholarship to Averett University in Virginia; he packed his bags and headed stateside.

His poker playing decreased significantly while he played tennis and attended classes, but it didn’t affect his bankroll. Playing just one or two hours a day of $50/$100 heads-up and short-handed Hold’em netted the Finnish player $150,000. He upped his bankroll by about $100,000 when he added $5/$10 and $15/$25 Pot-Limit Omaha games to his repertoire, and topped it off by winning an online satellite to the 2004 World Series of Poker.

He completed his academic year but as soon as the semester was over Antonius jumped a plane to Vegas and never looked back.

“After spending six months in a tiny town in Virginia, Las Vegas was heaven,” he admits on his Web site. “I met a lot of great people in Las Vegas, and some great players gave me a ton of confidence when they said I should really focus on my game, because they thought I had a lot of talent.

“It is one thing to think you are doing really well, but when some of the great players tell you that you are very tough, it was a huge confidence boost. I was being touted as one of the most successful online players in Europe.”

Though he didn’t cash in any events, Patrik left Vegas determined to improve his game, and to champion the online poker world while doing it. In his first few weeks home after moving back from Virginia, he doubled his bankroll playing short-handed $200/$400 Limit games online.

In 2005 he entered the live tournament circuit and scored a string of cashes. A 12th-place finish in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure netted him just over $34,000, and his efforts in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars of Poker landed him in 15th place with $40,000. He moved on to the WSOP, where he placed in three events, but it wasn’t until later in the summer that he hit his stride.

In August he won the Ladbrokes Scandinavian Poker Championships in Stockholm, taking home nearly $70,000. The next month saw him place third in the EPT Barcelona event for $145,000 and in October he won the EPT Baden for $343,000, despite being five hours late for the event.

It was after these consecutive wins that Patrik decided to move to Vegas. He bought a house and began renovations that would take over a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete. In the meantime, he settled into a suite at the Bellagio and continued playing high-stakes cash games and tournaments, both live and online.

In December 2005, he placed second to Doyle Brunson in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio. He followed it up by joining Marcel Luske’s Circle of Outlaws – a team of high-profile poker prodigies – and then signed with MartinsPoker.com, Swedish pro Martin de Knijff’s poker room. It was also around this time that he met his fiancée, Maya.

With a set pre-tournament schedule that consists of sleeping and eating well, going to the gym and watching movies, it is no surprise Patrik continued to win in 2006. He cashed in eight international tournaments, including a ninth-place finish in the inaugural $50,000 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. event and a 15th-place finish in the $10,000 WSOP Pot-Limit Omaha Championship. He also placed in an additional three WSOP events as well as in two WPT events.

2006 was also a good year in Patrik’s personal life. Maya became pregnant with their first child, Mila, who was born in May 2007, and the couple moved into their new home in Las Vegas. Since then, the family has decided to split its time between Monte Carlo, Monaco and Vegas, and they are currently in the process of settling down on the French Riviera.

Patrik continued his run on the poker circuit in 2007, cashing in the Aussie Millions, the WPT Five Star World Poker Classic, the WSOP and the WSOPE. He is regularly seen online playing at various poker rooms, including MartinsPoker, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, and can be found at the highest-stakes tables betting enormous sums of money, and winning big pots too.

His public profile has risen substantially as a result of his high-profile wins and celebrity good looks, and he has appeared on a number of TV shows and specials in the last several years. He was featured in Marcel Luske’s instructional DVD, Poker: My Way, as well as in GSN’s High Stakes Poker and, in 2007, he appeared in NBC’s Poker After Dark series. He is set to play in Full Tilt Poker’s Million Dollar Cash Game II and will join High Stakes Poker once again as well.

When not at the poker table, Antonius enjoys daily workouts and regular games of tennis as well as playing other sports. A former bad boy, the Finnish prodigy has relaxed into his role as a father and now spends much of his downtime playing with his daughter and hanging out with his fiancée. And for those fans interested in keeping up with the poker star.

Deeb was born Nov. 27, 1955, in Beirut, Lebanon. On holidays, his close-knit family would gather and pass time by playing games including poker, which Deeb picked up quickly. Even as a boy, he was competing in the game against his childhood friends.

Despite the political unrest that would surface in Lebanon in later years, Deeb remembers his early years as a time of peacefulness. He grew up in a family community, he says, where kids played with each other outdoors and didn’t abuse drugs or alcohol.

Even so, in search of higher education, Deeb decided to head west when he turned 19 and enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at Utah State University. But as he studied, the war in Lebanon erupted, cutting off contact – and funding – from his parents for two years.

Out of money, Deeb was forced to quit school just a few credits short of graduation. He was in a bind, however, because his student visa didn’t allow him to work in the U.S. With few options at hand, Deeb headed for Nevada.

He’d played some poker in school which yielded enough cash to create a modest bankroll in Reno. There, Deeb took up small-stakes poker games to build his confidence and fatten his wallet. It turned out to be a career move for the diminutive and affable man who has never worked anywhere other than at the poker table as an adult.

Then based out of Reno but frequenting casinos around the U.S., Deeb developed a signature style of play that mixed aggression with table psychology. He was good at reading his opponents, and found success playing the people as well as his cards.

Today Deeb pegs his style as aggressive and varied. “I can be playing very fast or very tight – it all depends on the table,” he told PokerListings.com at the 2006 WSOP. “I adjust to the people that are playing.”

It’s an approach that’s worked for more than 30 years, earning Deeb millions in poker winnings and a World Series of Poker gold bracelet.

Deeb’s first WSOP cash was in 1990, when he placed second in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event and took in $130,000. Though he consistently cashed and made final tables at subsequent WSOP events, a gold bracelet eluded Deeb until 1996. That year he competed in the $5,000 2-7 Draw, where he took first place and earned $146,250.

With the exception of the Main Event, Deeb says the 2-7 Draw is his favorite tournament at the World Series. And for good reason: He narrowly missed a second gold bracelet in that event at the 2001 WSOP, when he went out on the bubble but pocketed $92,000.

In 2002, Deeb made the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em final table at the World Poker Tour’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic. After being bested by Gus Hansen and John Juanda, Deeb finished third for nearly $140,000.

The following year, he claimed the L.A. Poker Classic, and inched his way toward the final table of the World Series Championship. He went out in 13th place, but only after earning some of Phil Ivey’s money and a compliment on his attire. Deeb, bedecked in a brightly patterned short-sleeve top, took a lucky pot and Ivey commented, “Must be the shirt.”

At Festa al Lago II in 2004, Deeb won $154,204 for a first-place finish in the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. But that prize is dwarfed by his biggest-ever cash of $1 million for winning the 2005 Ultimate Poker Classic in Palm Beach.

Today, Deeb consistently cashes at World Series events. “He’s definitely one of the best players in the world,” 2000 World Series champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson said after meeting Deeb in some tough play.

For optimal performance at tournaments, Deeb says he exercises, makes sure to get his eight hours of sleep, eats healthfully and has a lot of sex.

Jamie Gold is a Los Angeles-based television producer who got his start in cards in a competitive household with his poker-playing mother and his grandfather, who was a gin rummy champion.

After getting his bachelor’s degree from the University of New York at Albany, where he graduated with honors, Jamie moved to California in 1991 to study entertainment law at UCLA. Having obtained valuable work experience in the entertainment business when he interned at the J. Michael Bloom & Associates Talent Agency in New York City at the age of 16, Jamie immediately found work in L.A. as a talent agent, and over the years was an employee of several high-profile agencies.

He soon became known as the youngest franchised agent in the business – a feat he achieved at the age of 21 – and went on to co-found an agency in 1994. In 1996 he started his own firm, JMG Management.

Known around Hollywood for discovering new talent and developing the careers of up-and-coming artists, Gold has worked with actors James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives), Jimmy Fallon (Saturday Night Live), Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels) and Kristin Davis (Sex and the City).

Recently, however, Gold quit his career as a talent manager and began working as a television producer full-time. JMG, a small and personal company, has a slew of projects in development, including an untitled poker show featuring 2003 WSOP Main Event Champion Chris Moneymaker and 10-time WSOP bracelet winner Johnny Chan, a constant fixture at the 2006 Main Event final table as a friend and tutor to Gold, and who cheered the champ on to victory together with Jamie’s mother.

Jamie entered the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event as a member of the Bodog.com celebrity team alongside actors Mekhi Phifer (ER) and Dean Cain (Lois and Clark). An unstoppable force at the tables throughout the event, Gold left his fellow celebrities in the dust as he surpassed player after player to make it the final table.

The truth of the matter is Gold dominated the last four days of play, continually increasing his chip stack at the expense of several more seasoned players, and throwing the weight of the big stack around like it was second nature.

No one could stop him, including respected pro and final-table competitor Allen Cunningham, one of seven players at the final table Gold himself knocked out.

And all of a sudden, Jamie Gold was poker’s World Champion.

In the wake of his win, Jamie signed a two-year endorsement and production contract with his WSOP 2006 sponsor, Bodog.com. The agreement included the standard tournament buy-ins and promotional appearances as well as a $1 million television production deal. In addition, Jamie was to host his own table on Bodog.com, where he was to play frequently with Bodog.com players.

The deal wasn’t to last, however, as Bodog Poker dropped Gold as a spokesperson in January 2007.

Also in the wake of his win: Fellow poker player Crispin Leyser filed a lawsuit staking claim to half of Gold’s winnings, and Harrah’s froze his full payment until the matter was settled. Leyser claimed Gold agreed to pay him half for getting celebrities to wear Bodog.com gear; Gold claimed he agreed to a payout, but it certainly wasn’t half, despite a voicemail he left on Leyser’s phone indicating otherwise.

It didn’t do much for his already somewhat maligned persona, both on the felt and off, and neither has a slew of mediocre finishes in all the tournaments he’s played in since the WSOP.

Nonetheless, two years later, the lawsuit is settled and Gold is still a fixture around the poker circuit.

Gold, in his first post-settlement interview, claims it was all a misunderstanding and easy to resolve once the two sat down together, although he says the settlement doesn’t allow him to reveal the details.

In the same interview, he fessed up to a couple of etiquette breaches during the WSOP that also may have contributed to the vitriol directed at him by some of his fellow pros: He flashed a card to a competitor during a hand; he told a friend what he was holding so he wouldn’t bust him out. He’s apologized, and asked for people to forgive him.

So the Jamie Gold story continues. And despite his post-WSOP results, there are some signs in his past that indicate he does have some poker chops:

Prior to his World Championship win, Gold played live poker 40 hours a week at the Commerce, Bicycle and Hustler Casinos near L.A., and almost never competed online. A self-proclaimed poker book junkie, Gold has honed his skills in high-stakes cash games over the last several years and has placed in a slew of tournaments in the L.A. area, including in the Bicycle Casino’s Stars and Stripes tournament in 2006 where he won first place and $60,000.

Aside from his $12 million first place finish at the 2006 WSOP, Gold has a number of other in-the-money finishes under his belt, such as a fifth-place finish in the $300 No-Limit Hold’em event at the 2006 Winnin’ o’ the Green at the Bicycle Casino; a seventh-place finish in the $100 No-Limit Hold’em event at Larry Flynt’s Grand Slam of Poker IV at the Hustler Casino in 2005; and an eighth-place finish in the $500 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Ninth Annual National Championship of Poker at Hollywood Park Casino in 2005.

Jamie Golds latest wins in live poker

As famous for his antics at the poker table and bad beat tirades as he is for his incredible record as a tournament player, Phil Hellmuth Jr. will always be known as the Poker Brat.

A living legend, Hellmuth joined Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson in 2006 as one of only three poker players in history with ten WSOP bracelets to their names. But what separates Hellmuth from even this legendary pack is that all of his WSOP wins have come in Texas Hold’em events – that and a record 11th bracelet in No-Limit Hold’em won by the Poker Brat at the 2007 Series.

He also holds the distinction of being the youngest man to win the WSOP Main Event after beating two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in 1989 at just 24 years old.

Born on July 16, 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin, the first of five children, Hellmuth is the son of an assistant dean and professor at the University of Wisconsin who holds an M.B.A., J.D. and Ph.D.

Growing up with five siblings, Hellmuth played a number of different board games with his brothers and sisters and was always competitive, feeling like he had to win because he was the oldest.

Hellmuth was raised in a middle-class Madison neighborhood. The entire family shared just one bathroom, where his mother had posted a sign on the mirror that read, “You are what you think. You become what you think. What you think becomes reality.” Hellmuth said he read that sign every time he brushed his teeth or took a shower and was inspired by his mother’s belief that he and his siblings could all achieve great things in life.

He learned the game of poker while he was a student at the University of Wisconsin, moving up from cash games at the student union to higher stakes poker with the professors and eventually dropping out of school to play professionally, much to the chagrin of his academic father.

After the win at the 1989 WSOP, Hellmuth spent the next decade and a half accumulating more tournament victories than any other professional poker player before him. In addition to the ten WSOP bracelets, he has more than 50 tournament titles, five World Poker Tour top-ten finishes and has amassed tournament winnings in excess of $8.8 million.

Eventually, Hellmuth’s father and the rest of his family came to see poker as a viable career choice for him. He promised to buy his father a new Mercedes if he won the WSOP Main Event in 1989 and convinced him to fly out to Las Vegas to watch the finals. When he beat Chan to take the title, he delivered on his promise and his father never bothered him about playing poker again.

While Hellmuth’s reputation for having a huge ego and a less than professional attitude when he loses has earned him the “Poker Brat” nickname, it has also made him a favorite of poker television producers across the globe.

He once boasted that if luck weren’t involved, he’d win every pot he played; told opponents, “I can dodge bullets, baby!” during the 2005 WSOP Main Event after laying down A-K to pocket aces; and even accused another player of not being able to spell poker after taking a bad beat.

Hellmuth is often compared to tennis star John McEnroe because of his antics, and the cameras are always on him at televised tournaments because you never know when the Poker Brat’s next tirade is coming.

The Brat claims his temper tantrums only last a few minutes and in interviews following his public rants he is often calm and rational. He says it drives him crazy when opponents make mistakes only to be saved by the luck of the cards, and he can’t control himself. While many find it entertaining and good for poker ratings, Hellmuth claims none of it is intentional.

The one knock on Hellmuth is that he may not play cash games as well as other top pros. Hellmuth disputes the charge, claiming he simply doesn’t play in as many cash games in order to pursue other business interests and spend time with his family.

In his defense, his business interests are many. Hellmuth writes for poker magazines and has penned a number of best-selling poker books including Play Poker like the Pros and Bad Beats and Lucky Draws.

A screenplay based on his life story has been optioned and an autobiography is also planned. Hellmuth has interests in an online poker Web site and has taken part in a number of instructional poker videos. He is working with Oakley to develop his own line of poker-style sunglasses, is planning the launch of a clothing line and has several endorsement deals on the go as well.

Hellmuth lives in Palo Alto, California with his wife, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, and two sons. He is a dedicated family man who often remarks that the athletes, movie stars and other poker players he admires most are the ones who can balance family and work.

He is one of the best poker players in the world – just ask him. But seriously, in 1996 Hellmuth’s professional poker playing peers voted him the best No-Limit Hold’em tournament player in the world, and while many professionals lament his antics at the table, there is no doubt he’s earned their respect as a player and a person.

Phil Hellmuth’s career tournament winnings

He is Young, talented and way too friendly – irrespective if he is playing or not. His consistency and an amazing reading ability have made his name stand out from most of the poker professionals around the world. The best online poker site in the world calls him their most elite sponsored pro. He is none other than Daniel Negreanu.

Daniel Negreanu was born on July 26, 1974 to Ann and Constantin, they decided to leave the Communist regime of Romania in 1967, looking to start a new life in the United States. They ended up settling in Toronto.

it became clear that Daniel Negreanu was destined for an unconventional lifestyle. He always wanted to make his career in acting or comedy, the 15-year-old learned to play a little poker. By 16, he was spending time in pool halls, hustling, sports betting and – yes – playing cards.

Newly turned 18, Daniel Negreanu had dropped out of high school to focus on poker. He started enhancing his play at illegal games around town with trips to charity casinos. He even tried one day as a telemarketer and a month working at a Subway, but his path clearly led elsewhere.

At 21, an eager and finally legal Daniel Negreanu took the money he had accumulated to try his talent in Las Vegas. But the journey only lasted about 7 months, broke but determined. Building up a new bankroll at games around Toronto, he decided to make one last trip to Vegas, and this time for good.

During this trip Daniels father passed away, the young player took the occasion to evaluate his lifestyle. Deciding he was destined to play poker, he seemed to gain the focus necessary to become a truly great player. His career took an upward turn and has been unstoppable since then.

The next year, 1997, saw Daniel Negreanu’s first significant wins, including two at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods where he was named the tournament’s best all-around player. Encouraged and with a considerably fattened bankroll, Daniel Negreanu entered the World Series of Poker the next year, where he won the first event he entered – $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em. He was history’s youngest bracelet winner, a title he held until 2004, and “Kid Poker” was born.

In 1999, the Kid took down the United States Poker Championship. Around this time, success started to catch up with Daniel. Excessive drinking, money mismanagement and too much time alone affected his game, and 2000 was a quiet year for wins. Turning his life and his game around, in 2001 he made the money in dozens of tournaments and finished 11th in the WSOP Main Event.

But the best was still to come for Kid Poker. In 2004, he took a gold bracelet in the WSOP – for Limit Hold’em – and made it to the money in five other events, earning him ESPN’s Toyota Player of the Year award. That same year he won the Borgata Poker Open, and a prize of $1,117,400, as well as the Five Diamond World Poker Classic, worth $1,770,218.

Daniel Negreanu’s presence continues to be felt on the WPT circuit, where he is one of the all-time money leaders, and at the WSOP, where he was welcomed onto the Player Advisory Board in 2006. Passionate about maintaining the event’s integrity, Daniel Negreanu was the key in the introduction of a $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event – which he believes is a truer indicator of skill than the Main Event – as well as significant scheduling changes.

In addition to playing and advisory duties, Daniel Negreanu is in demand as an author, contributing to the strategy of Doyle Brunson’s Super/System 2, the sequel to what may be the best poker book ever written. In 2007 he released his own work, Hold’em Wisdom for All Players, which has sold out numerous printings. He also writes regular blogs and articles for online and print publication.

People, it seems, cannot get enough of Daniel Negreanu; the newly opened Wynn Las Vegas recruited him as their “Poker Ambassador” in 2005, which meant he would play for any stakes in their poker room. The next year he was awarded the title “Favorite Poker Player” and was featured in the video game “Stacked with Daniel Negreanu.” He has also tutored for Poker School Online and given personal lessons to celebrities like Tobey Maguire.

Daniel Negreanu continues to play tournaments as he always has, preparing for big games by watching all five Rocky movies and eating vegan meals prepared by his mother, who has been cooking for his tournaments since he was 18. He can often be spotted at tables wearing a hockey jersey and headphones, listening to relaxing music to focus his game.

Here is the long list of Daniel Negreanu’s winnings