Word: event
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...different sort of recreational player that is taking to the game in increasing numbers; players with a mathematical mind, focus, drive and a keen sense of risk honed in professions like academia, the law or finance. These hobbyist bounty hunters were bound to start showing up at the Main Event, where the game's popularity has pushed up the stakes nine-fold over the past decade - a period that has seen folks with a knack for numbers, like math whiz Chris Ferguson and accountant Chris Moneymaker, claim mountainous paydays...
...Event organizers don't track all the contestants' occupations. But they confirm a relatively high incidence in recent years of players possessing a finance background. Ari Kiev, a psychiatrist and securities-trading coach, says poker and Wall Street have a lot in common "in terms of trying to make high probability bets in an instant with insufficient information." Kiev says good poker players, like good traders, "have a strong desire for wins but have a tolerance for losses; they know how to recover from failure...
...years ago Bob Slezak, the former chief financial officer of brokerage TD Ameritrade, finished 15th in the Main Event and a year earlier hedge-fund operator David Einhorn placed 18th. Bill Chen, an arbitrage expert at options-trading firm Susquehanna International Group, has won a couple of big-money tournaments and has been cited in at least one book for his "Chen formula" for winning at Texas Hold 'Em. Don't ask; Google it. (Read "What's Still Wrong with Wall Street...
...demise of Bears Stearns marked the rise of Begs the poker player. After the firm was sold to JPMorgan in March of 2008, Begleiter was without work and looking for someplace to let off steam. "I decided what the heck," he recalls. "I'm going to play the Main Event...
...partner, and has no plans to turn poker pro - for many reasons, but not least because he feels it would take him away from his family (he has three children at home) and, he says, because he loves his job. But he does hope to play the main event every year, especially if he can get the $10,000 entry fee paid - as he did this year - by winning a local league in his hometown of Chappaqua, N.Y. (Disclosure: I am in that league.) Not only does winning the league earn him the entry fee; it gets him a guaranteed...