Austin, Texas - United States
IndustryBio
While attending Notre Dame, the cold climate of South Bend led members of my dorm to start a regular poker game as a hobby. The strategic elements of a game with incomplete information, mathematical fundamentals, and game theory components mixed with the human emotional elements was captivating. This was the first time a challenge had invoked this level of internal passion. This passion led to the discovery of the online poker industry in 2004. With a few hundred dollars and an immense amount of student debt I began a journey; by 2007 I had graduated with a degree in finance, complete financial freedom, and regarded as one of the top players in the world regularly playing the highest stakes offered online. In 2009, I signed a deal with Cardrunners LLC to provide exclusive high-stakes teaching material to add to their already impressive roster of contributors. By April of 2011 the U.S. online poker market faced extreme regulatory issues leading to a choice: let go of my passion or move abroad. In my mind there was no choice. The pain of leaving was lessened by the woman I was dating at the time--my future wife, Erin--who believed wholeheartedly in both my capability and our relationship. We put our combined apartments into storage with the idea the regulation would be sorted out within a year and we would resume our lives in Chicago. Instead we found ourselves in a five and a half year adventure that would take us from Panama to Prague and 25+ countries in between. None of these experiences would have been possible without poker and I am grateful to the freedom it has allotted us. Today I have found a second challenge to invoke the same level of passion as poker had—the emergence of Bitcoin. Please connect if Bitcoin, Bitcoin Markets, blockchains, and the potential of these technologies to allow us to rethink and enhance traditional markets incites a similar passion, or even if you would just like to know more about the space, as I am always happy to help.