World Poker Tour

Daniel Rentzer

Hometown
Reseda, CA

Birthday
August 7

Total Winnings
$278,595

Daniel Rentzer was born in Santa Monica, California. He loves playing poker and ice hockey, mostly for the competition. He's been playing poker since he was eight years old. He and his brother played Five Card Draw and Seven Card Stud for pennies. When Rentzer was in high school, he says he often played poker with his friend, Scott, during lunch. It wasn't unusual for the friends to stay up all night playing poker. After high school, Rentzer studied business at Pepperdine University.

Rentzer says he takes a business approach to poker. He says he was able to apply a lot of the concepts in the book, "The Poker MBA" by Jeffrey Gitomer and Greg Dinkin, to his poker game. Rentzer says he has a lot of heroes in the poker world, and he's read all of their books and studied how they play the game. He says his favorite poker games are No-Limit Hold 'em and Stud High-Low. While he was in college studying business, Rentzer played a lot of satellites to try to get into big tournaments.

Rentzer won a super satellite into the 2003 LA Poker Classic while he was still at Pepperdine. He says he has a morning ritual for big buy-in tournaments like that. He has a bottle of water and a Power Bar for breakfast. That ritual helped him outlast some of his poker heroes and make his first World Poker Tour final table. He ended up taking second place and winning more than $253,000. In 2006, Rentzer made a pretty big cash at Winnin' o' the Green in Los Angeles. He placed third, taking home more than $47,000. Rentzer says he doesn't consider himself a professional poker player. It's a hobby for him. If he could choose, Rentzer says he would rather be a professional ice hockey player than a professional poker player.