Erik Seidel

Birthplace
New York, New York

Hometown
Las Vegas, NV

Birthday
November 6

Total Winnings
$1,959,164

Erik Seidel was born in New York City. He left college in the '70s to become a professional backgammon player. He was at a backgammon tournament in Las Vegas when he started playing poker regularly. Seidel wanted a more stable income than the tournament circuit provided, so in 1985, he took a job on Wall Street as an options trader.

He returned to poker in 1987 after the market crashed. The following year, some friends helped him buy in to his first major tournament, the World Series of Poker. Sediel’s decision to play resulted in one of the iconic moments in poker history, as Seidel finished second to Johnny Chan in the Main Event. A decade later, the movie, Rounders, recreated that final hand, generating millions of new poker fans in the process. Despite the big score, Seidel returned to the world of finance in New York and continued to play poker on the side. It wasn't until 1995 that he moved to Las Vegas and became a professional poker player.

Seidel has been a mainstay on the WPT since the beginning and he has a slew of results to show for it. In Season III, he final tabled the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship at the Bellagio, finishing fourth. He improved upon that finish in Season VI when he won the Foxwoods Poker Classic, coming out victorious after 12 hours of final table play. Seidel also final tabled Bellagio Cup in Season VII.

Seidel’s WSOP results are some of the best in the business. He owns 8 WSOP bracelets in a variety of games and has over $4.5 million in WSOP earnings. He also has major scores like a runner-up finish at the 2006 Aussie Millions High Roller event, a runner-up finish in the 2008 Aussie Millions Main Event, and a runner-up finish and a win in the 2010 and 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

If Seidel retired from poker after getting inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2010, he would have been remembered as one of the greatest in the game. Seidel kept playing though and 2011 will go down as a year to be remembered not just by Seidel, but by poker fans everywhere. In 2011 alone, Seidel has already earned over $6 million thanks to runner-up finishes at the Hollywood Poker Open and Epic Poker League as well as wins in the Aussie Million Super High Roller, the LA Poker Classic High Roller event, the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, and the first-ever WPT Super High Roller event, held at the Bellagio in May. The $100,000 buy-in event was the largest buy-in tournament ever held on US soil and Seidel defeated one of the toughest final tables in recent memory to claim the $1,092,780

The marquee year has solidified Seidel’s status as the top earner in tournament poker history with over $16.6 million in earnings. Seidel doesn’t let that number get to his head though. The soft spoken music fan has a reputation for a self-deprecating sense of humor and his Twitter feed, @Erik_Seidel, is often said to be the funniest feed in poker.