Phil Gordon

Birthplace
El Paso, TX

Total Winnings
$360,000

Phil Gordon is a former National Merit Scholar and dot.com multimillionaire.  Additionally, he was among the Season I World Poker Tour final table players, won the Season II WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star, and placed fourth in a WSOP event in 2001.

Gordon is a native Texan who now resides in South Lake Tahoe.  He began playing poker for pennies at age seven against his Aunt Lib, whom he described as a “brutal player".  Young Phil started taking college classes at age 15 because he became bored with High School classes.  He then attended Georgia Tech and graduated with honors and a B.S. in computer science.  However, before graduating he took a break from school for a year to play professional bridge.  After graduating, Phil ventured to Santa Cruz, California where he joined a computer software company. It was during this time period that he began playing in low-limit poker games.

Phil later took another job writing software at Lockheed. When he informed three former Lockheed employees that he was going to take a leave from the company to play professional poker, they asked him to join them in a new network management software company they were starting.  When the company was later bought by Cisco Systems for a cool $95 million, Phil decided to slow down and enjoy his success and good fortune. He spent much of the next six years traveling around the world and soaking up different cultures, covering 50 countries and six continents.

During this time period Phil honed his poker skills and began racking up victories. The most stunning of these was his Season II win at the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star event where he secured a victory and the top prize of $360,000.

In 2003 he and a friend traveled in a tricked out RV to every major sporting event in the U.S. to raise awareness and money for cancer.  In total they were able to raise over $100,000.  Currently, Phil has started his own charitable organization, Put a Bad Beat on Cancer, urging fellow players to donate one percent of their winnings to the cause.