Dennis Phillips
Do not call fifty-four year old Dennis Phillips an amateur poker player. He may have only started as recently as 2007, but this Team PokerStars player is no amateur. In his two year-old career as a professional poker player, he has made over $4.8 million out of his nine money finishes, one of which was a first-place win. If that is what you consider to be an amateur, then you are either really good at the game, or you are in serious trouble for making a bad bluff.
This accountant sure has his mind in the right numbers. He was an account manager for Broadway Trucks before he became a professional poker player. He was already playing in different local casinos and tournaments in the year 2006, but his debut in the professional world came in 2007. He joined a World Series of Poker Circuit Event, the Grand Casino Tunica Poker Tournament, that year, and he finished at ninth place, taking home the prize of $2,386 for their No-Limit Hold’em event. Two days later, he beat his own record, placing seventh at the same event and taking home an additional $2,192. What followed a year after was incomparable to these two petty wins, though, as he made his breakthrough in the professional world of poker tournaments. He placed third on the 39th World Series of Poker in 2008, and he took home the prize of $4,517,773 for the WSOP No Limit Hold’em Championship. He was the chip leader in the tournament when he sat at the final table, so it is comes as no surprise that he won for that year. Today his earnings exceed $4.8 million, and while he has not garnered a WSOP bracelet just yet, he has nine significant money finishes, one of which is a first place win for the Deep Stack Extravaganza. He is well on his way to earning that much-coveted bracelet.