There are many well respected poker players in this world of a game so well respected that one could almost say – revered. Michael Binger, although he might not be one of the very big names, is just such a well respected player. He has certainly earned enough money in his poker career to never have to go hungry. Binger has raked in over $7 million in tournament winnings, in just over a decade. He first picked up the cards as a blackjack player when he was still in college, and as an undergraduate physics major – convinced his professor to allow him to do his final project on blackjack card-counting.

This player maintains that when he first got into playing poker, he was not taking the game that seriously. He discovered it in the card rooms while playing blackjack in the Bay Area and jumped into some bigger games. He also says he should never have done this, because he got burned. It was then he decided to try and recoup his losses by going to Reno and playing blackjack – being the analytical type, he figured blackjack was more easily solvable; especially as he was card counting! While playing he had a really bad run and got caught counting and barred numerous times. It was then that he decided to take playing poker more seriously. He bought a whole bunch of poker books and read them while in Reno.

After studying the books for a week or two, he started playing poker, and started winning. He acknowledges that the first milestones of success in his poker game was definitely getting and studying the really good books. This was how he realised that poker is not totally solvable only in a mathematical way, although a mathematical understanding of the game always helps. Just like blackjack there is a correlation between winning and losing strategies. He recons if he were to start to play today, he would start playing poker online with small stakes and still read books on poker playing strategies. He also maintains the player has to study up in order to know the odds, and although he thought he was intelligent enough to, he realized he couldn’t only “outwit” his opponents to win.

In the beginning this player pushed himself hard, he believes he was chasing the dragon so to speak; but things are different now and he has learned a lot of important life lessons at the tables. One of the greatest gifts a poker player can have is the ability to make big decision based on small information and although he says it sounds trite – learning mental and emotional discipline, was one of the biggest lessons he learned. He stays healthy and positive; maintains a good balance, uses books to learn and takes on poker as well as other projects. He has had big swings, zero swings and believes that being focused only on poker does not make for a winning recipe in his case. Like Liv Boeree, this physicist who plays poker, appears to be much bigger than just the game.