Featured Members - 2010

March 1st, 2010: Suited_Up
Hailing from Chicago, Kurt started playing poker during the Moneymaker era in 2004. After watching some WSOP reruns, he started using his free time to study Texas Hold'em and realized there was some real strategy to it.

"For me it was like a drug. I was an athlete in high school, and missed the competition greatly. Once I learned that you could actually get good at poker, I was hooked, and immediately searched out and soaked in as much information as I possibly could. FCP was one of those information sources. I read Daniel Negreanu's blogs, and later that month when the site got overhauled and the forum started, I was there on Day 1 to kick it off. I've been around ever since."

In the months that followed, Daniel helped launch Poker Mountain. At the same time Kurt's poker skills were getting better and he had managed to build up a small bankroll. He went on to win a SNG that included Daniel to get into a Bellagio $25K satellite. The tournament drew 133 people and Kurt managed to take it down, earning an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas and a seat at the $25K WPT Championship at the Bellagio. He didn't fare as well in the main event but it was a trip of a lifetime.

"Since that year, I have been back in Vegas at least yearly, sometimes twice a year."

"Working with Cardcore a few years back, doing media for the WSOP. That year I met a ton of FCP'ers. Almost too many to mention. I spent a lot of time keeping tabs on JC Alvarado, Hoosier, Looshle, Steve7Stud, Troyomac and Gilbertology, who've all done some good things in one way or another."

After his WPT Championship experience, it's no surprise he prefers live poker to online. "I like holding the chips and cards, being semi social, even though there's some strange people at the poker tables. Not to mention live poker is just flat out easier to win at."

A prolific poster at the forums, Kurt is a well respected member of the FCP Community. He's been here since day 1 and has since had a lot of good memories along the way.

"I remember all the old times. Well before FCP had a poker room, then didn't have a poker room. Smasharoo, Krablar, back when DN played in the Neg-O. (Which I have gotten top 9 in at least 4 times. Finally got that chipset.)"

February 1st, 2010: HighwayStar
Philip Harrison hails from the North East of England and is a well respected member of the FCP Community. He started playing poker with his high school friends in 2004 playing small £5 or £10 SNGs. During this time his friend Ben introduced him to PokerStars. Over the next year and a half they dabbled in play money and both ended up with several million play chips in their accounts. After playing his first live tournament when he was 18, he watched his friend chop it heads up which immediately got him interested in playing for real money.

In January 2007, Phil sold a few million of his play chips for about $40. "This could be some fairytale story about never depositing to this date but sadly it’s not. I sucked and I had no idea how to manage money," said Phil. "By February I was busto and didn’t play again until May. For the next year after I slowly deposited and lost about $3k."

Later that summer Phil started to look for ways to improve his game. "After my first year studying Maths at Durham University, I got a summer job. Whilst spending copious amounts of time pretending to work, I discovered FCP by way of reading Daniels Blog and I signed up in August." Phil started talking with a group of FCPers that he still talks to today; Tehtoe, FargoPoker, chek-raise, superjeff13, kobe2odom8, ko8e34, fitzinabox. "By way of talking to these people, reading/posting in strat forums and eventually signing up for training sites, I started getting better."

"In September 2008 I decided to play nothing but $4.40 180s for a while. I played about 1200 in the next 3 months and started consistently winning. During these sessions I discovered IRC and what is now #feralcowpoker where qyayqi, vbnautilus, Cappy37, uncooper, staniv and Mr. Sparco keep me entertained, usually during the very early hours of the morning."

Throughout 2009 Phil took up cash games. He decided to learn Limit Holdem and thanks to some helpful advice from Dinkdonk and others, he improved fast moving from 1/2 to 5/10 in 4 months. In June, after turning 21 he made his first trip across the pond to Las Vegas for a week to play his first WSOP event. Although he didn't fare well in the tournament, he met some FCPers for the first time.

2010 has started off with a bang. Phil has changed gears and started focusing on MTTs with buy-ins of $25-$215 and $3R-$20R. He's up $30,000 in January alone including a 1st place finish in the $109 turbo for $13K (His first 5 figure score). "I still feel I have a lot to learn about certain spots in MTTs but recent success has definitely encouraged me to keep playing them and improving. I still plan to keep playing and learning LHE this year, I’m now rolled for up to 50/100 but will stick to 10/20 and 15/30 for the most part. I was planning to search seriously for work this year but I now have a nice platform to play professionally for the time being, which is something I really enjoy doing."

Phil is planning to spend all of June in a house off the strip in Vegas for the WSOP with people he's gotten to know over the last 2 years. He'd also like to give a shoutout to donk4life, lurbz, babylondonks, Acekob, AimHigher and Trueace13.