So a little about myself… 

I live in Ipswich, and have always been living no further than 15 miles from Colchester where i was born. Have not taken that big step of getting married, but have a wonderful partner of 6 years, who has 3 kids from a previous marriage, and mother to our youngest princess/monster, so as you can guess the home where we live with 4 kids, a puppy  , a parrot, 2 fish and 2 Guinea pigs is a joy   .

I was born with a medical condition called Muscular Dystrophy, this is a muscle wasting disease that progresses as you get older, there are hundreds of different types of MD and mine has the wonderful name of Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy type 2i. Was first diagnosed with a strain called Beckers MD way back when i was 12, when it was clear to see that my physical attributes where lagging far behind those of my fellow pupils at school, but after further tests 15 years ago was changed that in fact it was LGMD2i, basically same symptoms different genetics. Doctors didn’t really know much about MD 30yrs ago, but with today’s science great leaps in understanding the disease have taken place, so perhaps in another 30yrs they could find a cure?.. I never really let my condition effect me if I can help it, I feel blessed that I have a milder form of MD and although i have many challengers ahead of me, I was able to lead a relative “normal” childhood, i feel for the poor kids who are born with the horror of Duchenne MD  . I’m fortunate to have a great partner and family who support me day to day, and also very very lucky to have so many great people in the APAT community who I can call true friends, who help me more than they can imagine when I come along to the live events.

So there is a little waffle about me, now for the real reason I’m writing the bio –  POKER .

Having MD restricts the things I’m able to do vastly, I was a Chef for 15 years but MD got the better and put a stop to it. So I needed to find something to do as my legs, arms, etc… were getting weaker and weaker as time went by. I played a lot of pool and snooker and spent hours and hours up the local club, where we would play cards alot, one of my mates was talking about playing poker online at a site called Paradise poker… so went home downloaded the client, three weeks later Pokerstars was downloaded and it took off from there.
In the early days online poker was very very different from today and actually was quite easy to make a decent $ or two, I played 12 hours a day on Paradise mainly $10 SNGs but after building a roll progressed to the $200nl tables, max buy in $200 min $40.. Played with a few players regular who are now rather well known (Durrr being one of those). I then started playing the MTT on stars and was doing very well if I don’t mind saying so myself  . Started satts into their WPT events and after numerous FTs I managed to win a seat to a WPT shooting stars event in San Jose California $10,000 buy in!! this would be only my second ever live tournament I had ever played! I had played a $20 freezeout at the Imperial Palace the year before on a family holiday to Vegas and won it   so I obviously thought I was a professional, easy game!.. Well the WPT event didn’t go to well lol my utter lack of experience was my down fall, totally out of my depth playing with all the top pros utter carnage, wont go into details but didn’t even make first break lol.
Now I had struck up a good online friendship over a few years with a player on Paradise called Divingduck and had met up in San Jose, had learnt alot from him he was a very very good player.
His name was Mark Forrester and lived in Preston and we played hours and hours together on Paradise. That same year he qualified for the WSOP with Bodog where he had a deep run and cashed for $100k+ in 55th I think it was.
So he kept badgering me to open up a Bodog account for next years WSOP (2006) so I opened up an acc and mainly played their satts, I never had a good bankroll on Bodog after bad management when drawing out large chunks after good wins, so their $250 freezeout satts where out of my price range, the overlays where huge, always one seat guaranteed never reached more than 90 players, needless to say Mark grabbed a seat early on, the pressure was on me to qualify but that meant via a cheap sat, I never was able to bink a seat into the Frezeout and it looked like I had to wait till next year  . Then Bodog out of the blue put on a one off $27.50 freezeout one seat guaranteed tourney, so I hopped in for what I thought would be a impossible task, well 5 hours later I was calling my parents to tell them to book their flights to Vegas   I had beat 400 others to book a place at the WSOPME $10,000 +$2.500 expenses + enough merchandise to sinl the Bismark Ipod, shades hoodies etc etc, amazing package for $27.50.. The trip will stay with me for ever amazing!! 2weeks of Vegas   played well in the ME but busted last level of day when was crippled when flopped nut flush, losing to rivered quad s, the sound of chip ruffling in the Rios Amazon room is something to behold!! a definate if you ever get the chance to go play..
Apart from Vegas my only other live poker I play is with the APAT tour, and I can say hand on heart I enjoy it more than any other poker I have ever played, amazing people and well run, perfect in every way. This takes me to what I consider my greatest poker achievement to date winning the ECOAP  , I won’t go into too much detail (brag) but I run like (ok not run lol wheeled) Usain Bolt for a few hours at the end of day two the rest is history. Also winning the POTS at same time another bonus as it got me a ISPT seat at Wembley Stadium!! Oh and not to mention £7,500 for my troubles- Ok enough bragging.. wait maybe one more small brag while I’m at it, ummm the little honour of competing for ENGLAND A in the home coming internationals at Stoke .