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Owen Gaines - aka "QTip" and "BigOwen"

I was always a bit fascinated with poker and had read a small book or two on it long before I ever got a chance to try playing. Then one day in 2004, a friend told me about Party Poker and I created an account. I knew very little about it at that point, but I bought a book on Limit Hold'em, joined a poker forum, and began to work very hard on my game. I deposited $200 and lost that rather quickly in the $.50/$1 limit games, but I decided to give poker one more shot and that one stuck. I started to see the hard work pay off and worked up a nice bankroll for the $5/$10 limit games. Given my circumstances at that point, I felt that playing professionally was the best option since my poker hourly rate was double that of my 9 to 5 job. From there I played about a million hands of limit Hold'em and saw good results.

In early 2007 after a short break from the tables, I set aside $300 (it's the magic number) to mess around with No-Limit Hold'em. I had never really been interested in NL, but I had heard good things and decided to check it out. Fortunately all of my limit experience helped me transition to NL very easily, and I started grinding at NL and worked my way up. Playing NL was also a lot of fun and in 5 months, I turned the $300 into $20,000 and have been playing it ever since.

As of Summer of 2009, I've played over 2.5 million hands of poker and have been playing professionally for 3 years, providing the sole income for a family of five. Online poker fits our lifestyle very well and my family and friends have all adjusted to it. I've always enjoyed teaching and have taught in several different fields. In early 2009, I started doing some personal coaching and making poker training videos. I've had a great time helping others with their game and I hope the students and viewers continue to improve from my efforts.

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