Fossilman Wins a cool $5mil' in the 2004 WSOP
Greg "Fossilman" Raymer is the 2004 World Series of Poker Champion after defeating a field of 2,576 quality poker players. Greg won $5 million dollars for his first place finish, and that is the single largest cash prize to date for a poker tournament. He said, "I'm not the best in the world, not at all. But I'm not as bad or inexperienced as some folks out there seem to think."
Unlike the 2003 WSOP champion, Chris Moneymaker, Greg is not relatively new to poker. He may have been unknown to many, but he's a veteran of many years of ring play, and considered a regular in the upper limit games at Foxwood's. This was his third World Series of Poker entry, but he'd never made it to the final table, and his best had been finishing 80 th in the 2002 WSOP.
Although Greg won his seat in an online poker tournament at Poker Stars, he was going to play in the WSOP even if he had to pay the entry fee himself. Greg is basically a Brick & Mortar player who enjoys playing online, but isn't considered a product of the recent popularity explosion of online poker sites.
So where does this unusual moniker 'Fossilman' come from? It's an earned name, not an online handle, that he was tagged with after many games sitting at the green felt table. If you watched the final game in the WSOP you may have noticed that he keeps his cards under a shiny black fossil of a squid. Until he became champion recently, he would sell similar fossils to other players for a little extra cash. He probably isn't going to be needing to do that anymore, but if you're lucky, you may be able to talk him out of one? |
