Greg Raymer
Greg RaymerWelcome to the official website of Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, the 2004 World Series of Poker main event winner. Greg has been very busy since his win at the WSOP, as you can imagine.
EPT German Open
February 1st to 2nd
Don't know yet if I'm going to this tournament, but all of the EPT events have a great structure. See www.ept.com.
EPT Scandinavian Open
February 19th to 23rd
Don't know yet if I'm going to this tournament, but all of the EPT events have a great structure. See www.ept.com.
EPT Polish Open
March 11th to 15th
Don't know yet if I'm going to this tournament, but all of the EPT events have a great structure. See www.ept.com.
EPT Grand Finals in Monaco
April 12th to 17th
This has been, since its inception, the biggest poker tournament anywhere in the world outside the U.S. Since the second year it has been held at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel, which is a very modern facility, with great rooms and a very nice venue for the tournament itself. See www.ept.com.
EPT Grand Finals in Monaco
April 12th to 17th
This has been, since its inception, the biggest poker tournament anywhere in the world outside the U.S. Since the second year it has been held at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel, which is a very modern facility, with great rooms and a very nice venue for the tournament itself. See www.ept.com.
Who is Greg Raymer? Why are you called the FossilMan?
I am a 40 year old husband and father. My wife Cheryl and I have been married 10 years now, and our daughter Sophie is 8. I was born in 1964 in Minot, North Dakota, an Air Force brat. However, when I was just a few months old, my father ended his military service, and took us back to Michigan where he was from. I grew up in Lansing until the age of 11, when we moved to the Clearwater, Florida area. After a few years, we moved to Manchester, Missouri, in the suburbs of St. Louis, where I spent my high school years at Parkway South H.S.
I have a B.S. in Chemistry from the U. of Missouri at Rolla, an M.S. in Biochemistry from the U. of Minnesota, and a J.D. also from the U. of Minnesota. I was 28 years old in 1992 before I finished school and started my first permanent job. I was a patent attorney working for a big I.P. litigation law firm in Chicago for 3 years before deciding that I did not like litigation. I ended up working for another law firm in San Diego for 3 years where I specialized in Biotechnology patent preparation and prosecution. I then decided to get out of the law firm lifestyle, where you have to work 60-80 hours per week, and go to a corporate job. I ended up accepting a position with Pfizer, Inc., the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, at their research facility in Groton, CT. I moved to Stonington, CT, the next town over, in late 1998, and stayed with the company until just after winning the WSOP in 2004.
While in school in Minnesota, I made extra money by playing blackjack as a card counter at the various Indian casinos in the state. When I got my first job in Chicago, there were no readily beatable blackjack games available. While looking for a blackjack game, I found a poker game, and played for fun. I had already learned the basics of the game while in college playing in nickel-dime-quarter games in my fraternity and with my friends in grad school and law school. However, in those little game we were all pretty pathetic, and none of us knew how to play very well. Once I started playing 3-6 limit poker in Chicago, I decided I should learn how to play well, and bought myself some poker books to study. Fortunately, one of the first books I found was The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky, which helped a lot to lay the groundwork for all my future poker education. While in Chicago, I mostly played 3-6. In San Diego, I moved up from 3-6 to 10-20 and occasionally 20-40. I also started to learn big bet poker in the 3,5 blind pot-limit holdem games in Oceanside, and also learned tournament poker at this time. In CT, I moved up from 10-20 to 20-40 to 150-300, and gained a reputation as one of the best local tournament players at Foxwoods.
Now, I am an itinerant poker professional. I work for PokerStars.com, as their paid representative. I travel the world playing in many of the major poker tournaments. Winning the WSOP has also allowed me to be hired to endorse a variety of poker-related products, as well as to make paid appearances at casinos and other venues. I am currently writing a book to be published by 2+2 Publishing, and, as always, I am actively trying to win more major poker titles.
In addition to poker, I also enjoy spending time with my family, playing golf, and going to estate auctions to buy antiques for our home. As an undergraduate and in graduate school, I worked part-time as a radio DJ and party DJ. I also did stand-up comedy while going to graduate and law school in Minnesota. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have no problem with talking in front of a crowd or into a microphone. I was always very easy-going with an audience, very relaxed. Unfortunately, I just wasn't all that funny. ;-)
As for the nickname, please read question #3 below, and it will be obvious why I was given that name.
The sunglasses.
I bought my lizard-eye 3-D hologram sunglasses at the gift shop connected to the Tower of Terror ride at Disney MGM Studios in Disneyworld, Orlando, FL. I was there on a family vacation prior to my first WSOP main event in 2002. I thought it would be a funny joke to put them on in the middle of an important hand. However, when I first did so, instead of making everybody laugh, the glasses freaked out my opponent in the hand, and caused him to fold. Since then, I’ve found that some of my opponents are very uncomfortable playing against me because of the glasses, and therefore I’ve continued to wear them during major tournaments.
I am still looking for a company to manufacture “official” FossilMan sunglasses. The ones I wore are thin wire-frame glasses, and there is no space on them for adding the FossilMan brand. I am going to find a company who can make them with a thicker plastic frame, and add the FossilMan logo to them. If you can’t wait, there are numerous people selling them on eBay, although I cannot vouch for the trustworthiness of any particular vendor, and you will be buying them there at your own risk.
For awhile, there was a website at www.fossil-man.com where you could order the sunglasses. The guy who set up this site made it look like it was my official site, but it was a ripoff. Fortunately, the last time I checked, this site was shut down.
The fossils.
In about 1995 I made a deal with my wife that I would have a bankroll for poker, separate from my income, savings, and investments. This bankroll was $1000. If I played and won, I could do whatever I wanted with the money, e.g., move up in limits, buy stuff, whatever. However, if I lost all of the money, I had promised to quit playing poker forever. In about 1996, my wife took me to a rock and mineral show in San Diego, where we lived at that time. I bought an orthoceras fossil because I thought it was neat and would make a great card protector. Many of the other players at the Oceanside Card Club also thought it was neat. I then had the idea to go back to the show, buy more fossils, and sell them at a profit. And it worked quite well. So, I went into the business of selling fossils whenever I played poker, as a way of more quickly building my bankroll so I could get into bigger games.
On the store page, you will find orthoceras and ammonite fossils for sale, including an autograph on the back. If you look around the internet, you will probably be able to find them for less money. Hopefully, you will prefer to buy the official FossilMan fossil with an autograph, but I won’t be upset if you choose to save money instead.
I was wondering how i could get your autograph?
As mentioned above, you can buy a fossil, and that will include an autograph on the back. Or, you can buy an autographed picture of me, also available in the store. Hopefully sometime soon I will finally finish my long overdue book on tournament poker, and you will also be able to buy it with or without an autograph. Finally, if you see me in person, I am always willing to give an autograph to any friendly person who asks politely. If I’m in a game, please wait until I’m out of a hand before asking me. And if I’m rushing through the airport or otherwise in a hurry, please forgive me if I say I don’t have time. That seldom happens, but it’s bound to be the case at least occasionally.
I know it's a hard question, and most likely one you cannot answer truthfully, but how did it feel winning THE tournament, and knowing that, for one year, you are THE man of the poker world? How did you handle the stress of those final few hands?
Well, I’m more than willing to answer this question truthfully, but I can’t, simply because I can’t figure out any way to put it in words that is fully accurate. The best I can do is ask you to look into your own life, and compare it to any victories you’ve enjoyed. If you’ve ever hit the game winning run in, or caught the winning pass, or made the great play in whatever sport that won the game for you or your team, it’s that feeling. In this case, because it’s for the title of World Champion, maybe it’s even more intense than what you’ve experienced, unless you’ve also won something comparable in your life, e.g., an Olympic gold medal. Overall, it feels great, and I’m very grateful to have been able to enjoy that experience.
As for handling the stress, mostly I didn’t feel it. I was in a great mental state the whole week, and basically just doing my best to make the best decisions on every hand I played. I wasn’t worried about the results very much at all, but only on whether each decision was the best it could be. Of course, some of my decisions weren’t perfect, and even when they were, I still had to get very lucky to win. But the stress just did not exist for me at any conscious level. At the end, when they were taking pictures, and I was being asked to hold up the money, I did notice that my BO was horrendous, even though I had showered that morning and was not noticeably sweaty at any point. So, I presume there was some stress reaction going on inside me somewhere.
What books, software, or other poker material do you recommend?
For book and software recommendations, go to my store. There you’ll find a link for books, videos and software that I recommend. You’ll also find a way to buy those items, as well as other books, videos, and software that I don’t necessarily recommend. In addition, I highly recommend that you make use of the many poker websites out there that offer instructional materials. A great example is the essays and forums on the www.twoplustwo.com website, where you can engage in poker discussions with a variety of excellent participants. I also recommend www.pokerpages.com and www.cardplayer.com for tournament results and instructional articles.
How much money did you net after paying your backers and taxes on the WSOP win?
As is well known, I won $5M. I had a backing deal (see below), and my backers got about $2.1M, leaving me with $2.9M. After paying state and federal taxes, I will end up with about $1.7M. A far cry from $5M, but still a very happy number. ;-)
I'm very interested as to the "IPO" you set up prior to the WSOP. Can you tell me about the deal you had with your backers?
As mentioned above in question #3, I had a deal with my wife where my bankroll was a fixed amount. By 2001, I was playing in some pretty big games, as my bankroll had grown to support it. For example, I would often play in the 75-150 mixed games at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, and occasionally these games played as high as 150-300. In 2002, I spent a big chunk of my bankroll on my family and house, more than I should have. I then went to the 2002 WSOP, and paid cash to enter the main event, as well as a couple of other events just prior to the main event. Unfortunately, I lost about $30,000 on that trip, and was left with a bankroll of only about $15,000. The good news was I still had plenty of bankroll to play poker, but the bad news was I could not afford to play in the big mixed game at the local casinos anymore. Since the next biggest game that was regularly available was 20-40 holdem, I decided I should see about getting some backers to add to my bankroll, as I felt that having a piece of my self in the big mixed game would be more lucrative than having 100% of myself in the 20-40 game.
Thus, I went out on the internet to raise money. I could’ve asked many of my poker friends personally, either live or by email, if they wanted to invest. However, I did not want them to feel any social pressure to do so, and did not wish to have any investors who were doing it because we were friends. I only wanted them to do it if they thought it was a good investment, and they had the bankroll to afford it. So, I put up a post on the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup, as well as on the 2+2 forums, laying out the deal and asking interested parties to email me. As you might imagine, I caught a lot of flack from the naysayers out there. Fortunately, I also found about $30,000 worth of interested investors, who bought anywhere from 1-10 shares each at $500 per share. I bought shares with my bankroll also.
The deal was simple, though we laid out a multipage contract to cover all the details. Each of us bought shares at $500 per share. I played poker within prescribed limits for the rest of 2002. If we lost, each share took a proportionate share of the loss. If we won, I got the first 35% of the win for my time and effort as the player, and each share then got it’s portion of the remaining 65% of the win. Since I owned about 1/3 of the shares, I was getting a bit under 60% of the win.
At the end of this deal, each share was worth about $488. We decided to renew the deal and do it again for the first half of 2003. Of course, there was some turnover, with a couple of investors who cashed out, and a couple who bought more shares (or new investors who came in). At the end of deal 2, each share was worth about $550. We did it again, and the shares were worth about $600 at the end of 2003. Finally, we renewed the deal in 2004, with the deal set to end as soon as I was done in the WSOP main event. At the end of the deal, each share was worth over $36,000. My largest single investor collected well over 1/3 of a million for his initial $5000 investment!
Greg, I was wondering how much playing/studying you do every day?
I do as much as I can, mostly because I enjoy it. I spend a lot of time on the road nowadays, literally being away from home about 70% of the time. When I am home, I am often working on my book, my various endorsement deals, and other poker business. But, I always try to read some 2+2 everyday, as well as rereading the books in my poker library. The more you work at the game, the luckier you will seem to be, I promise you.
What is your honest opinion of Mike Matusow as a player and as a person? How about Josh Arieh? And what did you write in your notebook about Mike?
I am often asked about Mike and Josh, since they were such famous adversaries of mine during the WSOP. Both of them are very skillful poker players, and are very good at getting into their opponent’s heads and manipulating them. Neither of them are the greatest, but neither am I. Both have the talent to be amongst the greatest.
Josh is usually a very likable guy. I do not dislike him, even after seeing some of the stuff during the WSOP (much of which I did not see until it was on TV). I take his comments whispered into David William’s ear after I knocked him out of the tournament as a compliment. That is, I presume that he made those comments in frustration due to the difficulty I put into his life at the final table and the days leading up to it. Both of us were often at the same table over the last few days, and were always getting into each other’s way. We both like to play lots of pots and try to control the table, so it’s inevitable that we will bump heads when at the same table. I suspect I would not have liked Josh 5-10 years ago when he was younger and cockier, but I like him now, and feel that he has matured as a man but that during the stress of the WSOP some of his youthful swagger and cockiness came to the forefront and served to make him look bad when edited on TV.
As for Mike, I’m told he’s a great guy away from the table. But, I’ve never spent any time with him away from the table. And I’ve never really liked him at the table. Unlike Josh, Mike seems to always be saying something egotistical and aggravating. I first met him during the second Tournament of Champions, when he got moved to my table as we were approaching the bubble. He was on tilt, and proceeded to play every hand during the Omaha hi-lo phase, getting extremely lucky and catching every card he needed. Instead of being grateful for his good fortune, he proceeded to tell the table what a great player he was, and how they had no chance against him since he was no longer taking bad beats. He appeared to completely miss out on the fact that instead of taking bad beats, he was giving them, as he was playing a terrible game and simply getting lucky to catch flops, turns, and rivers. Basically, I don’t like Mike, and don’t yet have any evidence that my opinion is likely to change in the future. He’s smart enough and quick-witted enough to be a likable guy, but I’m not sure he cares enough for that to ever be who he will be.
Ah yes, the famous notebook. When Mike was berating me, it was the end of the level, and we were all about to leave for the 75 minute dinner break. As I always do at such times, I was writing down my chip count. That’s all it was, despite much guesswork otherwise. Of course, the whole incident does say a lot about Mike. It’s one thing to be the type of person who will act like a jerk in order to put the opponent on tilt and try to win his money. However, in this case, Mike was supposedly using his gamesmanship to put me on tilt, but if so, why would he choose to do it just as I was about to get a 75 minute break that would allow me to cool down and get over it? I think this is a great piece of evidence that Mike was not merely engaging in gamesmanship, but was merely displaying his poor attitude and demeanor.
I would like to have you come make an appearance at my event/business? How much does it cost, and how do I make it happen?
The cost will vary depending upon a lot of factors, with convenience being the biggest. If you’re near my home, or near an event where I am already planning to be, then the cost will be lower. If I have to fly a long way and it takes multiple days to be involved in your appearance, the cost goes up. Generally, the cost will be between $10,000 and $30,000. I realize that sounds like a lot, but unfortunately there are a good number of people who will pay that price, and I don’t have enough time to do very many of these appearances anyway. If the price hasn’t made you lose interest, please go to my contact page and submit the information about the appearance and how to contact you. I will get back to you as soon as possible.
I want to play in the WSOP. How do I do it? Where can I win a seat like you did?
Anybody can play in the WSOP. In addition to the main event, there are many other events where you can win a bracelet. These events cost from $1000 to $10,000 to enter, and anyone can enter. You don’t need to qualify in any manner, you just need to show up at the casino on time with the cash in hand, and you’re in. For full details, go to www.worldseriesofpoker.com, and check out all the details.
Of course, most of us don’t want to pay full price to play in these events. In the case of the smaller events, you will typically find live satellite tournaments being spread at the casino in advance of each event. Throughout the WSOP, if you go to the Rio (the WSOP has always been at Binion’s Horseshow in downtown Las Vegas, but the new owner, Harrahs, is moving it to the Rio this year as the Binion’s property is just too small to handle the crowd), you will find 1-table satellites for all of the events. You can also find 1-table satellites as well as super-satellites for the main event running almost every day throughout the series. Additionally, at least for the main event, there are numerous brick-and-mortar as well as internet casinos that run satellites and super-satellites. I won my seat for the 2004 WSOP on www.PokerStars.com, and they are running numerous satellites and supers for this year’s event. Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 Champion, also won his seat on www.PokerStars.com. It is pretty likely that the 2005 Champion will also qualify online, because I am guessing that close to half of all the participants will win their seats on www.PokerStars.com or some other online site.
If you have other questions you'd like to see in the FAQ, please use the Contact page to send me a message and make your request.
November 2007 World Tavern Poker and Washington, DC
October 2007 US Poker Bowl and Disneyworld
October 2007 Online poker, Auctions, and Family Life
October 2007 WCOOP, Part 4
September 2007 WCOOP, Part 3
September 2007 WCOOP, Part 2
September 2007 WCOOP, Part 1
September 2007 WSOP Europe
September 2007 World Cup of Poker
September 2007 EPT Barcelona
August 2007 News from the Winstar Casino Red River Roundup
February 2007 Disneyland
January 2007 WSOP Academy
January 2007 Aussie Millions
January 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure
March 2005 Monte Carlo and the European Poker Tour Grand Finals
February 2005 PPT at Commerce
January 2005 PokerStars Carribean Adventure: Fun in Paradise
December 2004 Bellagio 5-Diamond Poker Classic
May 2004 How I Won the WSOP: FInal Hand Write-Up
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