Poker Major

June 27, 2008

There are a lot of people who leave college and don’t do anything with their major. There are some who leave and do something similar with their major and then there are those that do something so very foreign to what they studied that you have to ask yourself why they even went to college.

Mike Sexton is one of those people who fall into the latter category. Mike went to Ohio State University on a scholarship for their gymnastics team. Mike is now a professional poker player.

Mike also acts as TV commentator for the game of poker, and he says that now that he runs both sides of the game he feels that he has gotten even better at the game. He also feels fortunate that he had the opportunity to do so.

He says that since he began playing cards at 13 he has continuously looked for ways of improving his game. He says that while he was at Ohio State he was playing as well, only more of the game. Then he started playing professionally.

He was playing in North Carolina for about eight years before he moved to Las Vegas. It was there that he started the Tournament of Champions of Poker and it ran for three years. Then he won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and $1 million in 2006.

Sexton says that although on TV it looked like the duel between him and Daniel Negreanu lasted about five minutes, it was actually closer to seven hours. He had two aces on the last hand and won the game.

He donated half of his winnings to five charities, which he felt was the least he could do especially since PartyPoker sponsored him into the game.