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About Josh Brikis
A little background about Josh
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Born and raised in the City of Champions, Pittsburgh, PA., Josh Brikis grew up loving to compete in both
basketball and baseball. His father taught him what it takes to be a winner and in his younger days he brought
home trophy after trophy with his teammates in both sports. There came a time when Josh was more into partying
and getting into trouble than he was into practicing and going to the gym and sports soon faded away, but the
competitive nature stayed with him. Josh found other activities that didn’t require teams, scheduled practices,
and weight rooms. He played in pool tournaments weekly, participated in fantasy football, and involved himself
in whatever activity involved competition and the thrill of victory. He got into gambling while attending Penn
State University as he started betting on sports games and taking others’ bets. He was instantly hooked on the
quick money and sweat that came with each play. Of course it wasn't long before he got stuck and needed help
paying his debts. Undoubtedly, his father came to his rescue. An old school conservative non-gambler was not
happy with his son’s decisions and warned him that this would be the last time he helped. The lecture was
effective for a while, however every sports bettor knows that it’s difficult to stop and once again, Josh found
himself in the hole. He eventually learned that only he could be the one to decide to walk away from this
never-ending losing proposition.
He graduated from Penn State with a business degree and immediately got a job in Delaware at MBNA America. It
was in 2003 while working at this bank that a friend, Dan Ricker, invited him to a weekly Texas Hold-em home
game for $20 and introduced Josh to what would be his future career. A weekly game quickly turned into a new
passion as the competition drew him in. He began playing online at Party Poker and traveling weekly to Borgata
in Atlantic City. He spent hours online reading the forums and hand histories. He ordered the books from his
player points online and started to really get into the strategies of the game and began to improve. It wasn't
long before he was winning online tournaments and the daily tourneys at Borgata. When he realized he could make
money from poker he finally quit betting sports and playing casino edge games. Poker is the only game in the
casino where the house doesn't care who wins and therefore has more of an edge for the player.
He soon decided that working at the bank wasn't for him and so he opened up a franchise pizza shop, Fox's Pizza.
The shop was exciting, but unfortunately it didn't work out financially and this is when he turned pro for the
first time. Brikis didn't manage his finances well and was broke pretty quickly, even with some cashes on the
circuit and doing well in cash games. Josh then moved back to Pittsburgh and got a part time job working 20 hours
a week at a bank. He was unhappy and everyday at work was spent online looking at poker forums and talking to
others about poker. It was while working at the Pittsburgh bank that he got his first five figure score of $18k
and winning the Mountaineer tournament. Not even two months later, he was runner-up for a WSOP Circuit ring and
the winner of $27k. This was all it took to say goodbye to the bank after only a few months. Josh was now on tour
full time and not taking it for granted this time around. He became smarter with bankroll management, partied less,
and had more focus. His next biggest score came right after quitting the job, when he chopped the Borgata Deepstack
for $90k. The 2009 WSOP was coming to a close and he was 0 for the series when he decided to play the $5k 6max and
ended up smashing his biggest score of $619k and winning 2nd place. The bitter sweetness of having the money, but
not the bracelet gives him more desire to win. Since then he has had a lot of success, including a deep run at the
2010 WSOP Main Event, and a $1500 win at Borgata in September of 2010. He recently got married and lives with his
wife Kristen in Pittsburgh. Josh plans to play as many events as possible and is always making a run for Player
of the Year, as well as getting a bracelet. You can follow Josh on
Twitter @jbrikis and on Facebook for updates. You can
also find him playing under the online name of "brikdog24." He also blogs for the top website in Poker which you
can follow @ www.cardplayer.com. This pro is a hard
worker who is determined to win and have a lot more success in
his future!
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