Premier League Poker Player Profiles

Lining for this years's star-studded Premier League Poker are:

Andy Black | Victoria Coren | Ian Frazer | Tony G | Kirill Gerasimov | Phil Hellmuth | Juha Helppi | Kenna James | Liz Lieu | Eddie Scharf | Dave Ulliott | Roland de Wolfe

Andy Black

Andy Black played cards with his mother when he was younger, and began playing more seriously in 1986, whilst he was studying for a law degree at Trinity College, Dublin. He was a member of a long running poker school in the Junior Common Room, that previously had noted poker players Donnacha O'Dea and Padraig Parkinson as members. He also began playing in the Griffin Casino in Dublin, reputedly because of the free food and coffee.

He was knocked out of the 1997 World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event by the eventual winner, Stu Ungar. There were rumors that Ungar got lucky and defeated Black's A/K while holding A/Q. This was dispelled by Andy himself on Full Tilt Poker who candidly affirmed that Ungar "just outplayed me" and that the A/K vs. A/Q story was nothing more than journalistic spice.

The following year a documentary titled Million Dollar Deal was made of his visit to the same tournament. When he lost that too, he discarded all his possessions, travelled to England and lived in a semi-monastic Buddhist environment for five years.

Black successfully returned to poker in 2004, dominating in Irish tournaments and placing fifth in the 2005 WSOP main event. He led the final table of the main event at one stage holding over one-third of the chips in play, however he succumbed to a number of bad beats by players making questionable calls and finished fifth, winning $1.75m.

Since the 2005 WSOP, he has made a money finish on both the European Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour. In 2006 Andy made the final table of the Tournament of Champions where he once again held a huge chip lead only to cripple his stack when he overplayed AK and ran into Daniel Negreanu holding pocket Kings. Andrew once again was eliminated in fifth place earning $100,000. Andrew has enjoyed a spectacular start to 2007 placing second for $100,000 in the Pot Limit Omaha event and third in the No Limit Main Event for $750,000 at the Aussie Millions in Melbourne, Australia.

As of 2007, Andy's total live tournament winnings exceed $2,600,000.

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