Player Profile
James was born in Nottingham in 1985. He started playing poker with friends, initially playing £5 sit-and-gos imitating the format used in the pioneering television show Late Night Poker. He continued to play throughout university, becoming president of the university poker society and representing Durham 3 times at the student poker championships. On leaving university James stayed within poker, taking a temporary job as a copy writer with Betfair Poker, where he was responsible for writing promotional material for the inaugural WSOPE in London. A victim of his own hype, James played a $75 feeder into the $750 weekly satellite to the WSOPE Main Event. After winning both satellites to bag a seat, James finished 9th in the Main Event for over £60,000.
Since this breakthrough result James has played poker full time, travelling to tournaments throughout the UK and occasionally venturing further afield for tournaments such as the Aussie Millions in Melbourne and the WSOP in Las Vegas. Despite having cashed in both these tournaments and cashing again in the WSOPE the following year, James' biggest success since turning professional came in Estonia where he finished second to good friend Thomas Partridge in the Pokerstars Baltic Festival, for €48,500. James has also had success on home soil, with a 2nd place on the GCBPT and a win in the DTD Monthly Deepstack in September '09 for £29,000. He also has begun to develop his PLO game, which has already reaped rewards with a 2nd place finish in an omaha side event at Luton GUKPT for £6,500. As of 2010, James has cashed in 14 tournaments across 3 continents for a total of over $400,000.
Online, James plays primarily 6max and heads-up mid-stake NLHE cash games. He has produced videos for PokerStrategy.com and written articles on the subject for Blackbelt Poker, having completed their grading with the top belt in 2009. From his rare forays into online tournaments James has over $40k in profits including a recent final table in the Sunday 100r on Pokerstars.
Most recently James has appeared in the 2011 Aussie millions where he came 2nd in the main event winning over $1 million.
