Gavin Griffin: Student or Poker player?

Published on January 7, 2011 by kkroz · No Comments

Gavin Griffin was one of the player that had the honor to be the youngest winner of a World Series of Poker bracelet. His record didn’t last too long, because Eric Froehlich became the youngest player the year after and Jeff Madsen broke that record again only 1 year after this title passed to Steve Billiarkis and so on until 2010.

Who is Gavin Griffin?

Gavin has another unbelievable record, and this is very difficult to break, he won during the same year: a European Poker Tour title, a World Poker Tour title and most important a WSOP bracelet, this incredible performance is known as “Triple Crown” and Griffin is the first player to get to this goal.
Griffin studied speech pathology at Texas Christian University, during the summer after his first year at college he was invited to a home poker game in the house af a friend, the buy-in was $20. Gavin wasn’t a good player and loosing against his friends was one of the reasons that brought him to study poker strategy.in order to understand this game. He read many strategy texts and posted few hands in online poker forum, discussing the correct strategies to follow in different scenarios.
In few moths the Gavin’s skills improved a lot and he began winning against ihs friends.
During his last year at the college he had a part-time work in Arlington, TX, dealing at a private game. Few good online poker players started from that room, like Dustin Sitar and Raja Kattmuri. Finding such good players to face was a big challenge for the young Gavin and helped him becoming quickly a decent player. This good training leads Gavin to the online poker before graduating. He was getting good cash, so he decided to quit the books in order to start the career as a professional poker player. When he was 22 Gavin decided to try his luck at the World Series of Poker. He won the $3,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em in 2004, this was his first WSOP bracelet, earning more than $270,000. It was the year he has become the youngest player ever winning a World Series of Poker bracelet, a huge honor. He cashed also in the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em only few days after that brilliant success.