Poker Players Who Followed Bill Perkins 5 Must-Dos

(Photo: Cardplayer.com)

In his latest interview with Joe Ingram, Bill Perkins shared with us the list of five must-dos for people in their twenties and early thirties. The list included traveling the world, falling in love, forgiving, taking a big professional risk and getting in shape. It all sounds like a very solid advice, and there are many famous poker players out there who used parts of that list to their benefit.

Let's take a look at some of the more interesting examples of people who followed Bill Perkins 5 must-dos.

Traveling the World - Faraz Jaka

In 2014 Faraz Jaka played in 102 poker tournaments around the world. He went to 47 cities in 13 different countries and took 52 flights to accomplish that. "The Toilet" grinded the live tournament circuit so hard that it no longer made sense for him to keep his place in Chicago.

Faraz became a homeless person with millions of dollars in tournament winnings and his nomadic lifestyle was so impressive, that it landed him an interview with one of the biggest business websites on the planet - CNN Money. This goes to show how powerful of an opportunity traveling the world can turn into.  

Fall In Love - Natasha and Jason Mercier

2016 WSOP $5K NL event was perhaps one of the most memorable ones in recent history, not because of the results but because of the fact that when Natasha Barbour busted the event in 3rd place, she received a very unexpected consolation prize in the form of Jason Mercier's marriage proposal.

Since then, Natasha and Jason Mercier became a leading couple of the poker world, adding a much-needed message of love to the otherwise numbers and drama oriented world of poker social media. The couple is expecting a child and we wish them all the best in the future!

Forgive - Prahlad Friedman

Turns out that there's not much forgiveness going around in the poker world - and often for a good reason. While we all love a good redemption story, it is better to be safe than sorry and therefore, it's hard to buy Howard Lederer's "I didn't know", or count on Phil Hellmuth to behave himself at the table. When a poker player or a company falls out of grace forgiveness is often in very short supply.

However, there's one huge example of a player who was able to forgive a poker room that caused him to lose millions of dollars! After the old superuser debacle on Ultimate Bet was discovered, it turned out that Prahlad Friedman was one of the players who took the biggest hit and lost millions of dollars to players who had access to his hands at every point in the game. Most of us would feel cheated and disgusted, but Prahlad got over the loss end eventually endorsed the poker room.

This, however, didn't really help Ultimate Bet. Their popularity slowly declined and the poker room failed to re-emerge after the events of Black Friday.

Take a Risk - Chris Moneymaker

Swapping a cozy accounting job for a dream of becoming a professional poker player sounds pretty risky to most people and if not for Chris Moneymaker's decision to test his luck (and skill) poker most likely wouldn't become nearly as popular as it is today.

It's entirely possible that without Moneymaker’s memorable WSOP Main Event win we never would've heard about Bill Perkins 5 must-dos and that's the reason why Chris deserves a spot on this list.

Get Healthy - Eugene Katchalov

There are plenty of examples of poker players getting in shape (Jason Koon, Olivier Busquet etc.). However, the amazing transformation of Eugene Katchalov who at the beginning of the third decade of his life, managed to transform himself from a 230 pound slightly overweight dad-bod owner to a buck eighty shredded athlete, transcended the world of poker and was heavily publicized in non-poker related outlets like Mensfitness.com.

Eugene can be an inspiration for other poker players and he would certainly agree with the advice laid out by Bill Perkins.