Family Quit Their Jobs to Play Poker

15:48
02 Feb

The Sheils are not your ordinary, everyday family. On the contrary. They are a family of four who quit their jobs to live their dream and become professional poker players.

Mom Michelle, dad Matthew and children Richard and Brandon have always shared a love for cards but it didn't seem anything special until the four of them left the rat race to focus on improving their poker skills. The Sheils have a habit of gathering together and taking part in at least three competitions every week where they play against each other and improve their game.

As the family claims, one of the main reasons for their success is a mathematical formula thatthey use and the fact that they don’t rely on luck when playing.

Michelle ran a nursery business, but guided by her husband Matthew, a former accountant, she sold it and decided to concentrate on poker. Her son Richard, a Birmingham university economics graduate, started to play after leaving the university and even did his dissertation on poker, improving his knowledge in math and science in doing so.

Richard told birminghammail.co.uk that even though he doesn’t rely on luck and chance in the game, there is no way to completely remove the luck factor from poker.

If I played you 100 times, I wouldn't beat you 100 times, he explained, but I would beat you more than 50 times, which would mean I'd make money. dailymail.co.uk;
Richard's biggest score to date has come recently, as he took down the New Year's Deep Stack event at the Nottingham's Dusk Till Dawn Poker Club earning just shy of $40,500. His live tournament earnings to date amount to $83,000 according to the Hendon Mob pages.
His younger brother Brandon is only 19 years old but has already had some notable results as well. His two biggest cashes came in November of 2014 and January of 2015 (just a couple of days ago), both in the vicinity of $14,000. Overall, Brandon has cashed for $62,000 in the live tournaments according to the Hendon Mob.
It was Richard who taught his brother to play poker and tried to teach him in a way as to eliminate mistakes while he was still learning and, according to Richard, it was worth it.
According to an interview Brandon gave for www.nubimagazine.com earlier, his biggest online cash was for $5,200 (we have no information if this has changed since). Overall, he explained, he felt more comfortable in the live setting, where he could read players and pay attention to the action at the table.
During the same interview, Brandon stated that the the player he would love to play against the most was Daniel Negreanu. If he continues down the path he started, this dream might easily become a reality.
It takes courage to leave your job and to start a new career, but this family is brave enough (and they feel competent enough) to follow their dreams. However, there is always risk with any new endeavor, and this is particularly true for the world of poker.
We will not try to question the validity of this magic formula (although it is somewhat hard not to be at least a little skeptic about anything that puts magic and poker in the same sentence) but wish them good luck instead. After all, these are the stories that poker dreams are made of.
Photo: dailymail.co.uk