Craig McCorkell

Born in Bahrain and raised in London, England, Craig McCorkell got into poker whilst at university and has been relying on it as a means of income ever since. He started out playing cash games with the occasional tournament on the side, but gravitated towards playing MTTs full-time around 2010. Since then, Craig has accumulated a WSOP bracelet, more than $2.2 million in live tourney winnings and a similar amount online.

McCorkell got the taste of the big money for the first time when he reached the last nine of the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event in 2010. With $2,263,166 going to the winner, this was undoubtedly the most significant event in financial terms of Craig’s young MTT career. Unfortunately for the London local he was the first to exit, but the six-figure payday and adrenaline rush he enjoyed was enough to keep him hooked on the tourney lifestyle.

It was in 2012 that Craig caught his big break on the poker scene thanks to a major win at the WSOP. He was the victor of the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout event and triumphed over a line-up that included Antonio Esfandiari, Justin Bonomo and Jason Koon. Craig took home $368,593 along with the gold bracelet which was a pretty decent haul for just a couple of days’ work.

2014 saw McCorkell regain his momentum once again when he picked up another couple of large scores on the live circuit. The most notable of these was an extremely deep run at the WSOP $10,000 Main Event. The long-time Chelsea fan outlasted more than 6,600 players to make it down to the final two tables. However, his dreams of becoming a poker legend were crushed when he exited in 13th as Swede Martin Jacobson went on to claim the gold after an impressive performance. Craig settled for $441,940.

In October of the same year, he reached the final table of the £10,000 EPT High Roller event in London. Although he experienced yet another deep run that ended on a bittersweet note with a third-place finish, he was able to book a fifth six-figure score to his ever-expanding list of live tourney cashes.

McCorkell was scouted by prestigious poker training site Run It Once and became an Elite Pro for the site in 2013. This was following not only his impressive live tournament scores, but also his online performances as ‘mcc3991’ on PokerStars that bagged him around $1 million between 2010 and 2012. Fittingly, he had his most successful year on the virtual felt the year that he joined Phil Galfond’s team, with various sizeable wins including a Super Tuesday victory for $104,690.

Speaking in a 2014 interview with Lee Davy, Craig explained why it is so difficult to leave the poker world once you are in it:

‘I don’t think it’s the money . . . it would be the lifestyle change that would be tough. Being told what to do; sitting at a desk all day, and having to change your hours. It would be an incredibly different lifestyle than the one we lead right now . . . I see people breaking even in poker all the time and they are happy because of the lifestyle’.