John Brock ‘t soprano’ Parker

Better known by his middle middle name, Brock Parker had the same background as many now pro poker players – Magic: The Gathering. Reaching the pinnacle of that field and successful in the professional world, his strength for strategy-based games made poker naturally appealing to him. Now, he is a three-time WSOP bracelet winner with more than $3,600,000 in live tournament winnings alone. He actually scooped his first two bracelets in the same year – first at the $2,500 Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, where he beat top of the all-time money list Daniel Negreanu in a heads-up battle to claim $223,697. Just three days later, he took down the $2,500 No Limit version of the previous event – this time for over double the money at $552,745. His third bracelet came more recently in 2014, where he won the $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo event and proved that he was not just a one-trick pony. Making a total of ten WSOP final tables and 49 cashes to date, his earnings from this series exceed $2,367,860.

Brock is also a crusher in the online poker world, racking up over $2,468,124 in online MTT winnings. He reached an all-time high of third on the worldwide online tournament earnings leaderboard back in 2007 – a year where he bagged more than $460,000 on PokerStars. Identified on the site as ‘t soprano’, he won a WCOOP title in 2008 by shipping the $215 8-Game Mix. His largest online win came at the now defunct online cardroom Ultimate Bet, where he won the huge UBOC $1 Million Guaranteed event for $211,500 in 2006. This win no doubt helped Brock put a sizeable bankroll together to fund his live tournament adventures in the years ahead.