Shannon Shorr

Born in 1985, in Birmingham, Alabama, Shannon Shorr was amongst the first who taken up poker seriously after the boom of 2003. He grew up playing baseball and he transferred a lot of principles from sport and coaching into poker. He says that during the early days of his career he used to be very arrogant and had the “I against the world” type of mentality. His results were more important to him in terms of what other would think than what they meant for him specifically. During that period, he was quite out of shape and struggled with finding the balance in his life. He finally managed to change his approach after getting out of the big downswing during 2011. Pocketfives.com lists his online scores, under aliases “basebal1b” and “BLUFFforRENT” as being in excess of $2 million. His biggest online cash came during 2010 FTOPS, when he bested the field of nearly 900 players to walk away with $213k and the title. His live showings trump these impressive results by quite a margin. During his live tournament career, Shorr has banked over $5.5 million in cashes since 2006. This is the year in which his biggest result came in as well, as he emerged victorious in the Bellagio Cup II in Las Vegas taking home $960,000. 2008 saw him finish runner-up in the $2k WSOP event, good for $350,000. During 2012 WSOP he came third in the $10k six-max event, banking $455,000, but once again missing on the bracelet. He loves traveling, but unlike many who enjoy the safety and comfort of different traveling arrangements, he fell in love with backpacking and enjoys doing it whenever the time permits it. For him, traveling is about meeting new people in hostels throughout Europe and the world, and getting out of his comfort zone. Berlin is his number one favorite city. Shorr states that pursuing career as a full time poker professional is not the wisest choice for young people these days, as circumstances have changed a lot and it has become much tougher to make a living playing poker. He believes he was lucky that he got into it during the boom, when average players were much worse and American market was still open to the rest of the world. Instead of relying on poker as the main source of income, he thinks it is better to treat it as a side activity nowadays, while pursuing a professional career in a different field. Although he feels like he is on his way out of poker himself, he is not sure he would be leaving it because he loves the freedom and the lifestyle this career path has provided him with.