Steve Billirakis

Born in 1986 and raised in Illinois, Billirakis found poker at the young age of 16. The American was already an extremely experienced card player and was the #1 ranked player on the online hearts game Hardwood Hearts by the time that he was 12. Surprisingly, Steve managed to persuade his mum to finance his poker aspirations; it was thanks to her that he was able to deposit $50 at PokerStars and take his first steps down the path of a professional card player.

At the beginning of 2005, Billirakis had accumulated a bankroll of around $15,000 which received a hearty boost in 2006. This was thanks to a large live tournament score – a third-place finish at the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event at Paradise Island – that earned him $150,000.

Following this tournament success along with some run good at $200 / $400 cash games online, Steve decided on a whim to play his first ever WSOP event – the $5,000 World Champion Mixed Hold’em (Limit/No Limit) tourney. Astonishingly, the young American went on to not only cash in the event but to win it outright just 10 days after he turned 21. This achievement made him the then youngest ever winner of a WSOP bracelet (a record which has since been broken and is currently held by Annette Obrestad). To claim the gold and $536,287 top prize, he had to beat multi-time bracelet winner Greg Mueller heads-up. What was most entertaining about the victory was that Steve admitted afterwards that he had no experience in playing Limit Hold’em, so made a key adjustment in the early stages: ‘I played almost no hands in Limit Hold’em and just played really aggressively in No Limit Hold’em. I did that until it got short-handed’.

Since then, Billirakis has enjoyed much more success at the live tables, including a second bracelet win at the 2011 WSOPE when he took down the €5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event. He also has acquired a WSOP ring after triumphing in the 2008 $5,150 NLH Championship Event in Hammond.

Steve’s live tournament earnings now exceed $2,800,000 and his online MTT winnings as ‘MrSmokey1’ take this total to over $4,000,000. This figure doesn’t even take into account Steve’s preferred format which is cash games. The consistency that they provide compared with tournament variance make them the more desirable choice for Billirakis.