Greg Raymer
Greg “Fossilman” Raymer is the 2004 World Series of Poker (WSOP) champion. He is a married patent attorney whose nickname "Fossilman" comes from the fossils he uses as card protectors at the table. Greg Raymer, David Williams, and 2003 WSOP winner Chris Moneymaker won their seats to the WSOP through online poker tournaments at Pokerstars.
Greg defeated a record 2576 players the 2004 WSOP event. He won $5 million dollars giving him the single largest cash prize for a poker tournament. He was lucky and played some incredible poker. Greg Raymer plays an aggressive poker and isn’t afraid of the odd bluff. He also gets lucky sometimes and gets away with bloody murder but he knows when to back off too. His run at the WSOP did have its fair share of luck, but in the game of poker that’s what you need sometimes.
Greg got his “Fossilman” nick by that fact that he sells fossils while he plays cards. There are a couple of lucky fossils that he uses as card placements. In a week long tournament like the WSOP Greg was remarkably cool and calm throughout the tournament and seemed to gain in confidence as the tournament went on.
Greg is a big online poker player enthusiast and spends large amounts of times in news groups and forums. I also read that Greg had outside financial backers when he was playing up to the WSOP. I heard he paid them all off once he made his winnings. I guess that was a good bet on their part.
Greg started playing poker in college with nickel-dime poker. Once he achieved his professional status as a lawyer he had more stability to go onto the bigger games. He also did some black-jack counting while he was studying, (this boy is smart) in Chicago where he worked a lawyer there were no blackjack games available that were beatable for any worthwhile amount of money, so he moved into poker. This started first with charity poker events and then onto more serious games. Greg moved his way up through the poker money games until he got to the $150-$300 games in Connecticut.
Greg had played in the previous three WSOP events. He finished 80 th in 2002 and went out early in 2003. 2004 saw Greg Raymer moving his chip count steadily everyday. Greg moved all the way up to $5 MILLION DOLLARS! Congrats, Fossilman you are the legend of 2004!
