4th Street Poker Tour: WPT Slim

by the First Lady

Q: What does Slim do at the WPT?

A: Having been significantly bitten by the poker bug and hoping to get some national TV airtime, in August 2004 I decided to enter the second annual WPT Ladies Night tournament at the Bike. I was joined by an early tour vet, Carrie "DJ Tanner" (given the name because she seemed to always make full houses). Rooting us on from the sidelines were Jeff, Keith, and Carrie's boyfriend Matt "Tennessee."

Sitting at Carrie's table was Kat Kowal, who happened to be the executive assistant to WPT CEO, Steve Lipscomb. Kat and Carrie busted out of the tournament in the same hand - and as typically happens in these situations, we huddled around them to get the story. We wound up talking to Kat for at least a half an hour. She was fascinated by the fact that Jeff had started a home poker group modeled after the World Poker Tour and promised to check on the newly launched website to track our progress.

Three days later, Dino was hosting Fall Season I--Game 4 at Oak Street when a package arrived from the World Poker Tour full of swag, including WPT shirts, hats, cards, and posters. True to her word, Kat had checked out the website and was so impressed with what we'd put together that she quickly put a package together for our next game.

A year and 52 4SPT games later, Maneater and I decided to enter the third annual WPT Ladies Night. This time, Jeff, Richie Rich, and Will Call were there cheering us on. While April and I were busy betting, checking, raising, and/or folding, Jeff again ran into Kat, who had been promoted to Director of Casino Player Relations. She not only remembered us, but said that she regularly checked the website to follow the 4th Street storylines.

Meanwhile...

I had recently started my job at Yahoo! and was, for the first time in a very long time, really happy with what I was doing professionally. More and more, this got Jeff to start thinking about what he was doing workwise. He had been in IT since graduating from college and never enjoyed it. In fact, his manager at Globe, Jay "Bigbossman" once told him that he wished Jeff would show the type of passion at work that he witnessed every Thursday night on 4th Street.

So one night we had a long talk where I asked him what type of career would make him happy. Without a second thought he answered, "Poker." Unlike most 20-somethings in 2005, Jeff wasn't hoping to go pro. But he did want to be a part of the poker community in some capacity. Having been raised in Vegas, moving back there to pursue some casino-related career seemed like a step backwards. So we figured out together that he'd just have to find something in LA.

The very next morning, he sent me a link from the World Poker Tour website. Based in LA, the WPT was hiring for a Data Analyst (a blend of IT and Finance and what he was doing at Globe). He took the next day off to work on his resume and sent it directly to Kat, hoping she would forward it along. The next morning they called him to schedule an interview for Monday. On Tuesday, he got the job.

I remember him coming home from work after his first day on the job. He recounted every detail of the day, who he talked to, what the office was like, and most importantly - how he felt he'd easily be able to work his magic to move out of IT rather quickly.

Indeed, the management at WPT soon realized that his expansive poker knowledge could be better utilized elsewhere. For a time he worked in the online department managing their online poker room where he was in charge of setting up tournaments and online satellites, coordinating with satellite winners, and specing out the requirements for a new poker room.

When the online team was moved to Isreal, Jeff was moved into the Interactive group where he now works as a content editor. In this position, he creates, manages, and edits (from a poker perspective) content like articles, live updates, and videos that appear on the World Poker Tour website.

Some of his current projects include developing the 100 Greatest WPT Moments countdown list to celebrate the soon to be aired 100th episode, working with recent winner Joe Pelton to craft the direction for two final table lookback articles like this one, and working with pros Paul Wasicka, Joe Pelton, and Isaac Haxton to develop a pro player live update blog section for the upcoming WPT Championship.

6 Degrees of 4SPT: Jeff "Complex Slim"

Obviously, Jeff is 0 degrees of separation from the 4SPT. But have you ever wondered how Jeff and I met? Believe it or not, your sober tournament directors met at the Circle Bar on Main Street in Santa Monica way back in November 2000. I was standing by the bar with my friends (completely drunk, I might add) when this obnoxious guy started to hit on me. I humored him for a while because the lines he was using were amusing in an annoying sort of way. Once he realized that he was getting nowhere fast, he walked away.

There, standing in his wake was this nice looking guy wearing retro glasses and a trucker's hat that had a picture of a moose head on it with, no joke, a working clock. I said, "I love your hat." Jeff said, "Do you know what time it is?" And the rest is history...

Comments

Great article as always, and I always wondered how you two met. Thanks for solving that mystery.

Posted by: will | Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 14:40

So let me get this straight Slim, you were in a bar sober, wearing a hat that no sober person would ever wear, and yet you still got the girl. Truly amazing. Apparently you have strange and magical powers in your raging soberness. You have much to teach.

Posted by: Storm | Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 14:54