Greg “Fossilman” Raymer (’82)-Professional Poker Player, 2004 World Champion

Q: How did you get involved in poker?

A: While in school in Minnesota, I made extra money by playing blackjack as a card counter at the various Indian casinos in the state.  When I got my first job in Chicago, there were no readily beatable blackjack games available. While looking for a blackjack game, I found a poker game and played for fun.  I had already learned the basics of the game while in college playing in nickel-dime-quarter games in my fraternity and with my friends in grad school and law school. However, in those little games, we were all pretty pathetic, and none of us knew how to play very well.  Once I started playing 3-6 limit poker in Chicago, I decided I should learn how to play well, and bought myself some poker books to study. From there, I simply worked my up by winning and building my bankroll until I was eventually playing in much bigger games.

Q: What’s your biggest win?

A: Without a doubt the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event, where I became the World Champion and won $5M dollars.  My next biggest win was for over $700,000 when I finished 3rd in the WSOP 40th Anniversary $40,000 buy-in tournament in 2009.  Over the years I have won several dozen tournaments, live and online, and have career winnings of well over $8,000,000.  Of course, I have also spent millions of dollars on entry fees into these tournaments, so my net win is quite a bit smaller.

Q: What’s your biggest loss?

A: I have played in the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship several times at the WSOP, and only made the money once.  Each of those other times, I lost the full $50,000.

Q: How long have you been playing?

A: I have been playing seriously for about 27 years, 22 of those years as a professional (part-time pro for 6 years, full-time pro for the last 16 years).

Q: What’s your favorite memory from high school?

A: Lydia and Amy, two students I dated (at separate times).  I never really had any “glory days” moments, though I was one of the top-rated racquetball players in the state back then.

Q: Did you play in high school?

A: I knew the rules of poker by the time we played those silly nickel dime games in college, but I honestly have no recollection of when or where I learned the rules.  I certainly never played for money before college. We did sometimes play liars poker with dollar bills between classes at Parkway South.

Q: What’s your favorite type to play?

A: By far the most popular form of poker today is no-limit Holdem.  It dominates both the cash games and the tournaments. And while I like it for tournament play, I do not think it’s a very good form of poker for cash games.  I play all variations of poker, and personally prefer the many draw poker variants, as well as the stud games, much more than the flop-type poker games like Holdem and Omaha.

Q: What’re the cool places you’ve been to?

A: I used to represent the world’s largest online poker site, and my contract with them required me to attend many of the tournaments they sponsored all over the world.  I have been all over Europe many times, as well as various parts of South America and Asia. Australia is a great place to visit, as was New Zealand, and Seoul. I also used to “have” to go to the Bahamas every January for a big event, and my wife and daughter always decided to not make me suffer that trip without them.  😉 I have also been able to meet and become friends with several celebrities from the entertainment and sports worlds. People like Jason Alexander, Wil Wheaton, Kevin Pollak, Jennifer Tilly, and more, which is kinda cool.

Q: Did you use anything you learned in class?

A: Poker is, in its essence, a math game.  While psychology and “feel” are part of the game, the best players use those tools to gather information and use that extra information to fine-tune their mathematical calculations that lead them to the best decision. So while I don’t use calculus or geometry when playing poker, my overall talent for math is a big part of why I’m so good at the game.

Q: What’s the meaning behind the glasses?

A: There is no real meaning.  I bought my original lizard-eye 3-D hologram sunglasses at the gift shop connected to the Tower of Terror ride at Disney Studios in Disneyworld, Orlando, FL. I was there on a family vacation prior to my first attempt at the WSOP main event in 2002.  I thought it would be a funny joke to put them on in the middle of an important hand. However, when I first did so, instead of making everybody laugh, the glasses freaked out my opponent in the hand, and caused him to fold. Since then, I’ve found that some of my opponents are very uncomfortable playing against me because of the glasses, and therefore I’ve continued to wear them during major tournaments.  Today, I don’t wear those glasses anymore, for a few reasons. First, they are essentially just dark sunglasses with the hologram sticker on the outside. As dark sunglasses, they are too much of a hindrance to my vision unless I am in a VERY well-lit space, such as a televised table. What I recommend instead is that you check out Blue Shark Optics, and especially the Greg Raymer signature edition. With BSO glasses, you are not wearing sunglasses, but instead specially treated glasses that reflect enough light so your opponents can’t see your eyes, but still let in most of the light so that your vision is still perfect.

Q: Where did “Fossilman” come from?

A: In about 1995 I made a deal with my wife that I would have a bankroll for poker, separate from my income, savings, and investments.  This initial bankroll was $1000. If I played and won, I could do whatever I wanted with the money, e.g., move up in limits, buy stuff, whatever.  However, if I lost all the money, I had promised to quit playing poker forever. In about 1996, my wife took me to a rock and mineral show in San Diego, where we lived at that time.  I bought an orthoceras fossil because I thought it was neat and would make a great card protector. Many of the other players at the Oceanside Card Club also thought it was neat. I then had the idea to go back to the show, buy more fossils, and sell them at a profit.  And it worked quite well. So, I went into the business of selling fossils whenever I played poker, as a way of more quickly building my bankroll so I could get into bigger games. The nickname “FossilMan” followed quite organically.

Q: When did you graduate? 

A: 1982 from Parkway South.  1985 from U. of Missouri Rolla.  1989 and 1992 from U. of Minnesota (first a M.S. in Biochemistry, then a J.D. from the law school).

Q: How is poker a metaphor for life?

A: The best lesson you can learn from poker and apply to life is that results aren’t that important.  What really matters is the decisions you make. Because there is such a large short-term luck factor in poker, you can be the best player in a game, and still have poor results for quite a long time.  However, if you are always making the smartest decisions, in the long-term you will be a winning player. In life, the same is true. Whether we are talking business, relationships, anything, there is a lot more luck than most people realize.  If you simply focus on making the smartest possible decisions for each and every issue, eventually things should work out well for you. But the short-term luck can be daunting and difficult to deal with, so be prepared for lots of bad results along the way.

Q: Do you ever come back to St. Louis?

A: I was just in St. Louis recently, a few weeks ago.  I was technically in Centralia, IL, for a charity event, but flew in and out of Lambert Airport.  I also made sure I got a chance to eat some Imo’s pizza while there. I have visited St. Louis many times for poker tournaments and even have enjoyed one of my best wins ever at a St. Louis casino.  Back in 2012, I won 4 main events on the Heartland Poker Tour, including a win at the River City Casino, setting a record that has yet to be touched. I was their player of the year by a landslide. I have since added another win on the HPT to extend my record to 5.  Up to now, only one other player has gotten to 3 wins on that tour, and nobody else has more than 2.