Ryan Hamar

Ryan grew up playing cards with his family, starting out with Bridge, Canasta, Hearts, and Rummy. He didn't realize how much he enjoyed playing until he started playing poker with his friends at the age of 8. Starting with 1/2 and 4/8 Limit games in casinos, he soon found himself moving up to 1/2 NL games. Now he mostly plays higher stakes games online, such as 2/4 and 3/6 NL, sometimes branching out to 5/10 NL games. Ryan has recently begun trying his hand at 1/2 PLO games.

When asked about his most memorable poker experience, Ryan recounted a time when he won big at the RiverRock Casino. About 6 years ago he was playing 3/6 NL in RiverRock and at the time was still fairly new to these stakes. He was sitting with about $900 and 2 of the 3 other players were deeper than him. Ryan had a pair of 5s and called a raise pre-flop. 4 people called and a King, Queen and 5 flopped, two of them being hearts. Ryan was in early position. He checked, there was a bet, a call, then a re-raise that was 3/4 of the pot. All 4 people called to see the turn. The turn was a 5 of hearts, so he hit quads which also made 2 FHs and a flush! Ryan cautiously checked, the next player bet, the third player went all-in and the fourth called. Obviously Ryan would call as well. The other players had a pair of Kings, a pair of Queens, and a flush, respectively. All-in-all, Ryan won about $4600.00.

Ryan's wins are not limited to Casinos; he has done quite well in online tourneys as well. While he maintains that he plays more cash games, his largest win for an online tourney was $6400. He has also had several $2500.00 and $2800.00 tourney wins.

When asked about himself, Ryan shared with us that he owns his own Computer Company, and his favorite hobbies are hockey, golf, travelling, and hanging out with friends and family. He was also excited to tell us that he was recently married.

• From: Vancouver, BC