Player Focus: Sheets

7 November 2006

By James Eastham

Eric Haber aka "sheets" is a fantastic player who along with his friend "JohnnyBax" is one of the most famous players you will meet online...

Eric Haber - aka "sheets" - has managed to become a successful online poker pro more rapidly and comprehensively than nearly all his rivals.

The online poker maestro – real name Eric Haber, a 39-year-old from New Jersey – is well on his way to becoming a millionaire thanks to his exploits across a range of sites. Since January 2005 he has racked up around $500k in prize money on PokerStars alone.

Even by online standards, sheets’ rise to fame has been meteoric. He is regarded by some observers as one of the top three online players in the world even though he only started playing the game in 2003.

Fifty large

He has collected around $500,000 playing on PokerStars and FullTilt since the start of September 2006, a sign that his prowess shows no sign of wavering.

Haber, who now lives in Long Island, New York with his wife and two children, got into gambling via backgammon tournaments, in which he played alongside his friend Phil 'Unabomber' Laak. After becoming an accomplished player he turned to online poker when a chess-playing fced riend introduhim to the game in 2003.

One of Haber’s first steps on the poker road was to financially back the group of talented young players known as 'The Crew' at the 2003 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. The Crew contained the likes of Brett Youngblood and Dutch Boyd and it paid off. They came back with multiple WSOP bracelets.

After working hard on his game it wasn’t long before sheets himself became a successful player.

Impressive

Sheets’ recent results are impressive - he walked off with $14k after finishing second from 183 runners in a $100 rebuy tournament on PokerStars in February 2007. He has made 131 final tables on PokerStars alone since January 2005.

As if becoming rich via online tournament wasn’t enough, sheets has discovered ways to make money offline. Last November he collected $89,700 for finishing 10th (and outlasting more than 700 players) in the 2005 World Poker Finals. So far he’s earned more than $170,000 in land-based tournaments.

As well as playing the game successfully, sheets writes about it. His speciality is Sit 'n' Go tournaments: he’s written four articles on Sit 'n' Go strategy for Fox Sports’ website. But a bigger chunk of his time is taken up by a poker training site called PokerXFactor.com that he runs with his friend Cliff Josephy, aka “JohnnyBax”.

The site contains a number of videos that takes you through real-life situations step-by-step and features guest pros such as Eric Lynch (Rizen ). Take his advice, by all means – but you’ll struggle to be as good as Sheets.

Some of sheets’ biggest wins*

Date Tournament/Event Place Players Winnings
19/10/2006 NL Hold’em $100 Rebuys 3 162 $7,461
09/10/2006 NL Hold’em $50 Rebuys 2 247 $8,339
24/09/2006 NL Hold’em $1,000 24 2,458 $8,603
06/09/2006 NL Hold’em $150 3 587 $8,409
09/06/2006 NL Hold’em $150 1 423 $15,863
30/05/2006 NL Hold’em $100 Rebuys 2 160 $11,900
29/05/2006 NL Hold’em $100 Rebuys 2 165 $12,300
17/05/2006 NL Hold’em $100 Rebuys 2 144 $11,340
15/05/2006 NL Hold’em $50 Rebuys 2 252 $8,741
13/05/2006 NL Hold’em $100 Rebuys 1 110 $11,250
26/10/2005 NL Hold’em $150 2 384 $9,216
22/08/2005 NL Hold’em $150 3 473 $7,450
02/01/2005 NL Hold’em $100 Rebuys 3 209 $7,424