Player Focus: GB2005

Working as an equipment manager for pro basketball team New Jersey Nets means the NBA superstars have Gary Bogdanski jumping through hoops, but when it comes to online poker play nobody pushes the 22-year-old college student around.

Bogdanski – aka “GB2005” – has carved out a reputation for himself with a series of impressive performances in some of the biggest online tournaments. The New Jersey boy collected his biggest win to date on PokerStars last weekend when he finished third out of 2,768 runners in the $500 buy-in Sunday Million to clinch an $86,000 prize.

That was just reward for two years of outstanding consistency across a number of sites. On PokerStars alone GB2005 has cashed 253 times since January 2005, winning 19 tournaments and collecting $238,998 in total. Playing under “GBogdanski”, he’s won $32,595 on PartyPoker since March 2006 while he’s earned a similar amount on UltimateBet. Bogdanski has also found time to venture offline and play in a number of tournaments, including the WSOP.

When not handing out players’ kits or winning small fortunes in poker games, Bogdanski is a senior sports management major who wants to pursue a career as a real-life Jerry Maguire.

“I think I want to go to law school and become a sports agent, an attorney or, ultimately, the general manager of a professional sports team. All these jobs would require attention to detail and the ability to read people – skills that I can hone through playing poker. I also appreciate learning from mistakes and working hard to be successful.”

He describes his favourite holdem pocket as “2-2” and his favourite tournament game no limit holdem MTTs, $100 and over. You couldn’t accuse him of lacking confidence – before taking on a field or more than 800 players in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure last year, Bogdanski commented: “If I can get lucky once or twice, I fully and reasonably expect to win this event.”

But there is a softer side too. Bogdanski likes to give a little back, as they say – in early 2006 he organised a charity tournament that raised more than $5,000. Charitable is a word you may not attach to GB2005, however, should you face him at the tables.