Look Out - Chris Oliver

Chris Oliver turned heads in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event with his huge chip stack. His massive holdings were good for the chip lead for much of the tournament, and he had 42 percent of the chips in play at the start of the final table. The 21-year-old professional from Holiday, Florida, eventually fell in second place against Galen Hall, but he still made a huge splash to start a year in which he plans to commit more time to live tournaments.

Oliver previously had made his name as “Getting Daize” online. He finished 2010 in fourth place in the Card Player Online Player of the Year standings, and is now a factor in the Card Player 2011 Player of the Year (POY) race.

“I started playing poker when I was 16, and I dropped out of high school to play poker,” said Oliver when he was asked about how he got into the game. Those words never go over too well with parents, but his have warmed up to his decision as his successes have started to stack up. Early big results for Oliver included a runner-up finish in the PokerStars Sunday Million in 2007, for $158,574, and a victory in the PokerStars Sunday 500 in 2010, which earned him $87,294.

When he was asked about the most important factor that enabled him to improve his game so quickly, Oliver replied, “You can’t be afraid to do it; you have to jump in and take shots. A lot of people are afraid to try, or are afraid to play in a certain game. You aren’t going to know if you can beat it until you try it.”

He was surrounded by a large group of young poker players throughout the PCA main event, and they held court during each break to discuss how his tournament was going. This has been a key to his success and improvement, as well. “Everyone has different ideas, so you learn different stuff from everybody. Everybody plays just as well as others, but everyone thinks about things differently, so you can always learn from people,” said Oliver when talking about his group of friends and poker confidants.

Oliver ultimately finished second in the PCA main event, and was awarded $1.8 million and 2,500 POY points. “It’s long. I get bored very quickly, because I’m used to playing online. I haven’t been getting much sleep, either, so I’m pretty tired here,” said Oliver in regard to his PCA experience and adjustment to live play.

He is in second place in the POY standings and should be a factor for much of the 2011 race if he chooses to continue playing in live tournaments now that he is 21 years old. “This year, I plan to play a lot more live, and play just the big stuff online,” said Oliver. There are few players in the world who have earned $3,084,545 playing poker, so look for this young professional to earn his share of large cashes by the end of the year, both live and online. ♠