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Card Player Poker Tour Spotlight: Rem Remington

Rem Remington is Looking for What He Calls a “Signature Win”

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Rem Remington

Jacksonville local Rem Remington is finding his way back to the poker tables after taking a little time off to re-adjust to life with a new baby. After working at his own low-voltage wiring company, Remington played professionally for seven years before taking a break with his wife and baby and starting a real estate company.

Getting back into the swing of things is a grind, but Remington is ready and using his knowledge from his past professional time to start over. He secured a seat in the Card Player Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville $1,500 no-limit hold’em $300,000 guarantee main event early and is looking for a nice score come May 8-12.

“Starting back over, grinding is a big part of it,” Remington said. “Playing satellites to get into the big events and doing the hard things that a lot of people don’t want to do. If you want to be successful you have to commit to those.”

“bestbet does a great job pre-event of allowing the local players to get into the main event through the satellites. And even satellites for the other events like Event 1 ($350 no-limit hold’em $100,000 guarantee). A local player that is really committed to that can really take advantage of that like I did. Getting into the main for $185, you can’t beat it. That definitely increases the profit margin, which allows you to do some other things.”

Name: Rem Remington

Resides: Jacksonville, Florida

Hometown: Tampa, Florida

Largest Live Cash: $17,563 – 5th, 2010 Winter Bayou Poker Challenge Main Event

You try to stay in Florida mostly now, but did you previously travel a lot?

It’s really nice that you guys and a lot of the tours are coming to Florida now because that’s a lot less traveling for some of us to get around a bit and that has really helped out a lot. Before the laws changed here in Florida, the stops were always Biloxi, Vegas, New Orleans, Tunica – so it just added a lot for someone who was trying to play the tour stops, especially for someone who lived in this area.

But now there is so much that goes on here at this great room in Jacksonville, and then down south is amazing, so now I can drive and I don’t have to be gone for too long.

Do you still travel occasionally?

I do. I still go to New Orleans – only because I run so good in New Orleans, I love it there – Biloxi and then obviously Vegas for the World Series.

Now poker is not your full time career correct? Or has that changed?

Well for about the past seven years, it was. I had a life change and had a new baby. So for about the last year and a half I’ve kind of slowed down and started a little real estate business. But now that the baby is getting older, my wife grabbed me and said ‘hey, you really miss poker right?’ And I couldn’t lie. I said ‘yeah, I do.’ So I’m getting back into playing full time. I’m excited about that and she is supporting me so it’s great.

Prior to the past seven years, what were you doing before?

I owned a low-voltage wiring company and then just got some freedom in my life that allowed me the opportunity to do what I wanted. So I studied up on the game, had a nice little run at the World Series, which bankrolled me pretty good and I played for a living for about seven years straight.

When everything changed on Black Friday, is that where your real estate business came into play? How did you deal with that change?

Well actually Black Friday didn’t affect me too much because I didn’t play a lot online, I played mostly live. But I was at the World Series during Black Friday and let me tell you, those kids were freaking out. They were trying to figure out how they were going to bankroll themselves during the World Series. It didn’t personally affect me but a lot of my friends were really scrambling. Quite honestly, it helped a lot of people who backed players start a business at that point, because there were a bunch of good players who needed funding. So there were a few people who were able to capitalize on that and make money.

From here going forward, what are your plans? You have played a couple CPPT stops and you are playing other tours as well, where would you like to be in a few years?

Just like a lot of what I call the grinding tour players – buy-in levels are great, the field sizes are perfect for someone who is really trying to what I call ‘break through’ – even though I’ve been playing for many years, everyone knows that player just needs that signature win. When you have that signature win it kind of allows you to play
differently. I’m going to continue to play on the Card Player Tour and some of the other tours when they come to Florida. I’m going to continue to play the World Series and try and hit my signature win and then go from there.

But poker just allows you a lifestyle that is great – freedom to spend time with your family and do what you want to do. So I’m good with it and just earning a living and moving forward. But everybody wants that big win. I’d love for it to be this weekend at the main event. I’d take that!