Steve Billirakis (born May 23, 1986 in
Hampshire, Illinois) is an American professional
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
player.
Billirakis won the first tournament of the
2007 World Series of Poker winning the $5,000 World Championship Mixed Hold'em Limit/No-Limit
event after beating Canadian poker player and former professional hockey player
Greg Mueller heads-up. Billirakis won $536,287 and became the then youngest
WSOP bracelet winner in history, having won the event only 11 days after his 21st birthday. The previous record holder was
Jeff Madsen, who had set the record only the year before. Billirakis' record was broken on September 10, 2007 when
Annette Obrestad won the main event of the
World Series of Poker Europe where the age limit was only 18 years. Prior to signing up for this mixed hold'em event, Billirakis had never played limit hold'em. His friends gave him a crash course in the days leading up to the event.
On one key hand when they were heads up, Mueller had made top pair against Billirakis's trips. When Billirakis raised on the river, Mueller made a
feint of putting chips into the pot to attempt to get a read on whether Billirakis wanted him to call. While not a formal breach of the rules,
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
commentator
Norman Chad opined that such plays "ain't kosher" according to poker etiquette. A short-stacked Mueller later called the
big blind
Blinds are forced bets posted by players to the left of the dealer button in flop-style poker games. The number of blinds is usually two, but it can range from none to three.
Overview
The "small blind" is placed by the player to the left of th ...
with . Billirakis raised Mueller all-in with . The board came down , giving Billirakis the winning hand with two pair queens and deuces.
In November 2008, Billirakis won a
WSOP Circuit Event - Horseshoe Hammond, $5,150 Championship, earning $208,885.
As of 2014, Billirakis's total live tournament winnings exceed $2,625,000.
His 21 cashes at the WSOP account for $1,675,026 of those winnings.
World Series of Poker Earnings
worldseriesofpoker.com
World Series of Poker bracelets
An "E" following a year denotes bracelet(s) won at the World Series of Poker Europe
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Billirakis, Steve
American poker players
American people of Greek descent
World Series of Poker bracelet winners
World Series of Poker Circuit event winners
Living people
1986 births
People from Chicago
People from Hampshire, Illinois