Greg Raymer, Poker Player

by Jennifer Newell

Greg Raymer was born on June 25, 1964, in Minot, North Dakota, though he moved around quite frequently during his formative years. His family moved to Clearwater, Florida before settling in St. Louis, Missouri, which was where Raymer graduated from high school. He stayed nearby and attended the University of Missouri at Rolla, graduated with a degree in chemistry, then attended the University of Minnesota Law School where he eventually graduated and proceeded to pursue a career as a patent attorney. He built a solid reputation as an attorney and even worked for a time for pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

Raymer had a penchant for poker, and after years of playing on a recreational basis, he decided he had the knack to play on a more regular basis. Through the latter part of the 1990's, he traveled to the occasional poker tournament and found some satisfactory results. He made final tables at the 1996 Octoberfest Omaha hi/lo tournament in Lake Elsinore and at the 1997 Hold'em Mania limit hold'em tournament in Oceanside, California. In 1998, he won his first tournament, a $100 buy-in hold'em event in Lake Elsinore for $3,445. But he soon moved up in buy-in amounts and better known tournaments. Later that year, he final tabled an event at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods for a second place finish, and the following year had final tables at the New England Poker Classic at Foxwoods and the Orleans Open in Las Vegas.

In 2000, Raymer finished in third place at the Foxwoods World Poker Finals for $48,960, and the following year he won a seven-card stud event at the same location for $25,560. His first foray to the World Series of Poker came in 2001, and he did finish in 12th place in the $1,500 Omaha hi/lo split-8 tournament. He continued to try to improve his all-around game, adding strategies through the study of poker books and the use of online poker forums.

His study paid off in 2004 when Raymer headed back to the World Series of Poker. He played in the $10,000 buy-in NLHE WSOP World Championship tournament and made it through a tough field of 2,576 players, including some final tablists such as Dan Harrington and Josh Arieh. He found himself heads-up with David Williams and did defeat Williams to take the championship title and sizable payday of $5 million. The worldwide notoriety from the victory allowed him to play poker on a global scale, in addition to signing a sponsorship deal with PokerStars to become a member of Team PokerStars around the world and on the online poker site itself, where he played as "FossilMan."

The nickname "Fossilman" came from his hobby of collecting fossils, and he made a habit of using various fossils as card protectors. Sometimes he made extra money by selling them to other players, but as his popularity grew from his 2004 WSOP victory, he began signing them and giving them to the players who knocked him out of tournaments.

Since his win, Raymer has accomplished a great deal in the world of poker. In the year following the 2004 WSOP, he not only had two deep runs in World Poker Tour events, but he finished third in the British Poker Open, won a Poker Royale match, and cashed three times at the 2005 WSOP. One of those was a final table at the $1,500 NLHE event where sixth place won him $119,450, and the other was a very deep finish in the $10K Main Event. In an effort to try to repeat his win, he made it to an impressive 25th place out of a field of 5,619 players and took home $304,680 for it.

The closest he came to another WSOP bracelet win was in 2009 in the $40K buy-in NLHE 40th anniversary event, where he finished in third place for $774,927, but he has also accumulated other significant finishes in events like the North American Poker Tour and the River Poker Series. His best runs, however, have been at the WSOP, with cashes and several final tables to his credit.

Raymer has also used his poker popularity for the cause of legalizing online poker, as he became a spokesperson for regulation after the passage of the UIGEA in 2006. He has made numerous trips to Washington, D.C. to speak to members of Congress about reasonable legislation, and he uses his position as a respected member of the Libertarian Party - former Vice-Presidential candidate and current member of its Board of Directors - to speak at political functions and rally support for the online poker cause.

When not spending time in politics or with his family, Raymer continues to play the global tournament circuit and play online poker at PokerStars as a continuing member of Team PokerStars Pro.

Read Greg Raymer's Profile for more information including her tournament results and total winnings.

More Poker Biographies | Player Profiles

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Jennifer Newell is a freelance writer, originally from St. Louis but now living in Los Angeles. She fell in love with poker while working at WPT and began writing about it in 2005.