Joe Beevers

Beevers' father taught him how to count cards in blackjack from age 10. His father also taught Beevers how to work out permutations and probabilities on a Sinclair ZX81 computer. Beevers left school at age 16, and became a part of a card-counting team with his father and two others at age 18. They often played at the Sergeant Yorkes Casino in Luton, where they found a croupier who often paid out 3–1 on blackjacks, and sometimes also paid out when a player's hand was bust. The team eventually stopped playing as their success led to Beevers being banned from 4 London casinos, and his father being banned from 19. Between them they were banned from 21 out of 23 London casinos. They also went to gamble on horse racing events about three times a week. Beevers worked first for NatWest (as his father had done before him) then for Citibank in Hammersmith. He went on to attend Middlesex University as a mature student towards of the end of his 4 years playing regular blackjack, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Honour's degree in Finance and Accounting at the age of 24. Around this time, Beevers placed dog racing bets for future Hendon Mobster Ram Vaswani in Harrow, and they later met in Luton, starting an ongoing friendship. ==Poker career==

Beevers began playing poker by entering a £10 pot limit stud rebuy poker tournament during a blackjack session in Luton. He went on to regularly play in a seven-card stud game in North London, where he estimates he won £35,000 to start his bankroll. By the time he finished university, he was earning well enough from playing poker and giving lessons to teachers and other students that he never returned to office work. Prior to the emergence of televised poker, Beevers ran private poker games with Ram Vaswani. They played much pot limit Omaha there, which Beevers considers to be his preferred poker variant. It was in this game that they met Barny and Ross Boatman, the other two members of the Hendon Mob. Beevers began to travel to tournaments and won his first major event in Amsterdam in 1997. Upon winning, Beevers called his flatmate at 3am and sang Queen's "We Are the Champions" down the phone to him. Beevers and the rest of The Hendon Mob were invited by Nic Szeremeta to appear in the brand new Late Night Poker television series, and supported the then-questionable idea of using a hole cam to make poker into a spectator sport. Beevers also finished as the runner-up both to Jimmy White in the 2003 Poker Million and to Xuyen Pham in The Gaming Club World Poker Championship. He also finished on the TV bubble of the World Poker Tour (WPT) season 3 championship and finished in the money of the 2005 WSOP $10,000 no limit hold'em main event. His major titles include: • £2500 No Limit Hold'em, Great British Poker Tour – Grand Final 2007 • Hold'em 100, 2000 • £200 pot limit Omaha, British Open 2002 • €1,000 no limit hold'em, Irish Open 2003 • £300 pot limit hold'em, Poker Classics 2003 • $5,000 no limit hold'em, Four Queens Poker Classic 2004 • Poker Nations Cup 2006 and 2008 • 2007 Poker Million As of 2009, his total live tournament winnings exceed $2,400,000. He is sponsored by Full Tilt Poker. Beevers has written over 40 articles on The Hendon Mob's website, the introduction to the European edition of Michael Kaplan's book Aces and Kings () and two poker lessons for Matthew Hilger's website internettexasholdem.com. ==Personal life==

Beevers' nickname "The Elegance" originates from the lifestyle he has been able to live through his poker winnings. He drives a Porsche 911 with the personalised number-plate Joe 911. Beevers lives in Hendon with his wife Claire, whom he married at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada at the conclusion of the 2005 WSOP. ==References==