CARDRUNNERS

Taylor Caby is a co-founder and instructor at CardRunners.com. Taylor plays on UltimateBet.com under the name "Green Plastic." He is twenty-four years old having graduated with a Finance degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He plays poker and runs CardRunners full time now.

Taylor has been playing poker for seven years and playing online poker for over three years. He started playing poker in high school with his friends. Taylor started playing online before his sophomore year of college. He played very small games to improve as a player before moving up in stakes. He carefully worked his way up from playing $5 sit-n-goes to playing $50-$100 no-limit hold'em in less than two years. Taylor has live tournament experience as well. He has played in four World Poker Tour events, with one finish "in the money."

Taylor considers himself an expert in all forms of no-limit hold'em cash game play. He is particularly adept at heads up matches as he is extremely aggressive but knows how and when to mix up his play. He will focus on teaching no-limit hold'em cash games.

Andrew Wiggins is a co-founder and instructor at CardRunners.com. Andrew plays at UltimateBet.com under the name "muddywater." Andrew graduated from the University of Illinois with an accounting degree. He works full time playing poker and managing CardRunners.

Andrew began playing poker at the end of his senior year in high school. His first experience was playing $.25-.50 no-limit hold'em with his friends after school. When Andrew went to college, he had trouble finding games and began playing on PartyPoker.com. There he played $.25-.50 pot-limit hold'em. Taylor introduced Andrew to UltimateBet.com and it was there he began playing sit-n-goes. Taylor soon took Andrew under his wing, and helped him to improve his game. Andrew played $5 sit sit-n-goes for several months and began to move up to $10 and $20 sit-n-goes. By then end of the school year, Andrew was playing $20 sit-n-goes regularly and working on winning his way into bigger buy-in multi-table tournaments.

The first week of his summer, Andrew placed 5th in a $200 multi-table tournament and 1st in a $100 multi-table tournament. After that week, Andrew never looked back. When school resumed again, Andrew was consistently beating $100 sit-n-goes and also placing in many $100 and $200 multi-table tournaments. As 2004 drew to a close, Andrew began focusing on cash games. After several months of beating $2-4 no-limit hold'em, he moved to $5-10 no-limit hold'em. Andrew played 10/20 no-limit hold'em for almost a year, but moved down after consolidating his bankroll due to the new legislation. Andrew can currently be found playing 5/10 no-limit hold'em on UltimateBet.com.

Andrew is an accomplished no-limit hold'em player. He is a consistent winner in cash games, multi-table tournaments and sit-n-goes. Andrew focuses mostly on shorthanded play, but is working on his full table play. Andrew will teach all forms of no-limit hold'em and also pot-limit Omaha as well.

Brian Townsend is a high limit poker player who plays under the handles sbrugby and aba20. He is 26 and completed an electrical engineering degree from Universityof California-Santa Barbara before he started playing poker full time.

Brian has been playing poker professionally since September 2006. He began playing poker in August 2005. Initially playing .25/.50 limit holdem, Brian quickly moved up the limit ranks to the larger limit games before switching to no limit in the beginning of 2006. From there, he moved up from the smallest no limit games to the largest no limit games in the world in under a year. He can now be found playing 200/400 no limit holdem and pot limit Omaha on any major site.

Although Brian is not a big tournament player, he has one final table in a World Series of Poker circuit event in New Orleans. He was on GSN's High Stakes Poker show playing with some of the worlds best.

Brian Hastings is an instructor at CardRunners.com. Brian plays on UltimateBet.com under the name "Stinger885." Brian is currently a sophomore at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, presently studying economics and business.

Brian began playing poker during his junior year of high school in small home games with his friends, and he began playing online on UltimateBet.com during the summer of 2005. Brian initially deposited $30 three times, playing $.05/.10 no-limit hold'em. After that, he started beating these small stakes cash games and occasionally playing $5 and $10 buyin multi-table tournaments. He had a few nice cashes of several hundred dollars in these tournaments to supplement his cash game winnings, and his bankroll quickly grew to about $3,000. After that, he proceeded to move up the ladder from $.50/1 no-limit hold'em cash games all the way to his current levels of $25/50 and $50/100 no-limit hold'em, as well as playing and beating the $100 and up multi-table tournaments and the $200 and $500 sit-n-goes, as well as some $200-$1000 heads up sit-n-goes on occasion.

Brians quick rise through the ranks, limits on his time and success at cash games has had Brian focus mostly on cash games despite his previous playing and winning at MTT's and SnG's as well.

Mike, 23, is a high-limit poker player who has played professionally since June 2003. He graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota, and he lives in Minneapolis.

Mike began playing poker in high school, in small-stakes dealer's-choice home games with his friends. When he went off to Iowa State, he didn't find many people there who liked poker, so he turned to the online game. He began with sit-and-goes, and eventually found his niche in limit hold'em cash games. He has been playing and beating 100-200 and bigger games since 2005.

Mike isn't a big tournament player, but his biggest claim to fame is his win at the 2006 PartyPoker Million V, the world's largest limit hold'em tournament. He won a million dollars for first place.

Mike is an expert at all forms of limit hold'em, though he believes he's at his best in four- to six-handed games. Most of his action these days is on PokerStars, where he plays as PapaWarbucks, often in the 200-400 games.

Cole, 20, lives in Williamsburg. He is currently taking a year off from William and Mary to play poker and travel the world. Cole is a multi-tabling high-stakes cash-game specialist online; he plays and beats the biggest games (through 300-600 no-limit) on Full Tilt, and he has recently diversified his game by learning pot-limit Omaha.

Eric, 22, is a senior at Duke University. He has been playing poker for about four years. He started out at the $.5-.10 cent tables on Party Poker and eventually worked his way up to $2-4 full-ring. He had to cash out most of my roll after this, and dropped down to $1-2 where he grinded for a while before he hit the Party bad-beat jackpot for $110k. From that point on, he took a shot at $5-10 6-max and realized he could beat it at a good rate. He moved to Pokerstars when online legislation changed, took a shot at $25/50, and the rest was history. He currently plays $25-50 to $100-200 on Pokerstars, and $25-50 through $300-600 on Full Tilt, both PLO and NLHE. He is a firm believer that with hard work, critical analysis, and most importantly lots of game play, anyone can get good at the game. He said "Cardrunners videos have helped me a lot on my way up, especially Brian's PLO videos, and I'm looking forward to giving back to the community, as they did before me."

Over $1 million in ring-game winnings in 2007

Plays 200/400 NLHE and 200/400 PLO

10th Place, 2008 WSOP $10k PLO - $53k

12th Place, 2008 WSOP $10k PLHE - $41k

David “Raptor” Benefield is one of the most established and feared opponents at the high-stakes. Benefield was originally a sit-and-go pro, and he crushed those games by combining his tournament fundamentals with creativity unusual for the format. When he switched to cash games, he worked his way up from the smallest limits, learning each limit's nuances and taking shots until he was beating the $10-20 no-limit games, then $25-50, then $200-400, all the way to Bobby's Room and the $500-1000 hold'em/Omaha mix.

David separates himself from his competition not only with his talent but also with his professional approach to the game. He has managed his money wisely, both in selecting poker games and by investing in real estate. He also studies the game intensely with his roommate and close friend, Tom “durrrr” Dwan.