Mark Seif (born October 4, 1977) is an American poker player,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

attorney, and

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Personal life

Seif was born in Cairo, Egypt before moving with his family at the age of two, to

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

. Seif attended LaSalle High School in Pasadena, California, and graduated in 1985. He then received a

bachelor’s degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six y ...

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

in 1991 and a Juris Doctor in 1997 from

Loyola Law School Loyola Law School is the law school of Loyola Marymount University, a private Catholic university in Los Angeles, California. Loyola was established in 1920. Academics Degrees offered include the Juris Doctor (JD); Master of Science in Legal ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. Seif worked for the

Los Angeles District Attorney The District Attorney of Los Angeles County is in charge of the office that prosecutes felony and misdemeanor crimes that occur within Los Angeles County, California, United States. The current district attorney (DA) is George Gascón. Some m ...

's Office from 1994-1996 as a California Supreme Court certified law student practitioner, and assisted in the prosecution of the O. J. Simpson case. Subsequently, in 1997, Seif joined the national labor and employment law firm of Fisher & Phillips in their Newport Beach, California office. There he represented management exclusively in several high-profile sex harassment lawsuits. Seif left the firm in 1999 to become General Counsel of Preferred Capital Corporation, a business financial services firm in

Tahoe City, California Tahoe City (formerly Tahoe) is an unincorporated town in Placer County, California. Tahoe City is located on the shore of Lake Tahoe, at the outlet of the Truckee River. The site was surveyed in 1863, and Tahoe House was built in 1864. The Taho ...

. In May 2001, Seif quit practicing law to pursue a full-time career as a professional poker player and TV personality. In 2016, Seif founded PRIME Soccer Club, a competitive sports organization in Southern Nevada, where he serves as executive director. Seif currently resides in Henderson, Nevada and has two daughters, Sarah and Ashley.

Poker career

In 2001, Seif quit practicing law to play poker full-time. Seif's first major cash was when he finished fourth in the second ever

World Poker Tour The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the f ...

(WPT) event in August 2002. In May 2003, Seif had his first cash in the

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker p ...

(WSOP) in the $3,000

no limit No Limit may refer to: Music Record labels *No Limit Records, a record label founded by Master P * No Limit Forever Records, a record label founded by Romeo Miller, son of Master P Albums * ''No Limit'' (Art Pepper album), 1977 * ''No Limit'' ...

Texas hold'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt fac ...

event, where he finished in 9th place with a final table that included poker professionals

Phil Hellmuth Phillip Jerome Hellmuth Jr. (born July 16, 1964) is an American professional poker player who has won a record sixteen World Series of Poker bracelets. He is the winner of the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Main Event ...

Daniel Negreanu Daniel Negreanu (; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player who has won six World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, independent poker ranking service Global Poker ...

, and

Erik Seidel Erik Seidel (born November 6, 1959) is an American professional poker player from Las Vegas, Nevada, who has won nine World Series of Poker bracelets and a World Poker Tour title. In 2010, he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. Early lif ...

among others. Seif is best known for being the only player to win two WSOP

bracelets A bracelet is an article of jewellery that is worn around the wrist. Bracelets may serve different uses, such as being worn as an ornament. When worn as ornaments, bracelets may have a supportive function to hold other items of decoration, suc ...

in back-to-back events in 2005 in the $1,500 limit hold'em shootout and the $1,500 no limit hold'em events. He bested a field of 2,013 players to win his second bracelet at a final table that included poker professionals Minh Nguyen,

Greg Raymer Gregory Raymer, nicknamed "Fossilman," is a professional poker player and author. He is best known for winning the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event. Early life Raymer's family moved numerous times during his childhood, from his birthplace ...

Dave Ulliott David A. Ulliott (also known as Devilfish)(1 April 1954 – 6 April 2015), was an English professional gambler and poker player. Formerly, Ulliott was a minor figure in the Hull underworld, but went on to become a World Series of Poker bracele ...

, and Bill Gazes among others. Later in 2005, Seif won the

United States Poker Championship The United States Poker Championship (USPC) was a major annual stop on the poker tournament tour. This event was held at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The series started in 1996, took one year off in 1997, and ran every year ...

seven-card stud Seven-card stud, also known as Seven-Toed Pete or Down-The-River is a variant of stud poker. Before the 2000s surge of popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most widely played poker variant in home games across the United States ...

at the Taj Majal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He also made the final table at the

PokerStars PokerStars is an online poker cardroom that was a part of The Stars Group until it was sold to Flutter Entertainment on May 5, 2020. It can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for the Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It is the l ...

World Championship of Online Poker The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is an online poker tournament series sponsored by PokerStars. It is played on the PokerStars website in September. Established in 2002, WCOOP is PokerStars' attempt to establish the online equivalen ...

that same year. In 2007, Seif purchased a US Poker Bowl franchise named the Detroit Absolute Nuts, who went on to win the first ever US Poker Bowl Conference Championship. Seif was a

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main ( play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and ...

for the

Professional Poker Tour The Professional Poker Tour (PPT) was a series of televised poker tournaments, spinning off from the World Poker Tour (WPT) television series. It billed itself as the first professional poker league, and was limited to players who have establishe ...

television series which aired on the

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

starting in July 2006 and ended in late 2009. He has been a spokesperson for Absolute Poker since 2004. It is estimated Seif earned in excess of $2 million per year as the public face of Absolutepoker.com, one of the biggest and highest revenue online poker sites in the world until April 15, 2011, when the US Government seized the domain names of the three leading online poker sites including Absolutepoker.com, Fulltiltpoker.com and Pokerstars.com forcing the poker sites to permanently shut down US operations. Several years later, Pokerstars.com re-entered the US market in the state of New Jersey, but with limited success. As of 2012, Seif’s total live tournament winnings exceed $3 million, and verified total online tournament winnings exceed $ 4.5 million. Coupled with endorsement compensation, it is estimated Seif has earned more than $20 million in his still-active, but much less so, poker career. . His 10 cashes at the WSOP account for $866,303 of those winnings.

WSOP bracelets

Mark Seif Quotes

*"There are three ways to play pocket jacks, and they're all wrong."ESPN Poker Tip of the Week
sports.espn.go.com *"To play great poker, sometimes you've got to go broke."

Notes

External links

World Poker Tour profile
Mark Seif is the executive director of a competitive youth soccer club in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada named "PRIME Soccer Club." primesoccerclub.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Seif, Mark 1967 births American poker players California lawyers Living people Poker commentators World Series of Poker bracelet winners Egyptian emigrants to the United States