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  Most people who are successful in Hollywood make it only after several years of struggling while waiting tables at greasy spoons and mailing head shots to anyone with the words "Executive Producer" attached to their name. Of course some people bypass the whole waiter phase and just happen to be in the right place, at the right time. Of course when you are in that correct place at a time when it counts, it helps to be a child with the sort of cuteness that is priceless in Hollywood.

When most of us were twelve years old, most of our theatrical performances involved wearing bad costumes that made us look like overripe fruit, or doing a school play about the benefits of personal hygiene. Those of us who were really good got to be shepherds during the yearly Christmas play. Mary McCormack just skipped over the whole fruit/hygiene/shepherd stage of theatrical development and started her career by appearing in Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors.

  Kristy started playing poker in 1986. She was underage for many of the places she played at, but like a true poker player, bluffed her way through the doors and sat confidently at the tables. Despite this early start to her career, she didn’t begin serious tournament play till 2003. It did not take her long to make name for herself. In this short time she has had a number of notable finishes and victories. The most recent being last July when she took home $250,000 after winning the FullTiltPoker.net Championship at the Wynn in Las Vegas.

  Noel Furlong. In 1999 he won $1,000,000 at the WSOP. A big sum, but Noel Furlong is not the one who really does need it. He has a big carpet distribution business that does $100 million a year on the two manufacturing plants. Yes, it is still a big business in Ireland.

  Since 1993, when MTV launched the sketch comedy, The State, Michael Ian Black has brought his personal brand of sarcastic wit to both television and the big screen. Best known for his commentary on VH1's I Love the 70s/80s/90s, his involvement in the Comedy Central series: Stella, Crank Yankers, and Reno 911, and his appearances in the Sierra Mist commercials, Black is also the writer and director of The Pleasure of Your Company, a film released in 2006.

Ram Vaswani started his poker career earlier than most. In the days before he was able to enter a casino legally or even shave, he was beating his schoolmates at the game of poker. Winning candy from his fellow students at the game of cards eventually got boring, and as he grew older this young man's fancy turned to thoughts of snooker. Using a stick to push little balls into pockets just didn't bring the money in fast enough, and Ram eventually went back to where he won the most candy: poker.

  If your name happens to be Huckleberry Seed, people will probably have made up their mind about you before you even open your mouth. Chances are they will expect that you have a rich uncle named "Jed" and refer to the swimming pool as a "cement pond". The words "World Class Poker Pro" will most likely never be immediately associated with anybody named Huckleberry. This is ironic seeing as one of the most decorated poker players in the world happens to carry that particular moniker.

  There is a precept of Chaos theory that states if a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking, somewhere else in the world, it may rain. Theoretically, this is because a tiny change in a diverse eco-system has wide ranging effects across the planet. This is maybe nonsense and only works in the minds of pointy headed academics that would starve in the real world or in movies where genetically altered dinosaurs consider tourists part of the buffet.

  This June 2 born New Orleans, Louisiana native is known for his fearless, aggressive, "not-backing-down" style of playing poker. Perhaps some of that absolute courage and raw toughness stems from the time he spent as a medic in the Vietnam war. Behind the thick dark hair and dark amber lensed glasses he definitely has a formidable presence at the poker table. His look might be called something of a mix - partly 70's disco era throwback and partly very serious poker player.

  "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go." These words uttered by Nicholas Dandolos are unfortunetly the lasting impression most people have of this legend of the game. A generation of players have grown up only knowing that “Nick the Greek” was victimized by Johnny Moss in the most famous card game ever played. There is so much more to the man, and his game, though, than five bad months in 1949.

  Whether she is known as Mary Jones or Mary Jones Meyer, she is now known as a poker champion. Mary Jones was the winner of the 37th annual World Series of Poker Ladies Event, an event that many had pegged for Jennifer Tilly, the defending champion. Jones was rendered speechless for a moment or two right after it was clear that she was the newest champion of the Ladies Event. Grabbed up by her ecstatic husband, Jones was heard to say that this was the second happiest moment of her life.

  Steven Dannenmann is a Certified Professsional Accountant and a Mortgage Banker. It’s good to be a bean counter and a banker when you’ve got a lot of beans to count - how about $4.5 million and a second-place finish at the main event of the 2005 WSOP? And all that accomplished during a first-time visit to the tournament.

  When a poker player is willing to "call you out" that could be a sign of bravado or simple mindedness, and often the difference is a matter of degree. For poker players who won't be moved off their hand in the face of a bluff, it could be a good thing, and it certainly was the thing that led to poker pro Joe Cassidy's nickname "Sheriff." Joe was given that name by his poker playing buddies, who had more than one session of trying to move Joe off hands and getting called down - and losing - to the young Huntington Beach, CA poker player.

  When describing Josh Arieh, words such as "brash," "aggressive," "extremely self-confident" and "controversial" are not infrequent. Certainly, some of this comes from his general table demeanor, but it may also come from his debut on the televised main event of the 2004 World Series of Poker, when his banter and attitude ruffled more than a few feathers.

  Gambling is like a magnet for Neil "Bad Beat" Channing of Battersea, London. He has been drawn to it from a very young age. Born in Reading, Berkshire on December 9, 1967 - Channing played in both pool and card games when he was just eight years old. Since that time Channing has spent most of his life in hot pursuit of his favorite gambling activities.

  When the topic of Wendeen Eolis comes up, there are the unavoidable comparisons to other great women like Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks. Like these women she was trail blazer in an industry where the word "diversity" was saved for the players who preferred German Beer to Budweiser. To be fair, Wendeen was not fighting severe social injustice, so was just swimming upstream against the opinion that poker was a "Boys only" club. She smashed this piece of conventional wisdom to pieces when she finished in the money at the World Series of Poker.

  New York City's Amnon "Guts" Filippi has pulled in over $1,619,979 doing what he loves best - namely playing poker, mostly in live tournaments and high stakes cash games. Born June 29th, 1969 in the Big Apple, this "Guts" man of poker is working his way towards bigger and better things on the poker horizon and has his sights set on a WSOP bracelet and more big cash finishes. 2007 has been a good year for Filippi.

  His name – one of the most famous in poker world. Though he’s more known for his books than for his game. He had won at the WSOP only once, but wrote 11 books about how to do it!

  Generally when one thinks of someone Danish named Lars, the immediate visions that come to mind are that of a drummer in a heavy metal band, or a large, heavily armed blonde person pouring over the side of boat and ready to perform some crimes against Medieval English Monks. Rarely does anyone picture a calm sportsman who excels at poker and backgammon.

  Brad Pitt is well known for many things: his success as an actor, his success in landing Jennifer Aniston as wife, his divorce with said wife, his acquisition of new beau Angelina Jolie, and subsequent adoption of a handful of children with his fellow actor. So what, you may ask, does Brad Pitt have to do with poker? A very good question, but you don't have to look far for an answer - just dial up Ocean's Eleven on the TiVo and you will be witness to one of the funniest poker games in any movie.