Greg Raymer was born June 25th, 1964 in Lansing, Michigan. His family moved around quite a few times during his childhood until they finally settled down in St. Louis, Missouri. After graduating from high school he decided to go to college at the University of Missouri. In college he was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity and majored in Chemistry. In 1992 he graduated from the Univeristy of Minnesota Law School and became a practicing attorney. He worked as an attorney for more than a decade until he found his true calling – professional poker.
Raymer first started to play poker in 1999 after he moved to Stonington, Connecticut. His favorite place to play was at the Foxwoods Resort Casino. At the time he was working for a pharmaceutical manufacturer as a patent lawyer. Raymer earned the nickname ‘Fossilman’ while playing poker because of the fossil card protectors that he uses. When he realized just how easy the game was for him and how quickly he was able to pick up on the stratefy of the game he realized that it was time for him to move on to bigger and better things.
In 2001 Raymer played in the World Series of Poker event for the very first time. Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson won the event that year – but Raymer did manage to finish with $1,500 and made an impression on the people that were there. He was back in 2002 – the year that Robert Varkonyi took home the main prize.
It wasn’t until 2004 that Raymer made it to the main event and the final table. He defeated David Williams and brought home the $5,000,000 first prize. Like many professional poker players in the past have done – Raymer won his entry fee onto the World Series of Poker through a $160 satellite event that was hosted by Poker Stars. Because of his success and their help to contribute to it he is now one of Poker Stars best representatives.
Raymer ‘Fossilman’ has made a big impression on other players far and wide with his unique strategy and his calm manner. He is very distinctive quiet and can be spotted anywhere in the room while he is playing because of the strange glasses that he wears. It isn’t uncommon for poker players to wear some sort of sunglasses so as to hide their eyes and to avoid giving their hands away. However, Raymer’s glasses are more unique because they are holographic and opaque snake eyes.
Raymer has played in other WSOP events and other smaller tournaments. Yet, he prefers to spend most of his time with his wife and daughter. It seems that we might see more of Raymer besides all of the poker fame that he receives. He stated once in 2006 that he would like to eventually run for Vice President of the United Stated under the Libertarian Party. He stated at that time that he would like to run for the 2008 Presidential election. Obviously he has chosen to refrain from this one – but we hope to see him sometime in the near future.
