Richard Brodie
When Richard Brodie dropped out of Harvard to become the 77th
employee of Microsoft, some may have called it a gamble. Turns out Brodie makes good gambles.
Richard Brodie was the main writer of Microsoft Word (he recently
said he was the one who came up with the squiggly red line every time you make a
spelling error), and was also the author of two books, “Virus of the Mind” and
“Getting Past OK.” Virus of the Mind, which was on Amazon.com’s best seller list
for over a year, covers Brodie’s own science of meme’s, an invisible social DNA.
The Renaissance man Brodie sometimes would play poker with Bill Gates
and colleagues, but poker was never something he took seriously. However, in 2003 Brodie
saw his good friend Andy Bloch reach two final tables in WPT televised events and thought
of giving poker a shot.
Even though Brodie was well off, he decided to start low at $10 tournaments online. He meticulously
analyzed his results, fixed the flaws in his game, and tracked his results.
“I cobbled together an application in Microsoft Access to track my progress
and when it seemed like I was doing OK I decided to go to Las Vegas to try out my skills for real.”
[Brodie, 8/1/2003, Blog, http://www.brodietech.com/liontales/2003_08_01_liontales_archive.html]
He had only around 100 tournaments under his belt.
In only the third event he played in, a $1000 limit event, Brodie
finished second for nearly $20,000, ahead of WSOP champion Scotty Ngyuen. Over the
next four years, Brodie has enjoyed nine final tables, and career winnings of over $170,000.
Brodie may not be well known in a household, but his skills aren’t ignored by
the casinos. Harrah’s recently banned Brodie from all of their casino’s because they "couldn’t
figure out how to make a profit off of (him)"["Fall of the Roman Empire,"http://www.brodietech.com/liontales/blog.htm]
Although, Brodie had been only playing two games at the casino, poker and video poker
(both of which the house have an edge on no matter how skilled you are). However, Brodie
recently had the ban lifted, allowing him to play in the World Series of Poker.
Brodie is now sponsored by Full Tilt under the handle “Quiet Lion,” a name that he refers to a lot in his blog “Lion Tales.” He is married to “Success Coach” Heather Brodie.
Common Misspellings: Richard Brody, Richerd Brodie
Learn more about Richard Brodie at Full Tilt Poker.
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