Mike Sexton was born in Shelby, Indiana and is a professional poker player who also does a lot of commentating in poker as well. Before playing poker Mike attended Ohio State University where he graduated with a public recreations degree. Sexton was also a gymnast when he attended university which is something I bet most of you didn’t know about him. Mike played a lot of poker in university as well with friends and learned the game at a young age.
After finishing university Sexton signed up for the US Army and was a paratrooper. His division had just gotten back from Vietnam so Mike didn’t have to do any fighting during his two year stay in the army. He also spent time teaching others in the army how to dance during his time. Sexton was a good ballroom dancer and this is the dance that he mainly taught in the army. When Sexton finished his two years in the army he found a job working as a salesman. After working as a salesman he realized that he could make more money playing poker and in 1977 he decided to focus solely on playing poker.
After playing poker for several years and attending some of the biggest tournaments he moved to Nevada so that he could play in more tournaments. Mike became good friends with Stu Ungar when he moved to Nevada to play poker and was a good friend of his until Stu passed away. Sexton hasn’t won many major tournaments in his career and only has one WSOP bracelet, but he has finished in the money 44 times which puts him in the top ten for all-time money finishes.
Sexton is the head host for the World Poker Tour and doesn’t get to play in many of those events because he is always doing the commentating for the events. Mike is also a spokesman for PartyPoker.net which is one of the leading online poker rooms in the industry right now. He also spends time writing lots of poker content for the Card Player Magazine and Gambling Times. Mike has always given back to poker and this is why many people call him by his nickname “The Ambassador of Poker”. He has been involved in poker for over three decades and when he isn’t playing the game he is either commentating or helping out up and coming poker stars like us.
Sexton has also recently teamed up with a couple other poker stars and opened up PokerGives.org which is an organization that helps poker players find charities to send money too. Poker is a sport which blesses many people with riches and it’s important that they give back to charity whenever they can which is why this new non-profit organization was started.
You can still watch Mike Sexton play poker on television shows such as Poker After Dark, sponsored by www.FullTiltPoker.com and he still plays in many of the large WSOP events. One of Sexton’s most recent tournament wins came in 2006 when he won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions which was only the third annual event and only tournament champions can participate in it.