Hoyt Corkins

Biography

Hoyt 'Cowboy' Corkins is one of poker's old-timers. He was born in 1962 in Glenwood, Alabama and learned the game at an early age by watching his dad play home games with his friends. Hoyt's father would sometimes even let his son play an occasional hand or two. At the age of 19 Corkins began his own poker carrier and by 1989 he had his first major tournament success as he finished 4th in a $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha WSOP event for $27,600 in cash.

Unlike many other poker pros who play all kinds of live poker events and tournaments, Hoyt Corkins mainly focuses on the two majors – World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour. The strategy payed off with 2 WSOP bracelets and 27 money finishes and 2 WPT titles plus 18 in-the-money finishes. His first major win came in 1992 when Corkins outplayed O'Neil Longson in a $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event at the 23rd World Series of Poker and was rewarded with his first bracelet along with a $96,000 cash prize. However, it wasn't until 15 years later that Corkins collected his second bracelet – in 2007 he won the $2,500 No Limit Hold'em - Six Handed WSOP event and cashed over $500K after beating Terrence Chan in the final heads-up battle.

In fact, after the 1992 WSOP Corkins had disappeared entirely from the world of poker due to family reasons as he was going through a divorce and did not come back until 11 years latter when his girlfriend talked him into renewing his poker carrier. After the big comeback it wasn't long before his firs major win – the same year Corkins scored his by far biggest cashout winning the $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em WPT event at the 2003 World Poker Finals in Mashantucket for more than $1,000,000 which at the time was a record-braking amount won in a live poker tournament.

His second WPT title came in 2010 at the $9,700 No-Limit Hold'em - Championship Event, Southern Poker Championship in Biloxi where Corkins collected the 1st place cash prize of more than $700,000. As of 2011 his total lifetime tournament winnings exceed $5,400,000 which puts Corkins among the Top50 all-time poker performances.