Josh Brikis Talks Life After Poker

Josh Brikis made a good living playing poker tournaments between 2006 to 2015, during which time he amassed $1,584,725 in winnings, including a runner-up finish at the 2009 WSOP $5,000 No Limit Hold’em – Six Handed event for $619,608. Since retiring two years ago, however, Brikis has had no desire to play the game professionally again, outside of allowing himself an annual trip to the WSOP in Las Vegas.
Brikis has a particular fondness for the WSOP Main Event, having managed a 55th place finish at the competition in 2010 for $138,285. Nevertheless, last year Brikis missed last year’s Main Event as he decided to support his sister who was due to give birth on Day 1 of the showcase tournament, instead.
This year, while Brikis was able to make it to Vegas, he subsequently failed to cash in the competition, and as he explained to cardchat recently:
“I only played the Main Event. It was really strange actually, just all the memories of everything from 2009-2015 that were in my head. I had a good time and it was fun, but the one thing I realized quickly was that I made the right decision and that I didn’t miss doing it for a living.”
These days, Brikis says that he spends most of his time running his own sports cards break business, along with a group of his friends. As he explains, they buy a case of cards for around $1,200 each, before selling on all the teams. The fun part subsequently comes when posting a live video chat with the people he works with as they open the case and “break down the odds and compare the risk/reward for the price of the teams.”
Elaborating further on his new lifestyle post-poker, Brikkis said that while he would still consider playing in the occasional bigger local tournaments, the WSOP Main Event, and perhaps a WPT event at the Borgata, he doesn’t intend on playing poker much anymore.
Interestingly, Brikkis also racked up a further $913,540 playing tournaments online under the screen name Brikdog24, and despite Pennsylvania soon becoming the next US state to launch an online poker market, it appears even this may not tempt him back to the game.
“I haven’t played poker pretty much at all for two years,”explained Brikis. “Any free time I have, I am either with my son or taking care of my house and business. I just don’t have any desire to go sit down for a game when I have the free time to do it, I would rather be doing something else.”