– General Introduction –
Huck Seed is an American professional poker player. He was born on January 15th, 1969 in Santa Carla, California.
He’s best known for winning the 1996 WSOP Main Event for $1 million. That is just one of his 4 WSOP gold bracelets won. He also won the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship in 2009.
Overall, Seed has cashed for $7.650 million in live tournaments during his career. He’s also known for playing in super high stakes cash games around the world, including the one in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio.
He appeared on the very first episode of the classic NBC show Poker After Dark in 2007.
– Key Career Dates –
- 1989: He drops out of college to play poker for a living..
- 1994: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha event for $167,000.
- 1996: He wins the WSOP Main Event for $1 million. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.
- 2020: He gets inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
– Huck Seed’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
Seed was born in California but grew up in rural Montana. He was a big basketball fan. His 6’7 height also made it easier for him to excel in his favorite sport.
He moved back to his home state for college, studying electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. However, he never graduated.
In 1989, he decided to take a leave of absence, which he spent playing cash games in California poker rooms. Since he did well enough to make a good living, he never returned to college and became a professional poker player.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Seed has $7.650 million in live tournament earnings, according to his Hendon page. That sum is the product of ITM finishes in 132 events over the course of 26 years.
The first recorded cash on his profile is from January 1990. It was a victory right off the bet. He took down a $330 No Limit Hold’em tournament at the Super Stars Of Poker series in Stateline, NV for $30,240.
The first time he made a live score for over $100K was back in March 1991. He made a runner-up finish in the $5,000 NLHE event at the Queens Poker Classic for $118,750, He lost the heads-up battle for first place to none other than one of the game’s greatest legends, Stu Ungar.
His big break came in 1996, when he won the WSOP Main Event – more on that later. Since then, he has racked up many other major scores.
In January 1998, he won the $5,000 NLHE Championship event at the Carnivale of Poker at the Rio in Las Vegas for $306,000. Heads-up, he was faced with another all-time poker great again. This time, he beat 16-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth.
In 2009, he took down the NBC National Heads-Up Championship for $500,000. In the final match-up, he beat Vanessa Rousso. Seed has the distinction of having the best record in the popular show’s history. Out of the 22 heads-up matches he played on the show, he won 18 and only lost 4.
Seed went on to score victories in other publicized poker events in star-studded fields.
In November 2010, he finished first in the FullTiltPoker.com Doubles Poker Championship for $500,000. In January 2011, he won the $100,000 winner-take-all Sit&Go hosted by Poker After Dark.
→ World Series of Poker ←
Huck Seed has won 4 WSOP gold bracelets so far.
His first victory came in 1994. He won the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha event for $167,000.
Then, in 1996, his greatest victory came. Seed topped the 295-player field in the biggest poker tournament in the world, the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event. He beat Bruce Van Horn for the $1,000,000 first prize and poker’s most coveted title. This is Seed’s biggest single live tournament score to date.
He also final tabled the Main Event in 1999, eventually taking 6th place for $167,700.
His latest two World Series golds are in two Razz events. He won the $1,500 Razz event for $77,400 in 2000; then won the $5,000 Razz event for $71,500 in 2003.
In 2008, he placed 7th in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event for $284,160. This is the most prestigious mixed game tournament every year, now called WSOP Poker Players Championship.
Overall, Seed has cashed in 54 World Series events for a total of $3.653 million combined.
In 2010, he won the last WSOP Tournament of Champions ever. This was an invitational freeroll tournament put on by the World Series annually between 2004 and 2007, then once again in 2010, for bracelet winners only. Seed got $500,000 for his victory.
→ Live Cash Games ←
Seed started off playing cash games in his local casinos. Despite his great achievements in tournaments, he’s mostly focused on that game type for most of his career.
He’s known to be a regular in Bobby’s Room (recently renamed Legends Room) at the Bellagio. This is the world’s most famous super high stakes cash game room where you can play stakes $300/$600, $400/$800, or even higher.
In addition, Seed also appeared on the classic NBC poker show Poker After Dark. In fact, he was featured on the very first episode, airing on January 1st, 2007. However, in that episode, the featured players played a tournament, not a cash game.
Later, he played $200/$400 NLHE on the show against poker legends such as Doyle Brunson, Tom Dwan, or Johnny Chan.
→ Online Poker ←
Huck Seed played under the screen name “HuckleberrySeed” on the now defunct site Full Tilt Poker.
There, he played at the high stakes cash tables and played some tournaments as well. Unfortunately, his results aren’t recorded.
The only thing preserved from his career on Full Tilt is a video of him playing the final table at the $256 weekly bounty tournament Sunday Brawl in October 2008.
→Sponsorships ←
Seed was a sponsored “red” poker pro on Full Tilt.
These players were called “red pros” because their screen names were displayed in red in the FT client.
→Scandals←
His prop bets
There isn’t anything scandalous that happened to Seed so far. However, he’s known to partake in ambitious prop bets from time to time.
He once bet Howard Lederer that he could learn how to do a standing backflip in two days. Given his unusually tall height, this would have been especially difficult for Seed. However, what Lederer didn’t know at the time was that Seed’s uncle was a former acrobat who even taught him a few tricks as a child. Thus, Seed was able to win this $10K bet from Lederer.
In late 2018, Mike Matusow tweeted about an unnamed poker player who made an insane $100K prop bet. This player bet he could stay in a dark bathroom for 30 days with nothing but a refrigerator filled with food. Initially, rumors speculated that this player was Huck Seed. However, it later turned out to be Rich Alati. Alati ended up leaving the bathroom after 20 days, after his bettor, Rory Young, bought himself out of the bet for $62,400.
Latest poker news about Seed
