Jan Fisher

Jan Fisher is a native of Seattle, Washington. She started her gaming career in 1977 as a poker dealer in Las Vegas. After gaining experience in numerous Vegas cardrooms, Jan moved on to poker event management and began playing professionally. Her popular forum / blog site “Poker Tournaments Today” is located at: http://www.pokertda.com/forum/index.php?board=12.0 and she welcomes your comments and feedback. Jan is a partner in Card Player Cruises (http://cardplayercruises.com/) where she hosts and directs cruiseline tournaments. Read More

Linda Johnson

Linda Johnson, nicknamed “the First Lady of Poker”, has been a leading force in the poker world for much of her life. Linda began playing poker in the 1970s after buying some poker books and teaching herself how to play. She was immediately enthralled with poker and had a natural ability for the game. She entered the World Series of Poker Ladies seven-card stud tournament in 1980, deciding in advance that if she performed well, she would quit her job at the Post Office and move to Las Vegas to play professionally. As fate would have it, Linda finished fifth in the tournament and promptly gave her two-week notice. She moved to Las Vegas and played poker full time from 1980-1993, one of just a handful of women who played the game professionally during those years. Read More

Matt Savage

Matt Savage was born and raised in San Jose, California. He started working at the age of 14 as a porter in a 60-lane bowling center. When his dreams of becoming a professional bowler started to fade, he looked for other ways to compete. Who could have predicted that when he walked into a poker room for the first time at the age of 21 that his new competitive choice would take him to the top of the profession? Not exactly as he planned mostly because he claims that his below average poker playing ability led him to take a job at the same poker room he walked into one year earlier. Read More

Jack Effel

Jack Effel is Tournament Director for the 2013 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and Vice President of International Poker Operations for Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE). The 2013 WSOP will be Jack’s seventh consecutive year to serve as TD for the world’s most prestigious poker tournament series. His poker career began in 1997 and he has held nearly every position in the industry including: dealer, supervisor, manager, tournament director and director of poker operations. Jack’s involvement in tournament poker began in 2000 with the World Poker Open and in 2004 he became a full-time tournament director. In 2005 he joined the World Series of Poker as assistant tournament director after serving in the same capacity at WSOP Circuit Events earlier that year. Jack returned in 2006 as the WSOP co-tournament director and has served as the sole tournament director since 2007. Read More

Dave Lamb

Hailing from scenic Northern Nevada, Reno resident Dave Lamb is one of the most recognizable poker tournament directors in the industry today. Dave has been actively managing poker tournament events for over 15 years and is an original Founding Member of the Poker Tournament Director’s Association.

Dave was Poker Tournament Director of the Reno Hilton for over ten years and now conducts tournaments around the world as an independent contractor. Read More

Mike Bishop

Kansas native Stewart Michael Bishop (on left in picture) has been studying poker rules since he checked out “According to Hoyle” at age 6 from the library. Nearly 50 years later he’s still at it. Since 2005 Mike has co-managed the Poker TDA Discussion Forums answering 100’s of rules questions from TDA members worldwide. He also served on the production teams of both the 2009 and 2011 TDA Summits.Read More