By 1999, Chris had spent exactly half his life at UCLA. After five years as an undergrad and another 13 as a graduate student, UCLA awarded him a Ph.D. in Computer Science and told him it was time to leave the nest of academia. Long before any of today's popular poker sites existed, Chris started playing over the Internet on an IRC channel, and quickly became its highest ranked tournament player. In 1994, he recognized that his knowledge of game theory was a powerful weapon and began playing in the small tournaments in and around LA. A year later, Chris played in his first World Series of Poker event. Since he started playing in the World Series, he has won more bracelets (5), made more final tables (25), and had more money finishes (42) than any other player. Chris recently returned to the world of online poker, this time applying his own ideas to improve Internet poker. He put together a team of players and programmers to design the software for FullTiltPoker.com.