Hoyt Corkins Poker Player Bio

Hoyt Corkins, born in Glenwood, Alabama on December 20, 1959, is one of the many poker professionals that backs and endorses the online poker room DoylesRoom.ag. Hoyt first started playing poker in 1978, age nineteen at the time, after receiving lessons from his father. His first major tournament cash came at the 20th annual World Series of Poker (1989 WSOP) where he took fourth for $49,600, and he managed four other WSOP cashes prior to winning his first career WSOP bracelet in 1992, when he took home $96,000 and the $5,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha bracelet.

Play Online Poker with Hoyt Corkins

While it wasn’t announced publicly, Hoyt Corkins retired from poker after his 1992 WSOP bracelet win and during that time went through a long drawn out divorce. Hoyt made his return to poker eleven years later and shortly later captured a then record-breaking first prize ($1,089,200) in the World Poker Tour 2003 World Poker Finals held in November. Hoyt would not look back from there. A couple of months later, he finished second-place to Gus Hansen at the PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure, which earned him $290,065, and later that year he took third in the 2004 United States Poker Championship main event worth $181,390. Just like that, over a span of 11 months, Corkins became a household name in poker with three major televised appearances.

Hoyt Corkins’ poker career continued to move forward with 31 cashes from 2005 to 2009, including a runner up finish worth $325,000 to Mike Mattusow in the 2005 Tournaments of Champions; a third place finish in the 2006 WPT Legends of Poker worth $381,540; a WSOP bracelet and $515,065 for a first place finish at the 2007 WSOP No Limit Holdem short-handed event; a runner up finish for $458,267 at 2007 WPT World Poker Open; and a sixth place finish worth $216,175 in the 2008 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic.

Hoyt Corkins had a fast start to 2010 winning $713,986 and his second career World Poker Tour (WPT) title, and he later followed that up with a $100,000 second place cash in the PokerStars NAPT DeepStack Extravaganza at the Venetian in Las Vegas.

You won’t really know Hoyt Corkins until you’ve seen him interviewed, as his friendly demeanor and soft spoken conversation are the tells of a down to earth and genuine, upbeat kind of guy. Even in an interview after his home was broken into and poker trophies stolen, there he is on camera smiling at the interviewer as he tells him, “Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not.” Then you’ll see further into his persona when you see him play poker, where it’s all business and the tells are gone. Stone faced and thoughtful, wearing earplugs to avoid unnecessary chatter, Hoyt playing poker is sometimes called “Nightmare.” Phil Hellmuth Jr calls him “Mr. Move All-In.” He is professional and he plays aggressively. Oh, he’ll still smile – after the hand is played out.

To really capture the emotion of Hoyt Corkins’ return to the poker felt, we’ll include some quotes from a Bluff Magazine article written about his return:

“What a poker performance … welcome to the Millionaire’s Club, Hoyt!” shouted WPT announcer Mike Sexton, a longtime friend of Corkins and the man who gave him the only nickname that’s truly ever stuck. “The Alabama Cowboy is our champion!”

“The first time I ever saw Hoyt in my life was that night at Foxwoods, and he was down to three-handed with Mohammed and Phil (Hellmuth),” says Daniel Negreanu, who, along with fellow-audience member and poker pro Ted Forrest, was there rooting for Ibrahim. “By the time I got there, Ted started to fill me in: He said he knew Hoyt and that he was a well-known Pot Limit Omaha player, back in the day, but hadn’t been around for a really long time. Then Ted tells me that, by far, Hoyt was the best player left at the table, and that meant a lot coming from someone like Ted. It was like the highest praise.”

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