Born in New York, Adam Katz grew up in Long Island before his family moved to South Florida. He continues to live in Delray Beach when he’s not traveling the poker tournament circuit. Adam became familiar with poker when he was young, playing random variations of card games with friends for nickels and dimes. It was in college at the University of Central Florida that he began taking the game more seriously. While he was discovering online poker, his academic scholarship to college and his studies became somewhat less interesting, and he ended up quitting to play poker.

Online poker was where Adam truly began to discover his poker skills. Playing under the name “AKAT11,” he started at the low levels and moved up as his improving game dictated. He felt that online is where he learned the math of the game, and the speed at which he was able to play, as well as transitioning to tournaments, helped him become a winning player. He was eventually able to quit his job working for his father’s audio-visual company and live off of his poker successes. And soon, he caught the live tournament bug and set out to test his skills there in 2007.

Adam’s first sign of live success was a second place finish at an Ultimate Poker Challenge event in early 2007, followed up with three World Series of Poker cashes. In early 2008, the online-turned-live pro made the final table of a Wynn Classic tournament where he finished fifth, and he set out to try to make his mark on the World Poker Tour. In the second one he ever entered, which was the 2008 Foxwoods Poker Classic, he made the WPT final table and scored a fifth place payday of over $150,000. He plans to keep improving his game and working toward a major tournament win to solidify his place on the live tournament circuit.