Elias Madias hails from Massachusetts, having been born in Boston but grown up in Newton, but currently lives in Los Angeles, California. The move to Los Angeles gave him the means to live in a creative community and thrive as a writer, which is a career he has had for about ten years. Currently, he writes mostly for children’s movies and contracts his work out to numerous film studios like Disney, Universal, and Fox.

During the recent writer’s strike in Hollywood, Elias discovered newfound free time and spent some of it playing poker. He had the World Poker Tour X-Box game, played poker online, watched the World Poker Tour on television, and participated in home games with friends. His favorite home game was a semi-regular one with best friend and actress Sara Rue, who ended up with an extra seat into the 2008 WPT Celebrity Invitational tournament at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. She invited Elias to take that seat.

Though he had never played in a casino or live tournament before, Elias gladly took the opportunity to play in a WPT event and did better than he could have imagined. He played all the way through to the final table, where he ended up where writers never do – under the lights and cameras of a television set. He finished the tournament in fifth place for a $10,000 prize, but he showed that all of the information he soaked up from his recreational poker can sure come in handy when need be.