Biography of Barny Boatman

Barny Boatman is part of the prestigious poker playing group
called, The Hendon Mob, who are famous for their incredible
poker skills, their team performances, and for developing the
number one poker database in the world.

Boatman is the proud owner of a World Series of Poker gold
bracelet and has managed to make several money finishes in
various tournaments worldwide. Boatman is ranked 16th on
England’s All Time Money List in 2015, having won over $2.8
million throughout his career so far.

Early Poker Career

Barny Boatman was born in London, England in 1956. He dropped
out of school at an early age to travel the world, visiting
popular hot spots such as Barcelona, Hong Kong, and Sydney. He
worked part time jobs to fund his travels along the way, gaining
experience as both a computer programmer and a bartender. It
wasn’t until he was ready to settle down that he developed an
interest in poker.

Boatman started out playing at home with his brother, Ross,
and they eventually started entering tournaments together at the
local Edgware Road casino. The first tournament Boatman ever
entered was a Seven-Card Stud event, where he took home the
first place grand prize of $2,200. Boatman and his brother later
took a spontaneous road trip to Las Vegas in the early 1990s and
played No-Limit Hold’em cash games for three days straight,
depleting their bankrolls and going home broke. It would be
awhile before they decided to visit Las Vegas again.

The Hendon Mob

Boatman and his brother and their friends, Joe Beevers and
Ram Vaswani, started playing in weekly private poker games,
where they would often compete against other groups of players.
Their group had such great chemistry that they started to make a
name for themselves, being referred to as, The Hendon Mob, since
they usually played in the northwest district of London, named
Hendon.

Boatman and the group’s fame spread throughout London and it
was no surprise when they were asked to become a part of the new
series, Late Night Poker, which grew to become one of the most
popular game shows in the UK from 1999 to 2002.

Their first televised team competition outside of the game
show took place in Melbourne, Australia at the Poker Ashes where
they played against other national teams and successfully were
able to defeat Australia, France, and Ireland for a first place
finish. The group was hesitant about entering such a huge
competition at first, but it was actually Boatman that really
persuaded the group to step out of their comfort zone.

In 2004, the Hendon mob lost their first challenge against
Team USA in the Ryder Cup of Poker. It was a close game that
night, but with poker sensations like Phil Ivey and Chris
Ferguson on the opposing team, they couldn’t pull through for
the win.

It was around this time that Prima Poker offered to sponsor
the Hendon Mob for a grand total of $2 million dollars worth of
tournament buy in fees. Boatman advised the team to accept the
offer, even though, as part of their contract they had play
online at Prima Poker.com, which was unknown territory to
everyone in the group.

After their contract ended, they were quickly picked up by
Full Tilt Poker and stayed faithful to them until 2011 when
their company was accused of committing fraud, resulting in the
loss of millions of dollars for their customers. The team
immediately switched their loyalty over to Genting Poker,
signing on for a two year contract.

In an interview with Bluff Magazine later in 2011, Boatman
said this in regards to his team,

“Yes, if two of us ever play
each other in a pot we’ll go for each others’ throats, but to
have three people that you absolutely trust, that you know care
about what happens to you – that’s an enormous thing to have in
this game. We know we’re very lucky to have our family, because
that’s what it is.”

Hendon Mob Website

As the Hendon Mob grew in popularity, Boatman innovatively
came up with the idea to launch the website, TheHendonMob.com,
which started off as a place where players would visit if they
were looking for sponsors.

It started out covering around 20,000 poker players and now
it has information on over 250,000 players from all over the
world. Boatman’s initial idea has turned into the world’s number
one most comprehensive poker database. Genting Poker financially
supported the site, paying for all the necessary improvements
and updates the site needed until their deal with them ended in
2013.

Unable to afford to keep the site up and running, Boatman
decided it would be in his group’s best interest to sell the
site before they lost too much money. Many buyers were
interested, but it was Zokay Entertainment that made the winning
offer, however the exact amount of that offer was never
released.

His Personal Poker Accomplishments

In 2000, Barny Boatman won the $3,000 No Limit Holdem WSOP
event and although he was the chip leader for the majority of
the main event, he ended up finishing 16th. Two years later,
Boatman came close to winning his first WSOP gold bracelet after
he finished runner up in the 2002 WSOP main event.

At the 2003 Four Queens Poker Classic in Las Vegas, Boatman
entered the $300 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha event, taking home first
place and a cool $14,000. A few years later he entered the 100
Super Satellite online poker tournaments and took first place in
back to back No Limit Hold’em events.

Boatman’s career long goal finally came to fruition in the
2013 World Series of Poker, when he took first place in the
$1500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event, winning over $500,000 and
his first WSOP gold bracelet. He was head to head against Brian
O’Donoghue the entire game, but managed to take the lead in the
final round.

Personal Life

Barny boatman is married, but his poker career prevented the
couple from ever being able to have children, which is something
that Boatman has come to regret. To compensate, he spends a lot
of his free time with his nieces and nephews.

Even though Boatman is getting older, he still enjoys
thrilling activities such as sky-diving, snowboarding, and
scuba-diving. He’s slowly starting to play in less and less
tournaments than he did during the peak of his career and is now
looking forward to retirement in the near future.