It’s the story (I want to give them full credit for digging it up) of a former Princeton student, former varsity wrestler, who’s made a ton of money playing poker.

He began in 2003, about the time the poker craze  took hold on TV and online.

His name was Hawrilenko and he used the online name “Hoss_TBF. Online he began playing at 25 cents and 50 cents.

“Between wrestling and my studies, poker was really just a hobby at Princeton,” he told The Times. “I played with friends and online a bit, but toward the end of my senior year, when most of my school work was out of the way, I started playing online more and more.”

Then he won an online satellite tournament for the 2004 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, “and that’s pretty much how everything got kicked off,” he said.

Hawrilenko eventually moved up to much higher stakes, of $2,000 and $4,000, and has since earned millions of dollars from online gaming.

In February of this year alone, he won an amazing $1.7 million online, according to the poker tracking site Highstakesdb.com.

The 29-year-old has become one of the game’s most respected pros, the winner of a coveted gold bracelet given to WSOP event winners, with a paid sponsorship from Full Tilt Poker, a leading gaming website.

Even his parents didn’t mind.

“My parents were awesome and so supportive,” Hawrilenko said. “They know that I have always been a pretty good decision-maker, and it’s not like the poker thing came as a shock to them. I had spoken to them for quite a while about it.”

Despite his tremendous success, Hawrilenko has started to carefully assess his future aspirations following the upending of the online poker world earlier this year, when the U.S. Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York handed out indictments and seized the domain names of three largest internet poker companies in the world.

On April 15, the federal government shut down the sites — Full Tilt, PokerStars and Absolute Poker — and froze an estimated $500 million in player assets.

“Suddenly, many players and a lot of my friends had no source of income,” Hawrilenko said.

“Literally, on that Friday, tens of thousands of people lost their jobs.”

Internet gambling is officially illegal in the U.S., but the sites are registered overseas, and many players have prospered.

Then the system crashed.

The U.S. government is seeking $3 billion in penalties and up to 65 years in prison for some of the 11 defendants named in the indictment.

Meanwhile, American players who depended on the legal gray area of online poker to earn a living were out of work and casting about for new careers.

Many of those players, including Hawrilenko, are venturing out to play more live tournaments and high stakes cash games inside brick-and-mortar casinos, which still is legal.

“There are several things I have wanted to accomplish outside of poker for a very long time,” Hawrilenko said, “and this will give me the opportunity to do that.”

He’s a fairly well known poker player…but his days of playing (at least as a free man) are probably over.

I saw a news item recently about Fanelli. Apparently, he is now undergoing psychiatric evaluation after confessing to murdering and disposing of the body of Sweetheart Bar hostess Wanpen Pianchai in Thailand.

He disposed of the body in a particularly gruesome way.

Fanelli was arrested back in July for what he described at the time as “a horrible, horrible accident.”

Now I have to question the accident part of this because the woman was stabbed several times, before being stuffed into a travel bag and dumped by a remote Phuket roadside.

The poker player nicknamed “the Mad Yank” on account of his volatile temperament, has now had legal proceedings against him put on hold until he completes a psychiatric evaluation at Suan Saranrom Hospital in Surat Thani.

So we’ll see.

Fanelli, 37, has been undergoing a psychiatric examination there since early September and will only return back to Phuket Provincial Prison once staff are able to assess whether he remains sane enough to stand trial.

People who know him say the nickname was just a joke.

But now I’m not so sure.

Meanwhile, I hear that a concerned group of online poker players have already raised around 30,000 baht (US $1,000) for Ms Wanphen’s family and are hoping that figure will rise to 100,000 (US $3,350) in the future.

It’s a strange case and we’ll keep our eyes open on Thai web sites to see what happens.

I knew that Jennifer Tilly and Ben Affleck were considered serious poker players.  But Adam Sandler and Sarah Silverman?  Who knew?  It would be pretty amazing if you were sitting at one of their tables.  I doubt I could afford their stakes.

But this story irked me.

A pretty good quarterback,�Middle Tennessee State quarterback Dwight Dasher has been suspended by the University and the NCAA indefinitely, and will miss the season opener against Minnesota on Thursday.

And all because he accepted money to play poker.

What the hell.

�He has been humbled with this situation, and he knows he made a mistake,� remarked MTSU head coach Rick Stockstill during a news conference prior to the weekend.

�That is part of your responsibility as a coach to help these players grow as people.�

Dasher must now wait to be reinstated by the NCAA if he is to play this season.

He is a damned good QB too,�throwing for 2,800 yards and rushing for an additional 1,150.

�Both (parties) have said the reason he got the loan was because he was a football player,� said MTSU athletic director Chris Massaro.

You gotta give these kids some slack. C’mon…what did he get… and how much does his play on the field make the University. And get this…he BORROWED the money.

It’s an old story. These kids play for their college, fill up their stadiums and bring in a lot of revenue.

I believe college players should get the right to make some money for their play.

This incident continues to bring to light certain benefits that an athlete may receive simply because they are an athlete.

More evidence of this is the recent discovery that former Memphis basketball player Antonio Anderson remarked by way of Twitter that during his college days he did not have to pay for many meals.

Dasher is not under investigation for anything other than playing in poker games with money that he borrowed.

It obviously happened in Europe, but I think it’s pretty funny.

The definition of lower is:�a person with a record of failing; someone who loses consistently.

Ok, I’ll buy that.

It would hardly be considered the most flattering name for a poker player to be saddled with, but one man determined not to live up to his name is German player Manig L�ser.

But Loser recently did well at the European Masters of Poker tournament in Bulgaria last week.

Manig L�ser succeeded in outlasting a field of 260 players at the Crystal Crown Casino, to win the 1,100 euro buy in event and walk away with the 49,080 euros first place prize.

Not bad for a Loser, eh?

As the tournament eventually played down to just nine players, L�ser then plahyed a solid game and maintain his stack, while others busted out around him.

Finally, L�ser eliminated Romanian George Draghici in third with his Q-8 badly dominating his opponent�s J-8, to force a heads-up encounter against Israeli player Shani Vahnun.

It took less than an hour before the final hand of the competition was played, after Loser was dealt K-6 to his opponent�s 9-8. With the flop falling� Q-J-6, L�ser bet out 55,000 euros with bottom pair, only for Vahnun to push all-in over the top for his remaining 700k with a gut-shot straight draw.

The turn and river of A-2 failed to improve the Israeli�s hand and he had to content himself with the runner-up prize of �35,000, instead.

Manig L�ser thus became �the 2010 EMOP Bulgaria champion.

L�ser has now won $60,311 from four live tournament cashes, all coming this year.

A loser no more.