Barry Shulman: Professional Poker Player Profile

Barry Shulman is the celebrated publisher of Card Player Magazine, which he and many other professional players consider "the bible in the poker industry." Besides being a behind-the-scenes force in the sector of gaming publication, he is also a strong poker player, having won what he estimates to be around a million dollars in games. However, he focuses his energies on his publication rather than on participating in actual tournaments.

Barry Shulman used to play poker in the 1960s, but he had no time to play seriously, being busy with real estate work in the Seattle area. He was kept busy for 25 years. It was only during the mid-1990s, when he retired to Vegas, that he caught the "poker bug." Shulman read Card Player religiously in order to know more about the game, and that was when the "poker bug" bit. Eventually, Shulman used his retirement money to purchase the publication.

Under Shulman's tutelage, the publication grew from being a mere handout in casino poker rooms, to being a full-fledged magazine. In 2003 the Card Player Magazine hit the newsstands, and it has since enjoyed a considerable following. It runs 26 times a year. The Card Player Magazine website, CardPlayer.com, presents a wealth of information and insights on tournaments and strategy.

The magazine features columns and articles from some of the best professional players in the world. Barry Shulman himself writes for Card Player. He says that now that he is retired, he finds himself working harder than he has ever worked in his life. He doesn't have much time to play poker anymore, but he remains a true enthusiast, and besides, he also likes doing business, and he is having fun running the publication. Currently Card Player Media, the magazine's umbrella company, also publishes Card Player College and Card Player Europe. The three publications add up to a worldwide circulation of 500,000 periodicals monthly.

Barry Shulman remains an authority on everything poker-related. He has said in an interview with BusinessWeek that the sudden boom of public interest in poker was all thanks to the televised broadcast of the World Poker Tour (WPT). He has also elaborated that the increasing popularity of online poker is due to the pleasant anonymity it brings. People are nervous when they first walk into a poker room, he says: nobody wants to do, say, or ask the wrong thing. Moreover, most new players are young people, technologically driven and more used to interaction via the Internet.