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Pokers Renaissance Man

For Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, there doesn't seem to be much prepping to play in a major tournament. The way he prepares? He goes dancing.

Question: When you are playing in a tournament, what do you do before and after?

Answer: Beforehand, I usually wake up and then run down as quickly as I can to the tournament. I like to get as much sleep as I can, so I'm going to sleep as long as I can before the tournament. If I wake up early, I wake up early, but I want to get as much sleep as possible.

Question: How do you maintain focus and calmness while playing?

Answer: You just do (laughing), you just do. I don't do anything special, I just relax during the break.

Question: When you are playing in a tournament and you are still in, do you mind people coming up to you on breaks?

Answer: I don't care, no. It doesn't bother me at all. I like to relax during the break and I think that really relaxes me, so I love it when people come up to me.

Question: When you are playing, do you ever get nervous?

Answer: I guess so.

Question But your hands don't shake?

Answer: No, not much, I hope. I was very relaxed at the WPT Championship where I finished 9th. It didn't matter if I was bluffing, moving all-in with a really weak hand, you just get used to it. I'm sure the first time you do anything you are going to get very nervous at it. The first time you drive a car you are going to be nervous at it. You might be nervous for a couple of weeks but then you kinda get used to it.

Question: Has all the TV exposure affected you?

Answer: People recognize me, and that's a good thing. I've always been a shy person so it's always been very hard for me to go up to people. I think I'm imposing or something like that, so I'd never go up to a celebrity myself, but I love it that people come up to me, cause that's the way I get interaction with others.

Question: What do you think about the celebrities that come and play?

Answer: I think that's great. The celebrities coming and playing has been fantastically good for poker. It really shows that anyone can do it. It makes it America's game. It's always been America's game, but it's had kind of a seedy side. Now when you see the celebrities come out and play and support poker, you realize that there really isn't this negative side that everybody's been portraying, or everyone had believed.

Question: Would you rather play online or in a tournament?

Answer: I'd rather play in big tournaments, but I love playing online. I've actually been playing online poker for over 15 years. People don't know that, because these sites haven't really been around that long. They might have been around for 7 or 8 years, the ones you could play for real money, but I used to play where you couldn't play for real money at all. It was all play money, but people took the game very seriously. It was called IRC poker. IRC stands for interactive relay chat, so it's basically just a chat room. They had these bots in the chat room that would deal cards to the players. A bot is like a program in the card room that would deal the cards to the players and take care of both the pots and betting. That's the place I learned to play "no limit hold-em", because they had no "limit hold'em" games there. Back 15 years ago, there really was very little no limit hold'em to be played in casinos. It was only in tournaments and there weren't that many tournaments.

For poker's Renaissance Man, the world is his stage, whether it's at the poker table or the computer lab. But wherever you may find him, don't forget to say hi, because he loves meeting new people.