Joe Beevers

Joe “The Elegance” Beevers was born in London, England, on 9 December 1967. His father brought him up to be a gambler teaching him about probabilities, permutations and card counting from an early age. In the early 80s, Beevers left school and joined his father’s blackjack team and travelled around London before they eventually became banned from 21 of the 23 casinos in the capital. As well as blackjack, the two would visit racetracks three times a week.

Beevers became a mature student and it was whilst studying Finance and Accounting at Middlesex University that he was invited to his first poker tournament. The £10 Stud re-buy event was held in London and Beevers played poorly. He was determined to ignore this failure and began to play 7-Card Stud in North London.

By the time he had finished his course, leaving with a BA (Hons) degree aged 24, he was making enough money from poker that meant he didn’t need to go back to working in a bank. Just after leaving university Beevers met Ram Vaswani in Luton, a friendship that would develop into great things.

With the development of the Hendon Mob, Beevers travelled round Europe with the group before being invited to participate in Late Night Poker. He appeared in all six series of the show, making three of the final tables. His success on television continued when he finished second in both SKY TV’s Poker Million – The Masters and the 2004 World Poker Championship in Dublin.

Beevers has five first place finishes to his name. His first victory came in the 2001 Grosvenor UK Challenge. Beevers was playing Pot Limit Omaha and walked away with the $20,000 top prize. He won a second Pot Limit Omaha event at the 2002 British Open. He has won two No Limit Hold ‘em events – in 2001 and 2003 – and one Pot Limit Hold ‘em tournament – the 2003 European Poker Classic. His biggest prize came from the World Poker Tour Championship Season 3 when he earned $188,000. By the end of 2006, his cumulative earnings had surpassed $1million.

As well as playing the game, Beevers also writes about poker. He has had over 40 articles published on the Hendon Mob website, he has written two poker lessons for David Hilger’s website and he also composed the introduction for the European version of Michael Kaplan’s book Kings and Aces.

After winning $46,000 at the 2005 World Series of Poker, Beevers married his girlfriend Claire in the Bellagio, Las Vegas. On 21 February 2006 the couple became the proud parents of identical twin girls Lola and Millie. Beevers is the only member of the Hendon Mob who lives in Hendon. He drives a Porsche 911, with the personalised number plate JOE 911, and it a season ticket holder at West Ham’s Upton Park.