Other life

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17

Age at which Mitch McIntyre started playing poker

3

Number of tournaments he has taken part in

30th

Place out of 400 in rst poker state championship “ It can be fun when you’re winning [poker], but you can get into a bad rut of mistakes. I guess you’re always learning from it ”

BECOMING A POKER PRO

When he’s not writing home loans, Mitch McIntyre is either rising up the ranks of competitive poker, or kickboxing to keep fi t

AFTER WATCHING the World Series of Poker on television in his teens, Mitch McIntyre, now broker and director at McIntyre Finance, learnt the card game himself, playing with friends and then in local pubs.

At around the age of 19 he qualifi ed for the Queensland championship, when he placed 30th out of about 400 players. His second tournament lasted three days, playing from morning to evening, and out of a huge fi eld of 1,500 competitors he came 150th.

“It’s not super serious; it’s just for fun. But one day I’d like to go over to the States and go into world poker there, just as a fun thing to do,” McIntyre says.

Not just a keen poker player, McIntyre is also trained in kickboxing. This started as a way of improving his health when he was overweight; then, after losing 40kg, he took part in a six-week kickboxing camp in Thailand.

“It was awesome; it was a great experience,” he says. “Doing that training makes you feel good because you know you’re healthy and can achieve things. I’ve come from being hardly able to do anything, being a real unfi t guy, and I just put my mind to it and it really paid o .”