Oxford University. It’s the academic pride of the country. A nation of scholars desperate to follow in the footsteps of the University’s elite. Rowers inspired by Sir Matthew Pinsent. Novelists channelling their inner Tolkein. Filmmakers studying the likes of Ken Loach, Michael Winterbottom, and Richard Curtis. And now it seems a new generation of student will want to follow in the footsteps of Oxford’s latest notable alumni. Not a writer, director, politician, or composer, but in fact a poker player. Rob Tinnion has been hitting a lot of headlines in recent months thanks to his antics on the poker tables. Antics which have seen him win the PokerStars Sunday Million – the brand’s flagship online event – not once, but twice. And with some fees approaching £30,000 per year on courses, the £120,000 winnings from his latest tournament will no doubt come in handy when paying those fees off. Thousands log on to the site every week to claim some of the $1million prize pool in the elite event that attracts some of the biggest names in poker. But only seven have won the tournament on more than one occasion. Tinnion is the latest and his win in February combined with his first in August of last year has brought him £263,908. Not that he thought it would happen. He told PokerStars upon his victory, “I felt I was playing terribly, so I stopped registering normal speed freezeouts (excluding the million) shortly after the Bigger 109. I also skipped some of the higher buy-ins as I felt I was just burning money. It could have been variance but when I’m not on my A-game I don’t want to be playing against better players who are.” Sunday 8th February turned his fortunes however. The tournament got him out of the slump he was in and by the time he was at the final table he was feeling in a familiar situation and felt focussed, determined to go all the way. The victory came at the end of a 17 hour stint at the tables, showing all the mental power of previous Oxford alumni Roger Bannister, Pinsent, and Sir Walter Raleigh, and dug in amongst some aggressive play. He added, “When we got to the final table I immediately 4-bet/folded from UTG vs. ministerborg (Simon Ravnsbaek), who is very aggressive. I figured he had to have a very strong hand to pull it off, so it didn’t faze me too much as he just got lucky to be dealt AA, which I later saw on the replay. I then became extremely card dead and made a couple of desperate plays which didn’t work out.” But he stayed sharp and eventually regained the chip lead with the end in sight. It was a tense final table, and Tinnion eventually took the spoils from Ravnsbaek, with his experiences in the previous final holding him in good stead to become part of poker history. 
The Oxford graduate realised his potential whilst in a thermodynamics lecture, noticing that poker was the same as the input/output equations he was working on. That led him to become one of the best poker players on campus, and has since taken his skills beyond playing online and onto the competitive live tables. His first flirting came in 2013 at the UKIPT in Galway where he finished runner up and began to enter more and more tournaments throughout 2014, taking him to Bristol, Marbella, and Las Vegas amongst other places. He recently finished first in a European Poker Tour’s No Limit Hold’em side event in London, picking up over £26,000, and just last month he competed in the UK & Ireland Poker Tour in Nottingham. However, he isn’t Oxford’s only association with poker. Universities are often renowned with the likes of poker and blackjack – you only have to look at Boston’s MIT Blackjack team to see that. Oxford University’s Poker Society was formed in 2002, and was one of the first in the UK. So it’s a game that has begun to run through the prestigious university’s veins. The society spawned the Oxford Cup, a tournament which originally started as an inter-university event and has grown into one of the biggest competitions in Europe, with prize money of over £16,000. Over the years it’s seen the likes of Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, and Gus Hansen join the students as guests of honour, and has helped boost the reputation of Oxford’s poker elite. Tinnion certainly joins that elite, and at just 25 it’ll be no surprise if he’s challenging the likes of Hellmuth and Hansen in years to come. His Sunday Million win has certainly proved that, and his foray onto the live tables certainly suggests his ambition will certainly spread much further than the Sunday Million. “This one was a lot more satisfying,” he said. “It shows I’m not just a one hit wonder. “The first time the money overshadowed everything. This time there was a reputation/bragging rights for the win. The first one, the average stack was a lot lower resulting in more all-ins and generally a higher variance nature to the game, this time we actually got to ‘play poker’”. 
The man, who plays online as robtinnion, has already reinvested in himself with his prize money, purchasing flights to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Chris Moneymaker who went from internet player to worldwide sensation on the live tables back in 2003. During his rise to poker notability, Tinnion became one of the most backed players on Pocarr, shifting from student in the lecture theatres of Oxford, to online teacher, releasing a number of coaching videos every week. He added, “I’m coaching/running what is likely the largest online poker backing stable in the world. “We have over 100 people playing for us from all across the world which is an amazing experience as I now know people in virtually every country I want to visit. Having been part of the stable for 2.5 years and working my way from the bottom to the top of the company in that time, I want to be able to help people do the same by maximizing their potential and giving them the freedom that comes with playing poker for a living successfully.” It’s likely that Tinnion’s success will spark a new breed of poker player at Oxford with those wanting to follow in his footsteps, and of course they have the perfect platform with the society. But what’s next for the man and his new found wealth? Well, buy an Audi RS5 and tickets to Vegas and Malta for the EPT of course. Further success on its way? We think so…