Gary Wise

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**Gary Wise**

Born
Nationality	Canadian
Winnings	US$ 133,773^[1]
Pro Tour Top 8 Finishes	4^[2]
Grand Prix Top 8 Finishes	0^[3]
Lifetime Pro Points	238^[4]

Gary Wise is a professional Magic: The Gathering player from Canada. He was inducted to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame in November 2006. He also wrote the "Wise Words" and "Limited Skills" articles.^[5]

Gary Wise is also involved with another popular card game – poker. Gary now writes for Bluff Magazine as well his own poker strategy website called WiseHandPoker.com where he details individual hands played by some of the most well known professional poker players.

Not only does Gary write for the above mentioned sites but he has also been known to provide content for the World Poker Tour website as well as some other high profile poker sites.

1 Magic: the Gathering Accomplishments
2 WRITING
3 GAME CULTURE
4 SWITCHING GAMES
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Magic: the Gathering Accomplishments

Magic: The Gathering Hall of Famer
Top 8 at Worlds (1999)
1st at Pro Tour-New York (2000)
Top 8 at Canadian Nationals (2001)
Top 8 at English Nationals (2002)
Top 4 at Pro Tour-Boston (2002)
Top 4 at Pro Tour-Boston (2003)^[5]

[edit] WRITING

Gary followed a popular trend in his early years on the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour, putting his experiences into tournament reports in order to share them with the Magic community. He developed a following and became the first paid writer for the Magic Dojo, a now-defunct website that served as the heart of the online Magic community in the late 90's.

After a second stint with the Dojo, Gary was hired by sideboard.com, the official website of the Magic:the Gathering Pro Tour as staff writer and columnist. He served in that capacity from 1998-2003.

Wise traveled to Vegas and stayed the full six weeks during the 2004 World Series, his first foray into the tournament poker world. A year later, he embarked on his poker writing career, co-founding wisehandpoker.com and the Wise Hand of the Day, which can be found on websites across the internet.

The beginning of his writing career signaled the end of his professional poker pursuits, with the demands of running a business not allowing time for both. He still plays 10-15 hours a week.

Gary now writes for Bluff Magazine and World Poker Tour and his poker-based writing has been featured in a number of other paper and online publications including ESPN.

[edit] GAME CULTURE

Gary's father, Michael Wise, was a key contributor to the competitive Scrabble Community, with that game's Director of the Year award being named after the father following his passing in 1997. Michael's example as director of "Club three" in Toronto, curiosity with the mathematics and literature of sports and other games, and constant participation in varied competitions, served as the example Gary would ultimately follow.

Gary's writings have been geared more towards the people who play the games than how those games are played. He's focused primarily on the cultural fabric their stories weave, recording the oral histories of the games he's covered for posterity. With poker's popularization, his conversion was a natural one.

[edit] SWITCHING GAMES

Wise began playing Magic: the Gathering in 1995, attending his first Pro Tour in 1997. It was through Pro Tour associations that he was introduced to Texas Hold'em.

For the years 2000-2004, Wise earned income from both games. He earned repeated appearances in Magic's Masters Series, a lucrative invite-only tournament in which all thirty-two participants received payments.

It was during this time that his interest started to turn from Magic to poker, joining well known poker personalities David Williams, Eric Froehlich, Noah Boeken and a host of others in making the switch.

In 2004, he retired from the Magic: Pro Tour to focus on poker full-time.