SF Chronicle recounts Binger's road to glory

When you finish third in the World Series of Poker Main Event, as Michael Binger did, people tend to get curious about you.

Particularly if you also have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and have been banned from playing blackjack in casinos.

The San Francisco Chronicle certainly did and have published a new Q&A with the intriguing Binger, who came from another universe to take third-place at last year's WSOP.

Now 30, Binger was a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center with the ink barely dry on his Ph.D. when he left his rented room in Atherton for the WSOP last summer.

He came back with $4.1 million and a new position in the poker hierarchy - as a player of note.

Some of the other details Binger reveals in his new interview:

• His final project at N.C. State was a program to solve blackjack, and he's been banned for card counting;
• he's taking off the sunglasses at the table and now trying to manipulate people by giving false reads;
• at the World Series, his friends tried to get the nickname "Quantum" to catch on.

For the rest of the story on Michael Binger, visit SFGate.com