Diego "The D Train" Cordovez learned poker from his first-grade teacher, who used the game as a means of making basic math seem like fun.

As an adult, he continued his formal poker education by reading an array of poker books. He says: "I really think there is a lot of value in books. Not as manuals, because usually I tend to disagree with a lot of what's in there. But just to stimulate thinking about the game."

Having absorbed so much from books, Cordovez began putting his knowledge to the test. By his account, in 1991 he walked into a small card room in Palo Alto called the Cameo Club, started playing, and never stopped.

Subsequently, he entered tournaments at the Peppermill Club in Reno. After two or three times competing at the casino, he won its best all-around player award. "That was very early on, when I was still playing pretty low limits," he says. "It got me to thinking that maybe I could succeed at tournaments and I should pay more attention to them."

Cordovez continues to alternate between live-action poker and tournaments, but doesn't participate in any cash games during tournaments because he says they are quite different and he likes to focus on the event at hand. However, he will play one-table satellites during the tournaments because he believes they help his final-table play.

Cordovez diversified his activities because of the stress he encountered playing poker full-time. "Playing full-time for a living took some of the fun out of it. When I relied upon it as my sole occupation, my sole source of income, [it became] an obligation. It brought out parts of my personality that I didn't want to bring out," he says.

As CEO of Advanced Global Applications, LLC, Cordovez has had success developing Internet software for poker sites. He wrote an article for the May 2002 issue of Optimize magazine in which he said he would enjoy meeting his business competitors, partners, clients and employees at the poker table.

"No other game so profoundly and quickly reveals the essence of a person's soul. Poker strips away all the facades that we wear. There is no hiding across the green felt - not from the rest of the table, and not from yourself."

Cordovez has spoken about how he's achieved great success in tournaments. "I like events with very large fields, where my patience is an asset and where an overlay may exist. For months, I told everyone I play with in the Bay Area that the $1 million guaranteed Limit Hold'em event at Commerce Casino was going to be gigantic, and would be a great opportunity to win a big prize. The funny thing about the event was that I came prepared to re-buy as often as I needed, because I knew the prize pool was going to be well over $1 million," he says.

"Luckily for me, I had to make only one re-buy, and I didn't need to add on. I think you put yourself at a major disadvantage if you are not willing to re-buy in these events. If other people at the table sense that you aren't prepared to re-buy, they tend to play much more aggressively against you and you may become easy to bluff."

He believes concentration is key: "Really watch everything that is going on in a game. Concentrate all the time . . . and you'll do better than more talented players who are distracted."