Joe Awada must have some amazing pictures on the pages of his internal photo album.

His career as a poker professional is, as a matter of fact, one of the least colorful chapters of his life story.

Born Yehia Awada in Lebanon, March 12, 1958, Awada spent his childhood with family in Beirut, his birthplace. There he learned to play Five-Card Stud with friends in a time of relative peace, until political tensions began to swell in the early 1970s.

Sensing trouble, Awada's mother made the drastic move to uproot her son and immigrate him to America to live with her brother. She had to return to Lebanon, but left her 13-year-old son there in hopes of him finding a better life and sending money back to support the family.

He would make it out of the country just in time to avoid the first phase of the lengthy Lebanese Civil War.

Instead of living in a war zone, Awada found himself in the midst of a three-ring circus. Literally. His uncle worked a concession stand for the Ringling Brothers Circus and Awada, in need of cash to send home, took to selling cotton candy and peanuts.

"School wasn't an option, so I had to go work," Awada told PokerListings.com in 2007. "And the only job that I could have found easily and quickly was working with him."

Though his first American stop was at the U.S. immigration office in New York, for years after his arrival Awada wouldn't be in one place long enough to unpack his suitcase. Home, he says, was a stateroom on the circus train.

But after a year of making change for hungry customers, Awada longed for a new challenge. He'd spent hours admiring a juggler in the circus named the Grand Picasso; so at 14, Awada set a plan in motion to find a way into the spotlight.

He bought the props for his would-be act and started teaching himself to juggle. Though the Grand Picasso's performance was the boy's inspiration, he couldn't bring himself to ask his mentor for advice in imperfect English.

Instead, Awada watched and learned. In the morning he would rise at 5 a.m. with the laborers and bus to the site of the day's circus. As the crew hoisted the big top and prepared the grounds, Awada juggled nonstop for hours. When the rest of the workers began to assemble for the 3 p.m. show, he would slip into the showers and duck behind the concession stand for his shift.

"We all find something that inspires us or motivates us, and to me, the concession wasn't doing it," says Awada.

So after nearly two years of practice, Awada befriended a trapeze artist whose father was a talent agent. The man sized up his performance before promising the teen that if he kept practicing, he would get a contract with the circus.

"And that's all anybody had to tell me," says Awada, who continued his rigorous work and practice regimen.

True to his word, by the time Awada turned 16 the agent booked him his first contract with the American Continental Circus. Later he would learn that he was the only concession worker ever to have made the transition from selling snacks to performing in the big show.

He traveled everywhere, relishing the opportunity to meet new people and visit new cities. Just a few years after arriving in the U.S. as a chubby boy who didn't speak English, Awada was a lean, streetwise performer in the spotlight.

Juggling vaulted him across the country, to bigger circuses and more bookings. But eventually he touched down in Las Vegas, a city bright enough to rival the lights of the big ring. It was 1977 and Awada was offered a job performing at Circus Circus, which he accepted along with gigs at other casinos around town.

In between performances, Awada would sneak into games at the Circus Circus poker room. He could already play from his early years in Lebanon, and Awada built on his game the same way he learned to juggle - practice and observation.

Still, poker was just a hobby and Awada was busy performing and taking work on the road such as a job touring with the Harlem Globetrotters. Although it was a high-profile gig, it would end disastrously.

While away touring with the group, Awada was in a serious car accident. The wreck required physical therapy, but the treatment wouldn't be enough to get Awada back to top form. Juggling, he says, was his livelihood and the only career he knew. But during attempts at returning to his routine, Awada kept re-injuring his shoulders and arms and eventually accepted that his performing days were over.

As it turns out, he wouldn't even have to leave the casino to find replacement work. The poker room manager knew Awada from watching his act and upon hearing that he would no longer be performing, the manager offered him a dealer job. The Circus Circus policy at the time was that dealers must attend training school to work in the poker room. The manager, however, made an exception for Awada.

"Within a week I was dealing and within a month I was dealing better than some of the people who had been there for years," Awada remembers. "It's all in the wrists."

Never one to be content doing one thing for too long, he started to concentrate his efforts on his poker game whilst dealing.

"I'm the kind of person that watches and observes things and learns from just watching," he says. "Basically, the experience came from playing more and more and, while dealing, watching a lot of different hands and watching players play a bunch of different hands a bunch of different ways."

He became quite good. So good, in fact, he decided to become a full-time pro in the early 80s. The lifestyle didn't suit him, though, and Awada was miserable.

"A lot of the people - including some of the very successful people, which is very few of them - had a very, very tough time doing it and a very hard life along the way. Most of them end up in divorces and so on," he says. "It's a rough life and I don't advise anyone to go that route. But poker is a lot of fun, and doing it as a hobby is much better for your game and much better for the mind and your finances."

And so he stuck to tournament play, competing in smaller $5,000 events. Always on the lookout for a new challenge, though, Awada kept his eyes peeled for new opportunities.

In 1997, he found what he was looking for when he met a fellow businessman who worked in digital gambling. Feeling inspired, Awada pumped his savings into a company, Gaming Entertainment Inc., and has been fine tuning the business ever since. The first five years were trying, seeing Awada all but quit playing poker as he struggled to maintain a balance between business, his wife, Lamia, and a burgeoning family which now includes six children.

Perhaps the break was refreshing. Awada, who now says he sees poker as a hobby and not a profession, took back to the tables with renewed vigor.

Though he'd turned out for a smattering of World Series of Poker events, Awada's first year cashing at the tournament came in 2004 and would be his best result to date. That year he took home a gold bracelet and $221,000 in the Seven-Card Stud championship as well as a second-place finish and $156,320 in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event.

The success wasn't a fluke though; Awada followed up his World Series accomplishments at the Legends of Poker $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship by finishing in fifth place for $132,300. He also won the Festa al Lago $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em event the same year to boost his bankroll by $145,280.

Final tabling in a handful of tournaments throughout 2005 - including a fifth-place result in the Seven-Card Stud championship - Awada failed to improve on his accomplishments in 2004. Once again cashing at the 2006 WSOP, Awada placed 14th twice in both the $5,000 Short-Handed No-Limit Hold'em event and the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event.

Though he says the most important aspect of his tournament play is earning the respect of his peers, Awada defines his style as unpredictable. His favorite place to put that volatility to the test is at his preferred game, No-Limit Hold'em.

"I love the No-Limit Hold'em because you can get more creative. It takes somebody who's not afraid to take a chance and gamble at a time when it's needed," Awada says.

He also prides himself on reading his competition at both cash games and the tournaments he plays around Nevada and California.

"I kind of feel I am good at that - talking to people to get information out of them, though doing it a nice way; I believe in that," he says. "And of course, having the heart to gamble and not being afraid to gamble because sometimes you gotta take a chance with all your money and all your chips and lay your tournament life on the line, and you can't be afraid of doing that."

All that he has learned about the poker industry over the years has been funneled back into his business, which sees Awada giving seminars to colleagues in the gaming industry and budding poker players.

Still, for all his efforts in business and poker, Awada insists that his first priority is his family. Sometimes they join him at the table in the form of photographs.

Indeed, tournament cashes and gold bracelet aside, at heart Awada says he is a family man.

"I never really considered myself a professional poker player because that's not really the pride and accomplishments of my life."