Half Danish and half Polish, when it comes to career choices, Philip Hilm is all poker player.

Hilm began playing poker in late 2003 when a friend who was a former professional backgammon player introduced him to playing online. He’d previously started his own business and after it went under, he took to selling coffee machines in supermarkets to bring in money at the time.

Needless to say, he was willing to explore alternatives.

After a month of study and reading up on poker and playing online, Hilm was making more money in the evenings playing poker than he was during his day job. The decision to quit and go full-time pro was an easy one.

He now splits his time between Cambridge, England, and Holland, playing poker to support himself.

His specialty online is cash games, and he prefers to play heads-up where he can play more hands and magnify any edge he might have over his opponent. When he does play in tournaments, he prefers to play in the live realm where he likes the chance to meet other players and hang out.

His success in the live poker world includes two cashes in European Poker Tour events: a fourth-place finish at the Scandinavian Open in 2006 and 15th place at the Grand Final in Monte Carlo in 2007. He also has a cash in the 2005 World Series in the $2,500 Short-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event.

It was his finish at the Scandinavian Open that caught the eye of PokerStars.com and qualified him to become the star player and team captain of the Polish team of the PokerStars.com World Cup of Poker in 2006.

He eventually led his team to victory ahead of Team U.S.A. and Canada.

That success has followed him into the 2007 World Series, where he made the final table of the Main Event.

After several days of play and making it down to the final nine, Hilm was in prime position with the chip lead going into the final table. Once play began, though, Jerry Yang proved to be a monster at the table, taking on Hilm two hands in a row early in play to eliminate him in ninth place.

Making the final table was enough to earn Hilm half a million dollars, but our guess is he'll put that money to use to redeem himself in other big tournaments after a disappointing Main Event final table.