Joe Pelton's passion for poker has proven profitable.

While attending Harvey Mudd College, Joe Pelton ’99 began playing poker with the boys. Nothing serious—just some occasional nights out betting on games with funny names. His winnings were modest.

Although those poker nights were sporadic, Pelton, then a sophomore engineering major, enjoyed them. After all, he fancied himself a bit of a gambler. Poker was a way to have some fun, win a little money, and hang out with the guys. He was glad to be included.

“The games weren’t regular—whenever they had nothing to do, my friends would get together and play,” Pelton says. “They invited me to play one time, and that’s how I got started.”

Somewhere along the line, after he graduated with a B.S. degree in engineering, Pelton’s modest interest in card playing blossomed. He began reading voraciously about poker, and even sought information online.

“The books were very helpful—the best books tell you how to think in situations rather than telling you what to do,” Pelton says.

The strategy apparently worked. In August 2006 at age 29, Pelton won the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker No-Limit Hold ’Em Championship at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, Calif., pocketing a cool $1,577,170. He had arrived.

Pelton, a native of Waterloo, Iowa, “arrived” again two months later, winning $292,220 in a third-place finish at the Fifth Annual Festa Al Lago Classic in Las Vegas. His earnings over the two-month period: more than $1.8 million.

Clearly, Pelton is doing something he enjoys, and doing it very successfully. So successfully that card playing has become his primary “occupation” after he was laid off from his position as a systems analyst in Newport Beach, Calif. “Newport Joe,” as he’s known, is living his dream.

Not that he won’t be looking for work again soon—he will, although he concedes it will be hard to find a company that provides the flexibility needed to accommodate his poker playing like Pelton’s former employer did. In the meantime, Pelton is playing in poker tournaments around the country, making a serious living and having a lot of fun. According to cardplayer.com, his winnings since 2004 total nearly $2 million.

Pelton’s journey from Iowa to Southern California began in 1995 when he fulfilled a desire to attend college away from home by enrolling at Harvey Mudd College. His course load did include mathematics, a field of study that some players find useful, although Pelton believes the math he took was too complex to enhance his poker playing.

In 1999, Pelton graduated and went to work. At the same time, he began playing Internet poker. Finally, he began playing in tournaments.

His first big win came in Aruba in 2004, when he won $7,000. He followed that up by winning another $7,000, then $11,000, then $4,800 before his big win last summer. He most recently (in March) won $30,000 in a tournament in San Jose, Calif.

“I’m a very competitive person, but I’m a bad athlete,” Pelton says. “And, I like to gamble. Poker combines competitiveness, gambling, math and problem solving—it incorporates many things that I like to do.”

While successful poker playing requires many different qualities, there is one prerequisite to winning at high-stakes poker, Pelton says: aggressiveness. “That’s especially true in Hold ’Em (a standard in tournament poker), where many times you and your opponent will have mediocre hands. Whoever is more aggressive will win what’s already in the pot.”

Hold ’Em is Pelton’s preferred game, largely because it involves high stakes. However, contrary to popular belief, participants need not put up huge sums of money to enter big-money tournaments. Pelton didn’t have the $10,000 needed to enter the Legends of Poker tournament, so he entered an online “satellite” tournament, in which 20 people put up $500, with the winner receiving $10,000.

“That’s how the majority of people get into the big tournaments,” he says.

The Legends tournament involved 45 tables with 10 players each, and through elimination Pelton found himself at the final table—where he bested the other nine players to win what he described as “a phenomenal amount of money”—most of which he invested.

“I think people who go to Harvey Mudd College are usually smart and usually end up successful,” says Pelton. “But, you don’t really have to be smart to play poker. There are a lot of successful poker players who simply have good intuition for gambling and for people. Many people don’t really know the math behind what they’re doing.”

While Pelton knows the math, one aspect of his college tenure has especially helped him: the late nights playing poker. Endurance is a key in many tournaments, which can run up to several weeks in length and require long days at the table.

Also key to his success has been the support he’s received from his parents and friends.

“My mother was not a big fan of poker before I won the Legends, but now she thinks it’s a lot better,” Pelton says. “My dad was happy.”

His friends have had mixed opinions. Some think he’s crazy to put up $10,000 to enter tournaments, while others play recreationally and are proud of his success.

Even his girlfriend supports his pursuit, although it’s a pursuit he may eventually have to give up for a full-time job. But, not until after July, when the 38th annual World Series of Poker closes in Las Vegas. Pelton is putting poker first--at least for now.

“It would be a big deal if I had to give it up,” he says. “But, eventually I’ll have to quit if I want to get married and have kids. You can’t go traveling all over the country when you have kids around. Until then, it’s still a thrill when you win a great hand or bluff someone out of a pot. I enjoy that.”