My name is Michael Newman (hence my poker screen name newmanmi, original I know) and I am a 23 year old Australian male from Perth, Western Australia. I grew up being the sporting type however moved through the late stages of the teen years obsessing with computers and all things technology related which eventually lead me to poker online. My first game of poker would of been at a very young age as I had a family that loved to play card games, board games and the like. Ever since then I have naturally picked up most card games I have played and continue to enjoy playing them to date.
The above is a photo of me (with a little more hair then I have now) in Munich, Germany whilst on my Contiki tour, each person on our tour was given a dare and mine was to get/give 50 “free hugs” in Munich. My German not being so good I just decided to make a sign in English saying free hugs, within an hour of standing around holding it up I completed my goal and felt a little bit nicer about the world 
A little about what I have done
In high school I was naturally smart but very lazy, having a teacher for a parent probably never helped as I figured I could always leave it to the last minute to ask for help with anything I didn’t know. I went into University studying Computer Science at Curtin University which is in Perth. I studied this for a year and a half, failing some units in my first semester due to a very poor work ethic and lack of passion for the subject. I finally decided to give it the scrap and look for something I had more passion for, I moved to ECU and started studying a Bachelor of Business with no idea of what stream I planned to do, thankfully the first year of the course was very broad and gave a good overview of the possible areas I could study.
After my first year was over I decided I wanted to do a major in Marketing, having a bit of a creative side and not wanting to sit behind a desk pushing paper around at an accounting firm I figured it was the natural choice. I breezed through most of the course and took 6 months off in 2007 to travel to Europe with my friends, we left on an amazing journey which lasted 4 months seeing a heap of Western Europe having the time of our lives making some new friends along the way.
I finished my university degree in 2008 however never worked in the field as I started making enough money to live by playing poker on the Internet. I finally decided in March of 2009 that I was going to give it a go and haven’t looked back since, my results for the year of 2009 can be seen in my 2010 goals link.
Travel
I love to travel and have traveled extensively since my parents took me around the world when I was 13 years old. Travel will always be a huge part of my life as I love discovering the unknown, meeting new people and giving anything a go once (twice if I like it). Looking into the future I would love to Travel to each of the continents (maybe not Antarctica but who knows!) visiting places I have not yet seen.
Sport
I grew up with a huge passion for sports playing basketball and Australian rules football whilst following many other sports. These days I play basketball in a low grade competition with a group of friends on Thursday nights and try to play every weekend socially with anyone we meet down at the courts. I have also set myself a goal to dunk a basketball by my 25th birthday (29th March 2011), this will hopefully coincide with my weight loss goals!
Photography
I was always fascinated with photography however never owned my own camera until I splashed out and bought the current camera I currently own:
The above is a Canon 30D with Battery grip (no lens attached) which is the exact setup I am currently using. To improve my photography knowledge I studied some electives in photography at university and briefly worked with a wedding photographer as an assistant. Some of my work can be seen on my Flickr or RedBubble or my Facebook. I will endeavour to consistently update these pages as well as posting some of my favourite images in blog posts.
Michael
