Andy Bloch is a very smart man. He holds two degrees from MIT along with a law degree from Harvard. Beyond that, Bloch was a member of the famous MIT blackjack team. In the early nineties, Andy started playing a lot of poker. His first win came in 1993 when he took down an event at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods..
The score only led Andy to want more. He continued to play tournaments over the next few years and had some solid finishes. In 1995, he played a lot of smaller buy-in events, but made over $60,000. His largest score that year came when he won the $1,500 Chinese Poker event at the Hall of Fame Poker Classic for nearly $30,000.
In 1996, Bloch cashes in his first WSOP event. He would cash again in 2000 and twice in 2001. All of these were rather small cashes. In 2002, Andy took down the $2,000 Sveen-Card Stud Event at the World Poker Finals for over $40,000. He also placed third in the WPT Main Event there for over $100,000.
Bloch continued to have success on the WPT circuit and the following year in 2003 placed third behind Daniel Rentzer and Gus Hansen for over $125,000 at the L.A. Poker Classic. A few more smaller-scale cashes followed for the next couple of years, but the only one to break six figures was a win at the Hot Tex Tournament in Las Vegas for $102,750 in 2004. In 2005, Bloch rolled in a win at the Ultimate Poker Challenge Main Event for $167,500.
Andy continued to grind away and put up some decent cashes, but never really seemed to break out. That was, until the WSOP in 2006. That year, Bloch cashes five times at the World Series and made two final tables. One of those final tables was in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship where Bloch played heads up with the late David “Chip” Reese in the longest heads-up battle the WSOP has ever seen. When it was all said and done, Reese took down the title and Bloch was left with second place and slightly over $1 million for his finish. Later that year, Bloch won $500,000 after taking first in the Pro-Am Equalizer Tournament in Vegas. In total, he took almost $1.7 million in tournament earnings that year alone.
The following year was much smaller in scale for Bloch. He only took $172,744 in tournament earnings, but in 2008, things changed. A second-place finish at the National Heads-Up Championship netted him $250,000 and then it was onto the WSOP where Bloch cashed five times on U.S. soil and twice over in Europe.
One of those finishes was a second-place finish to Nenad Medic in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em World Championship. Andy had the big stangle hold on the event at the final table, but couldn’t lock up the bracelet.
He took over $1 million in tournament earnings in 2008 to put his total to nearly $4.2 million.
Andy is also a member of Team Full Tilt.
