Barny Boatman, a Man of Many Trades

Barny Boatman is a professional poker player known as one of the notorious Hendon Mob members and the brother of the equally famous Ross Boatman. Born in 1956 in London, Barny led an adventurous young life that took him to Barcelona, Australia, Hong Kong, and Sir Lanka. He had several different jobs before he settled in as a poker star. During his travels he was a bartender, builder, English teacher, journalist, computer programmer, and a legal advisor.

His poker days began when he started playing cards with his friends at home. This later led to Barney teaching his brother Ross how to play the game. In the coming years they started playing in poker tournaments together. Barney won the first tournament he ever played, a seven-card stud at £2,000.

In later years they met Joe Beevers and Ram Vaswani and started the Hendon Mob. The group toured to several different tournaments. Their success got them invites to the Late Night Poker series by Nic Szeremeta. All the members of the Hendon mob went on to final tables at some point in the series, Barny making the Grand Finals in three and four. The following fifth and sixth series he commented the tournament with Jesse May.

In the 2000 World Series of Poker Barny cashed in two events, and again in 2001. In 2002, he almost won a bracelet, falling to second place in a $2,000 pot limit hold’em game. By making second place, however, he not only won $77,160 in prize money, but also won the European Poker Awards Tournament Performance of the Year for being the first person to ever make it to three back-to-back final tables. He almost finished a fourth, but was one place short.

Over the years he has participated in many events, and placed highly in most of them. He played the final table in the first Poker Million tournament and later commentated for the event. He also commentated for the World Heads-Up Poker Championship, Celebrity Poker Club, European Poker Tour, Poker Nations Cup, and the Victor Chandler Poker Cup. When the first Showdown Poker Tour took place he won second behind Mats Gavatin.

In 2008, his total tournament winnings in live play exceeded $1,200,000 dollars, a $100,000 dollar lead to his brother Ross. He started his own called “Barny’s Home Games”. In the series he toured Great Britain and visited home poker games. Barny enjoys sky diving, snowboarding and scuba diving. He is the godfather of his brother’s son.