Brothers Bahbak aka Bobby Oboodi and Arash Oboodi love what they do—playing poker and what’s more, they are making a lot of money too. They starting playing poker for fun in their teens and today, Arash is one of the best online poker players in the country while Bahbak is earning in millions at casinos. Speaking about his career, Arash says that he cannot think of playing poker as his job because he loves it.
When he won a cool sum of $10k playing online poker for the first time, Arash Oboodi thought that he would like to play poker the rest of his life. Since he did not really know what to do with his life, he decided to spend it playing poker. He says that he was not a very good player to begin with, but became better with practice unlike his brother Bahbak who has natural talent.
Stating that his brother would always win any game of poker they played together, Arash said that as they continued playing together, he developed a style different from his brother’s. Owing to the difference in playing styles, Arash began playing at online poker rooms while Bahbak continued playing at land-based casinos.
While Arash says that he does not like the land-based casino atmosphere and plays only whenever there are good tournaments, Bahbak says that he enjoys “the human interaction part of it” and that he is a “people person.”
Speaking about his choice of career, Bahbak says, “When I was 19 and still in college. I had about $1,000 to my name and ended up winning about $20,000. That made me think that maybe I could do this as a career. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. It was pretty wild to be making that kind of money.”
Stating that he has earned a total of over $1 million so far, Arash says, “In February two years ago, I played in a tournament and won just under $200,000. By that time, I think I was close to a million total. I think it was the middle of 2010 that I finally broke the barrier.”
Bahbak’s biggest score so far is $1 million, which he won playing the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Borgata Poker Open, an event held in Atlantic City in September 2011.
Their parents, who were initially horrified, are now quite happy about their sons’ choice of career.
