Mike Timex McDonald

To his fans’ disappointment, @Mike McDonald's fabulous winning streak was broken and he busted out early in #WPTFallsview, on home ground. Yet, with his fantastic performance and in excess of $5 million in recent earnings, Mike may have been one of poker’s best ambassadors in the past two months - in terms of keeping up the popular appeal of the game and the unique opportunities associated with it.

"Something must have changed and the last 6 months my motivation has been unbelievable. ..I haven't been more excited by poker in years. ...I have a feeling this will be an awesome year.."

This is what Mike wrote in his blog two years ago, on Feb. 6th 2012, and I am wondering how he must have felt on Feb. 9th 2014, when his third seven-figure score since the beginning of the current year propelled him to the top of the rankings and he made the headlines of every single poker news site.

Competitive chess player, competitive climber, and not least, competitive car owner - Mike’s competitive nature has been pushing him to excel in everything he does.

Though he is certainly used to that kind of coverage and attention. In 2008, barely 18 years old, he became the youngest person ever to with an EPT title - the German Open in Dortmund, brought him close to $1.4 million.

He started playing poker online when he was 15 and had a deal with his parents who allowed him to play as long as his homework always came first and he managed to stay within his allowance. That he did and much more - by the time he was 18 and could finally play live tournaments, he had won several hundred thousand dollars online and made a name for himself in the poker community as Timex.

Mike reportedly called his yellow Lamborghini 'one of the least responsible financial decisions he’s made' (Photo: f5poker.com)

Since 2008 Mike must have inspired countless ‘soldiers of poker fortune’ and sent them practicing in the online poker rooms and looking up live tournament schedules. Hopefully the players dreaming of a similar blazing career, and particularly his young followers, will also emulate Mike’s example of hard work and study, his maturity and self-control. (Even if they are not as lucky as to be able to pay off their parents’ mortgage at 16 years of age.)

In fact, Mike himself may not be the first to encourage teenagers to follow in his footsteps. He said in a recent interview for ThinkingPoker.net that he personally believes online poker and gambling have done ‘more harm than good’ and ‘if it were up to me casinos and gambling just wouldn’t exist because it’s just like one more way for dumb people to get [beep-beep] over by smart people.’