Heads Up Poker Player Jon Robert "Croixdawg" Ford Profile

Welcome to Croixdawg's page where you can find information about the HUSNG and MTT specialist and his professional poker playing career.

Quick Stats

Started Playing HUSNGs: 2004 (2003 General Poker)

Poker Handle: Croixdawg (PokerStars, Full Tilt, Merge)

Birth Year: 1984

Went Broke on the Way Up: Once in 2005

Secrets to Success: Networking, reviewing hands

Croixdawg's Strengths: Consistency

Croixdawg's Weaknesses: Taking prolonged breaks

The Rise

Croixdawg began playing standard "fun" poker games in 2003 with some high school friends.  He met some poker friends playing $10 lounge tournaments while attending the University of Pittsburgh.  Croixdawg met Vinny "Predator13" and there began a mutually beneficial poker relationship as well as friendship.

"One day we took a shot at a $40 buyin tournament, I was fortunate enough to win considering I knew very little about poker back then," said Ford.  "I eventually lost about $1500 before discovering heads up play and eventually talking Vinny into playing it.  We would run 4 mans all throughout the summer of our freshmen year and built a pretty solid profit."  Croixdawg and Predator13 were the first known players to play four mans together on PokerStars (the 4 man rule allowing team play was later reversed by PokerStars in 2010).

(above) Mustache - Croixdawg's New Look (for charity)

The Bust

By 2005, Croixdawg's bankroll had grown quite considerably, to about $100,000.  "Thinking I was kickass, I played a player at the $5,000 level, very underrolled, and lost 40% of my roll in one day," said Ford.  He would eventually lose the entire $100,000 bankroll by December 2005, of which Ford says was primarily due to poor game selection.

"It was pure misery, I couldn't go to the Steelers-Seahawks Super Bowl," said Ford.

"But Vinny transferred me $2,000 and I went into super grindmode.  I played $100s, then $200s and occassionally a $500, but I made sure I was very well rolled before moving up."

Tournament Success

Croixdawg had some tournament success in the 2006 World Series of Poker, finishing in the final four tables of the $5,000 Six Max Event. That wouldn't be his only tournament success.

"In early 2007, Vinny was getting more involved with school and couldn't make the PokerStars Carribbean Adventure.  I had won a seat to the PCA online and ended up heading down there with Premier and CHEKdezNUTS," said Ford.

He ended up taking 3rd in the PCA for roughly $550,000.  "I really wanted to win, just to see CHEK jump into the cove fully clothed.  I guess the extra money would've been nice too," Ford laughs.

When he returned to Pittsburgh, Croixdawg cashed out most of his winnings and used them to invest and save for taxes.  He continued to play the same heads up sng buyin levels as he was playing before the win.

Staying On Top

In 2008, Croixdawg finished 11th on the sharkscope heads up profit leaderboard, with $189,916 in winnings at the tables on PokerStars.  In 2009, he took both the 14th and 15th place spots on the annual heads up leaderboard, with $186,936 on his Croixdawg PokerStars account and $184,184 on his Croixdawg Full Tilt account.  His combined total of over $360,000 would've put him 2nd that year, with only livb112 ahead of him that year.

Croixdawg continued his run as one of the most successful heads up players year in and year out.  In 2010 he finished 10th on the heads up leaderboard, with $231,311 profit on his Full Tilt account.

In 2011, Croixdawg had made over $32,000 on PokerStars and Full Tilt in only 800 games with an average buyin of $500, before the events of Black Friday in the United States forced him to cease playing on those two sites.  As of September 2011, Croixdawg had made over $13,000 on the Merge network, his chosen poker network since April 2011.

Poker Videos

Croixdawg, along with xSCWx, Skates and RyPac13, founded HUSNG.com in February of 2009.  Croixdawg released 22 videos between February 2009 and January 2010, mostly in the premium membership tier.  His videos were well received and had a reputation for postflop play, as Croixdawg has been known to play a wide range of hands both in position and out of position, a tendency he attributes to his superior hand reading and postflop skills.