I realize that we all age, our looks change, and our demeanor/attitude changes. That's fine. You won't find many people who barely changed between 2007 and today. I definitely look different myself, and in some ways my personality has changed as well.
However, nobody in poker has transformed more than Ike Haxton, and I don't get it.
Here was Ike Haxton in 2007, at the Pokerstars PCA. He was 21 at the time, and had just taken a year off college to play poker full time. He finished 2nd in this event.
Kind of reminds me of a long-haired Neo from The Matrix. Notice the cool, wild hairstyle, the minimalized sunglasses, the casual long sleeved shirt, and the generally confident demeanor. You could picture this guy scoring a lot of late-2000s chicks, right?
Now look at present-day Ike Haxton:
2025 Ike couldn't be more of a stereotypical dork if he tried. He's got the geek glasses, the uptight-looking hairdo, an N-95 mask perpetually attached to his face (even in winners photos), and he tops it all off with a "GTO Lab" shirt.
How can this possibly be the same guy?
There's no question that Ike is a great poker player, and aside from his annoying wokeness, he's not a bad guy. He's never been involved in a scandal, and doesn't really mistreat or attack anyone. So I'm not even saying I dislike him, because I don't.
I just don't understand this transformation. Given his tournament results (much better now than in '07, in fact), he could have been marketable as a sponsored pro if he stuck to anything resembling his original look.
Ike hailed from the Magic: The Gathering world, as did many of the nerd-crew millennial poker pros. So if he had the dork look the whole way, I wouldn't be making this post. I'm just not understanding why, at some point, he said to himself, "You know what? I'm tired of looking cool. Let's see how I can come off as geeky as possible."
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