Maciek Gracz ,also known to his family and friends as “Michael” or just “Mike”, was born on October 23, 1980 in Warsaw, Poland. H? was only four years old when he immigrated to the US with his family. His mother who is now a professor of biochemistry, moved to earn her doctoral degree, and his father opened a clinic to practice physical therapy.
Maciek Gracz learned how to play poker by watching his father, who is also interested in the game. When Maciek was in high school, he worked in a local game store and that was the place, where he was introduced to the game of poker. Soon his interest transformed to passion and he started reading books to learn more about the game. Maciek Gracz started playing in local home games and found out that the game is much more remunerative than his part time job.
Maciek Gracz continued playing poker in college, and most of the times he won. Watching tournaments on TV, he imagined how some day he will be at a final table, but kept his promise to his mother to graduate his finance major before becoming a poker professional. So after graduating from North Carolina State University with a business degree, Maciek Gracz started a sales job, but continued dreaming to deal with poker. After working for three months, he walked away from his job to take his chances at the PartyPokers.com Million IV. There are not many people fortunate enough to make their dream come true, but Maciek Gracz is one of the few. He was only 24-years old when he found himself playing for money in different poker tables all over the country. While playing in different poker tournaments, he earned his title “The Kid”.
Maciek Gracz was rising fast above the rest - in 2004 he was among the 155 participants in the $5,000 No Limit Hold'em for the Trump Classic held in Atlantic City. The following years were also successful for “The Kid”: he won the World Poker Open's $3,000 No Limit Hold’em match at 18th place and the No Limit Hold’em championship round, making it to the 36th slot. In 2005 Maciek joined the league of self-made millionaires as a poker champion for the $10,000 Limit Holdem event of the World Poker Tour PartyPoker.com Million IV Cruise. He played against many popular poker players and earned more than $1,500,000.
Now Maciek Gracz is a happy person. He has a wonderful family, he is close to his sister, has great friends, and lives with the woman who loves and is his best friend - Katie. He is not interested in sports cars or other shiny things to buy, he just wants to live in a world where people are real. As of 2008, his total live tournament earnings exceed $3,000,000.