Russ Scott, a veteran newspaper writer and editor, learned to play cards from his grandmother at age 8 and has been playing poker for money since he was 16.  Now, a few decades later, his passions for journalism and poker have converged to create LuckyDog Poker.

Scott's newspaper career began with a bachelor's degree in journalism from Marshall University in his hometown Huntington, W. Va. With a semester to go, he landed a reporting job at the local daily newspaper, The Herald-Dispatch. In a 16-year career there, he was a reporter, regional editor, metro editor and assistant managing editor.

The opportunity to run his own newsroom came when he was named managing editor at The Dispatch in Moline, Ill., a position he has held since 1982. Strangely, in addition to the similarity in the two newspapers' names, both offices are located on 5th Avenue, just a driver and 5-iron away from major rivers -- the Ohio and the Mississippi. Moline is part of the Quad-Cities, a 400,000-population metropolitan area that straddles the Mississippi and encompasses several cities in eastern Iowa and western Illinois.

After learning card games from his grandmother in Baltimore, Scott's first brush at playing for money as a teenager was with his coworkers at a popular hot-dog stand in Huntington. After a Saturday night shift as curb boy with $15 in tips in his pocket, Scott was invited by the manager to a home game with nickel-dime-quarter stakes. The first five times he played, Scott lost everything he'd made that night at work. It was decision time: Either quit playing, keep playing the same way and stay broke, or become a better player. Choice No. 3 turned Scott into a consistent winner.

Scott has won poker tournaments or placed in the money at events in California, Nevada, Minnesota, Mississippi and Connecticut, as well as Illinois and Iowa. He holds the no-limit Texas hold'em points championship in his local riverboat card room, and has played against many of the big-name players in tournaments around the country including Daniel Negreanu, Men "The Master" Nguyen, T.J. Cloutier and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson.

Although none of Scott's three children followed in his footsteps as a journalist or poker player (yet), he intends to keep a family tradition alive by teaching his little granddaughter Madeline the joys of poker when the time is right.