At the end of the 11th grade and after being awarded the National Merit Scholarship, Gordon dropped out of high school and attended Georgia Tech full-time.

After stints working at Santa Cruz Operation and Lockheed, Gordon joined start-up Netsys Technologies as their first hired employee.

In 1996, Netsys was acquired by Cisco Systems, making him a millionaire, and in 1997 he retired from the high-tech industry to travel the world and to play poker.

[4] Phil Gordon first entered The World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in 2001 and finished fourth, winning nearly $400,000.

[9] In March 2004 Gordon knocked out two players at once, one of them former World Series of Poker main event champion Chris Moneymaker, to win the WPT's Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament.

In 2003, he provided commentary for the WSOP Championship Event for Binion's live Internet broadcast, as well as daily reports for a national radio audience, and he provided commentary for ESPN's live pay per view broadcast of the final table of the World Series of Poker main event championship in both 2006 and 2007.

Gordon is an active fundraiser and sat on the board of directors for the Prevent Cancer Foundation until resigning in 2011 in the wake of the Full Tilt Poker scandal.

In 2003, Gordon and fellow poker pro Rafe Furst embarked on their Ultimate Sports Adventure Tour.

At each stop, they collected donations, held auctions, and raffled off prizes to benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation, raising $100,000.

[30] Directed by Zak Penn, the film was a mockumentary (à la Best In Show) about a long running, annual, winner-take-all Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament in Las Vegas.