Barry Greenstein (cloze), page 2

instructions: put one word from the list in each of the blank spaces; each word is used once and only once.

Barry was ______________ to get custody of Donna’s children so he stopped studying mathematics and went to California to look for work. He found a job in a software company called Symantec. He didn’t make nearly as much money there as he could make playing poker—only $40,000 year. But having the job did make him more respectable and he was able to get custody of his wife’s children. Barry worked for Symantec, writing______________ , from 1984 to 1991. He quit his job in 1991. He was tired of the long hours and tired of working under ______________ . Beyond that, he was badly in debt.

Since coming to California, he had continued to live the expensive life he was used to, but he hadn’t been earning enough money to pay for it. So he sold the shares in Symantec he’d been given as part of his salary, used the money to pay his ______________ , and became a full-time poker player.

Once he had gone back to playing poker, Barry’s ______________ problems were over. He quickly became a very rich man. He built an ______________ house near Los Angeles with an indoor swimming pool, an art gallery, and a curved, 4000-litre tank for tropical fish under the staircase. Barry got the ideas for these things from the ______________ where he played poker.

In 2003, because of tournaments shown on a television program called ‘The World Poker Tour,’ poker became a very popular form of ______________ in the United States. At first, Barry wasn’t interested in ______________ . He thought the tournaments were just a sort of show. He didn’t care about getting on television. He was playing poker to make money, not to become ______________ . Before long, however, he changed his mind.

Barry and Donna were ______________ by that time, but Barry still had custody of the three children from Donna’s first marriage and of the two other children that he and Donna had had together. He was worried that they were becoming too materialistic and that they didn’t ______________ how many children everywhere were poor and unhealthy. He felt guilty about how he had ______________ his family up and he wanted to make them more aware of how most other people lived. So he decided that he would play in tournaments, but he would ______________ everything he won to poor children. That is what he did. By early 2005 he had given over three million dollars to ______________ that help poor children. Giving his money away, he said, has brought him ‘indescribable joy.’

Despite the pleasure he got from playing in tournaments and giving his money away, Barry was still playing quite often in ______________ games. He was keeping the money he won in those games. He was using some of it to pay for his ______________ life and some to pay income tax on the money he was giving away.