Physical Description At the age of 28, Dr. Stephen J. Nekos has just returned to his luxurious
Gotham penthouse from a self-indulgent birthday trip to Vegas... which only
served to make him ever-so-slightly richer. Stephen is tall and quite thin;
he'd be considered lanky if he weren't so damned attractive.
Personality Scholarly, yet
modest and unassuming, he is an excellent conversationalist, and can make for
a suitably pleasant distraction over drinks or an artful game of backgammon.
He's just as likely to be found buried in piles of mathematical formulae and
proofs as he is in a secluded corner of an upscale bar whispering intimacies
to a beautiful woman, or in the midst of an intense high-stakes poker game.
Since so much about a person can be inferred from their drinking habits, it
is perhaps enlightening to note that Stephen's drink of choice is scotch
(preferably Glendronach) with an ice cube or two, although very dry vodka
martinis or small tumblers of black sambuca are not uncommon.
Story His mother a nurse and his father a contractor (not to mention a drunk),
Stephen had a rather typical suburban upbringing as the only child in a lower
middle class family. His phenomenal affinity for mathematics was discovered in
grade school, and by middle school he was going to math competitions.. and
winning.
Earning near-perfect marks in high school, he was accepted to Princeton on a
full academic scholarship. During his Freshman year in college, he was
introduced to poker. Upon finding himself to be intuitively masterful at the
game, he began to run a seemingly innocent low-stakes poker night in his dorm
room. Despite a run-in with the Judicial Board on the grounds of Gambling on
campus, Stephen graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BS in Mathematics and went on
to attend Yale for his graduate studies.
Paying for school with government grants and his gambling spoils, Stephen
taught himself chess and backgammon (which he prefers), as well as various
casino card games. Surrounded by an uncanny air of luck, he began making
regular trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, always seeming to come back with
just a bit more than enough to pay tuition and cover his daily expenses. After
his MS, Stephen went on to earn his PhD in Combinatorics at MIT.
