The closeknit community of New Jersey online poker has allowed for players to connect and grow their games through another. Most of the bonds developed have been player-to-player but Mike ‘MikeyCasino’ Azzaro has found a special kinship of a different kind.

Azzaro and his roommate Chris ‘Hort336’ Horter met in 2014 through a mutual friend in Asher Conniff. Horter and Azzaro live together in Brigantine and do most of their online grinding from there. Horter has come into his own this year after winning the Parx Big Stax 300 title in August and taking third in the Borgata Spring Poker Open $1,000,000 guaranteed event in April.

Living with a poker mind as sharp as Horter’s would be a tremendous asset for anyone but it is their dog, Crouton, that separates their New Jersey home from other grind lairs.

Crouton has become a niche online phenomenon in 2016 thanks in part to the Twitter account, @CroutonSays. The Galapagos Boonwiddle has been a positive addition for all in the poker community but Azzaro has developed a special kinship with the dog.

Azzaro says he spends time talking over hands with Horter and finds himself relieving tilt by playing with the dog. A European study published in 2012 in Frontiers of Psychology notes the specific correlation between interacting with animals and the influence of behaviors such as trust, empathy, and a positive mood.

The impact of the dog is certainly with merits as Azzaro has achieved some of the best results of his career in 2016. Azzaro made it to Day 5 of this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event, eventually finishing 182nd for a career-best $42,285 score. The impact shows on the virtual felt as well, as Azzaro is currently 19th in the PocketFives NJ Online rankings.

Growing up in Yonkers, NY, Azzaro says he had dreams of becoming a football player but eventually decided to make poker his career. Azzaro is not entirely sure he’ll be playing poker for the rest of his life but is taking his time to decide what his next step might be.

“When I was a teenager I wanted to play football or poker but I wasn’t good at football so I went with poker. For now poker is what I want to do but I see investing in my future,” Azzaro said.

When Azzaro was younger, he learned the basics of the game from his brother and then grew his career toward the professional level as online poker became regulated in New Jersey.

“When I was 14, my older brother taught me the basics of Hold’em and we would play all the time. I started playing professionally at 26 and for the first year I was losing until online poker got legalized and it couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Indeed it did for Azzaro, as he has racked up over $430,000 in online cashes across the finest sites New Jersey has to offer.

Outside of the positive influence of Horter and Crouton, Azzaro credits his recent success to eating healthier, additional studying and maintaining an overall healthy lifestyle. Azzaro certainly isn’t the first player in poker to credit the calming influence of a dog on improved results. Considering how big of a part playing online is for Azzaro’s career and for other players across the state, a new trend may be on the horizon.

Azzaro notes how he enjoys the stability of online poker and it may now only be a matter of time before he makes an appearance in the PocketFives New Jersey top-10 rankings.