Dirk Paulsen, born on 27 January 1959, is, like Otto Rehhagel, a child of the Bundesliga, even though he only started playing in the 1965/66 season finale. From then on, the Bundesliga was his hobbyhorse and from an early age he was occupied with simulating results and the resulting tables as faithfully as possible. This was done with Tipp-Kick, playing cards, dice, Subbuteo and everything that seemed suitable to produce results, always with an eye on realism.
When the age of computers finally began in 1978 — he started with a programmable HP 67 CV — software was progressively developed with which he put his childhood insights to use.
After a short, parallel career as a chess professional followed by an equally long one as a backgammon professional and a three-year transition to a “real job” – as a software developer – he changed to a professional gambler, specialising in sports betting, with the matured software, in 1990, for the World Cup.
There were already a few invitations to television programmes or a few radio and newspaper interviews with and about him, as well as a multi-page portrait of him in the Berliner Tagesspiegel, where his certainly not quite ordinary career was described.
More and more, however, he set his mind on intensively observing football to disseminate the views he had matured in the process, with the intention of pointing out a few grievances and improving the game he loved so dearly in this way. Today, he runs this website (among others) for this purpose.