Poker Stories

Ben Rolle, known to most of the poker world as Bencb, is one of the greatest online tournament players in the game today. The 33-year-old German was a standout junior soccer player, but turned to online poker after college and grinded his way to the highest stakes available. He has won many millions during his career, most notably chopping the World Championship of Online Poker $100,000 Super High...

Brek Schutten is a family man with five children that spends his days working as a nurse in the intensive care unit. But that hasn't stopped the Michigan native from dominating the live tournament circuit for more than a year now.   The 34-year-old topped a record-field of 2,482 entries in the 2021 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open to win a life-changing $1,261,095, and in the months since has par...

Brad Owen discovered poker while in high school, learning the game by studying poker software his dad brought home from work. He continued to play throughout college and even as he earned his masters degree in accounting, but a nine-to-five job was never in the cards for the Santa Rosa, California native. Owen ultimately gave up his day job as a CPA to move to Las Vegas and try his hand at profess...

Kane Kalas grew up near Philadelphia where his father and baseball hall of famer Harry Kalas worked as the play by play commentator for the Phillies for nearly 40 years. He could have joined the family business like his brother Todd, who broadcasts for the Houston Astros, but while he was in college he got bit by the poker bug.   Kalas was particularly aggressive building his bankroll online, and...

Phil Galfond has made his mark on pretty much every part of the poker world. Not only is the Maryland native considered one of the best to ever play the game, but he's also been recognized as a prolific poker coach, and even operated his own online poker site, Run It Once. The 37-year-old recently sold that site to Rush Street Interactive, which is planning to enter the regulated US online poker m...

"Miami" John Cernuto is a true ironman of the live poker tournament circuit. The longtime grinder holds the record and a sizable lead for the most cashes ever with 540 and counting. To put that into perspective, 16-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth has just shy of 350.   Cernuto, who has three WSOP bracelets of his own, is now 78 years old but is still out on the tournament trail recording cashes...

Scotty Nguyen has the ultimate poker success story. After escaping almost certain death in the Vietnam War and surviving almost a month stranded at sea, the teenager eventually found himself in the United States looking for a piece of the American dream. Always a hustler, it wasn't long before Nguyen discovered poker, first paying bills as a dealer, and then trying his luck on "the other side of t...

Chris Brewer discovered poker while competing at the 2012 Olympic Trials, getting hooked after playing in a $5 home game. The San Diego native's first love was running, which led him to the 32-time national champion University of Oregon Ducks track and field team. He built his bankroll while in college, and graduated ready to take on the world as a professional player. With some aggressive shot ta...

Dan Cates discovered poker in high school, and wasted no time immersing himself in the game online. By the time he dropped out of college, the man known as 'jungleman12' had already risen to the highest stakes and won millions against some of the top players in the world. According to HighStakesDB.com, Cates is one of the biggest high-stakes online cash game earners of all time. As it turns out, t...

Ryan Leng's first love was hockey, competing at the highest junior levels before catching the poker bug at his Illinois high school. He continued to play and deal cards while in college at Arizona State, eventually turning pro. He was a SuperNova Elite player online, splitting his time between Costa Rica, Mexico, and Canada before switching his focus to live play.   He broke out in 2017 with a run...

Brian Hastings is only 33 years old but he has already been playing poker at the highest stakes for half of his life and has put together one of the best resumes in the game. The Pennsylvania native discovered poker from his high school math teacher, and by the end of his senior year, he had already amassed a bankroll of more than $250,000.   Hastings then enrolled at Cornell University, simultane...

Josh Arieh is best known for his deep run in the 2004 World Series of Poker main event, where he was featured on ESPN's broadcast en route to a third-place finish worth $2.5 million. But Arieh was not a product of the poker boom, having already won his first bracelet back in 1999.   The Atlanta, Georgia resident continued to travel the circuit for more than a decade, racking up numerous notable fi...

Garrett Adelstein is a high-stakes professional poker player best known for being a regular on live-streamed cash games. The Tucson, Arizona native and University of Arizona graduate has made a name for himself with superb play on shows such as Poker After Dark, Live At The Bike, and Hustler Casino Live.   The 35-year-old was seemingly born to be in front of a camera, having also been cast on the...

Toby Lewis got a very early start in poker, picking up the game as a teenager and learning ups and downs of gambling from his father. He was just 20 years old when he broke out on the live tournament circuit, winning the EPT Vilamoura main event for nearly $600,000. He continued to travel the circuit for the next several years with numerous close calls, including final tables at the PokerStars Car...

Mike Watson has been one of the more consistent tournament performers over his 15-year poker career, having racked up more than $12.5 million on the circuit. The St. Johns, Newfoundland native broke out in 2008, winning the WPT Bellagio Cup main event for nearly $1.7 million. In addition to numerous final tables on the high roller circuit, he also took down the 2016 EPT PokerStars Caribbean Advent...

Mark Herm is a longtime professional poker player from Philadelphia who found the game in high school and has spent the last 15 years piling up results. Known as 'Dipthrong,' he has racked up more than $5 million online and was among the highest ranked players in the world for a time. Most recently, Herm became the first player to ever win a bracelet in the inaugural WSOP Online series in Pennsylv...

Fedor Holz is just 28 years old but has already put together one of the most impressive tournament résumés in poker history. The German phenom seemingly came out of nowhere in 2015 to tear up the high roller circuit, but he had already reached the highest levels online before making the transition to live play, and in fact was at one point ranked no. 1 in the world. In 2014, he banked $1.3 million...

Joe Stapleton got his start in the poker world at Card Player, working the WSOP while on hiatus from his job at Mad TV. The Albany, New York native then moved on to other projects, including writing and podcasting, and commentating work for a number of poker broadcasts and TV shows.   Over the years, Stapleton has become a jack-of-all-trades voice for PokerStars, hosting shows such as The Big Game...

Lex Veldhuis was a gamer from an early age, and found poker shortly after the boom thanks to his friends in the StarCraft community. He quickly shot up the ranks, and it wasn't long before he was traveling the world, playing in some of the biggest buy-in tournaments and cash games available. He was even more prolific online, where he achieved SuperNova Elite status three years in a row. His play c...

Kristy Arnett Moreno and Andrew Moreno met in college and simultaneously fell in love with each other and the game of poker. Together they made the move from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Las Vegas with the dream of making it in the poker world.   Kristy landed a job in poker media, and almost immediately made an impact, interviewing some of the best players in the world both on camera and in print for C...

Martin Jacobson found poker as a teenager, but his initial aspirations were focused on becoming a chef. After serving a year in the Royal Swedish Navy feeding the crew of a battleship, the Stockholm-native continued his culinary career while playing poker on the side. After turning a satellite win into a third-place finish at the 2008 EPT Budapest main event for $247,668, Jacobson was off and runn...

Bernard Lee first learned the game from his father, and then later started playing more seriously while at Harvard University, but the Julliard-trained pianist spent years working as a marketing manager before he decided to make poker his focus and profession.   In 2005, Lee made his first trip to the World Series of Poker, and was featured in ESPN's coverage of the main event for his 13th-place f...

Patrik Antonius started playing online poker in 1999, and was almost immediately competing at the highest-stakes available. The Finnish pro then broke out on the tournament circuit in 2005, winning an EPT main event and finishing second in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $1.04 million. Although he has always preferred cash games to tournaments, the former tennis standout and model has...

Ali Imsirovic is just 26 years old, but has already established himself as a dominant force on the high roller circuit. The Bosnia-born, Washington-raised poker pro broke out in 2018 when he captured the purple jacket at the Poker Masters, and in the time since has gone on to rack up numerous final tables and wins totaling almost $11 million in cashes.   Last August, Imsirovic broke the record for...

Lee Markholt has been a professional poker player for the last three decades, competing in some of the biggest cash games around while racking up $4.4 million in live tournament earnings along the way. The Washington native had aspirations to continue the family business of bull riding, but a long string of injuries ultimately derailed his career. Fortunately for Markholt, he found his father's po...