After four years of self-training, several twists of fate and a little gambling luck, John Stolzmann, the 23-year-old UW-Madison senior-turned-poker-whiz, won $1,465,944 playing cards at the World Poker Open tournament Thursday night in Tunica, Miss.
Though Stolzmann plans to \get into law school in the fall of '06,"" he ""was going to play poker professionally for a year regardless of how this tournament went,"" according to Steve Stolzmann, John's father.
Lucky for him, it went pretty well. Had any of the events changed leading up to the tournament, however, chances are Stolzmann might not have even been present at what
www.pokerpages.com says ""may have been the toughest ever WPT final table that included Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen and Chau Giang.""
Also an accomplished poker player, the elder Stolzmann was awarded the $3,000 entry fee for the tournament in Tunica before his son even knew he was going. After Stolzmann's mother declined his offer to go to the tournament, Steve naturally ""wanted to take Johnny,"" he said.
Because of Stolzmann's class conflicts, his father then asked some of his fellow firefighters to accompany him, further removing Stolzmann's chances of entering the competition.
But when they also were unable to go, a reluctant Stolzmann, his girlfriend Jayde Tran, who is a professional poker player, and his father drove early to Tunica for the ""$3,000 buy-in event"" that Saturday morning, his father said.
After securing a seat for this expensive tournament, Stolzmann and his father agreed if they won enough to compensate for the pricey entrance fee, they would split the leftover winnings.
When Tran, Stolzmann and his father-who nearly placed-were exempted from the tournament relatively early on, however, the chances that any would place in the competition looked grim.
Nevertheless, the three discovered a ""$1,000 satellite to win a seat in the main event,"" and Stolzmann secured a seat in the main competition-the World Poker Tournament.
""I was playing against world-class players, so I couldn't believe I beat them all,"" Stolzmann told The Daily Cardinal. ""I kind of felt weak in the knees as soon as it happened and didn't really fully realize it maybe until the money got into my bank account.""
""I was really proud ... and I don't believe that I could have played as well as he played,"" Stolzmann's father said of his son's victory. ""It really made me see how good he is.""
Despite a few initial bouts with fate, some camera-shyness and intimidation, Stolzmann said he ""was there to win it,"" and he did.
