Among the thousands of players hoping to win poker's biggest prize (first place pays $8.94 million) is a healthy contingent from the Philadelphia area. Their Phillies caps and Eagles jerseys make them easy to spot in the Rio casino's massive poker rooms.
In fact, you could pick out Port Richmond's Kenneth Smaron as a Philly guy even without his Roy Halladay T-shirt. He has a Phillies logo tattooed on his arm and some Eagles ink on his chest.
Smaron, 25, scrapped his way through his Main Event Day 1 on Tuesday, finishing with about 20,000 chips (each player began with 30,000, and the winner has to capture all the chips in play).
Once a chronically losing sports gambler, Smaron found himself deep in debt while an undergraduate at Temple. After discovering poker, the North Catholic alumnus managed to dig himself out of what he said was a six-figure financial hole and now keeps his sports betting moderate.
"Lesson learned," Smaron said.
Primarily an online poker guy, Smaron is typical of players in their 20s who have learned the game in front of a computer rather than in live games. Earlier in the week, 21-year old Villanova senior Dan Kelly won $1.3 million and a coveted WSOP gold bracelet in six-handed, no-limit hold 'em, a faster-paced variant.
On Tuesday, one of Kelly's friends and fellow online ace, Mark Herm, who grew up in Newtown Square, busted out just before the tourney broke for the day after taking a bad beat that battered his chip stack.
For many players, exiting the Main Event is their worst playing day of year. But Herm, 24, seemed unfazed. The Archbishop Carroll graduate has made enough money in online poker to stake other Internet players and had a financial interest in more than a dozen other Main Event entrants.
