$10K credit card gamble pays off with WSOP Main Event cash

Players successful the World Series of Poker Main Event unexpectedly reached the wealth precocious connected Day 3 and didn’t person to interest astir going location empty-handed connected Day 4 connected Friday.

Nobody astir apt slept much soundly than Joe Marincola.

The 36-year-old from Philadelphia bought into the $10,000 No-limit Hold’em World Championship with a recognition card, and helium held connected to fastener up astatine slightest $15,000 aboriginal Friday by being among the last 1,000 players successful the Main Event astatine the Rio.

He was inactive live with 465 players near astatine the meal interruption Friday evening, present guaranteed astatine slightest $26,700 and inactive successful with a changeable astatine the $8 cardinal archetypal prize.

His gamble connected a recognition paper with nary involvement for 18 months paid off.

“I don’t adjacent person the wealth for this,” said Marincola, a landlord and bartender. “I invented this wealth retired of bladed air.”

Marincola said helium plays successful a poker nine with 20 guys called Liberio’s Legends. They clasp a year-round outer tourney strategy to nonstop 1 subordinate to the Main Event.

Marincola finished second.

“It was heartbreaking,” helium said. “That was a beauteous down moment, but I was conscionable determined to travel present and springiness it a changeable connected my own.”

After securing the buy-in with the recognition card, Marincola mislaid fractional his stack connected Day 1, falling to 30,500 chips. He built to 91,900 entering Day 3, inactive successful 1,731st spot retired of 2,362 remaining.

Marincola calls himself a “nit” (a tight, blimpish player) who knows however to play a abbreviated stack. He showed that by surviving connected Day 3 contempt hardly expanding his stack to 94,000, portion keeping successful changeless interaction with his excited parents and friends backmost home.

The apical 1,000 finishers successful the Main Event made the wealth from a tract of 6,650. Players weren’t expected to scope that threshold earlier Day 4, but it became wide precocious Thursday that the wealth bubble would get adjacent to the designated quitting time.

After much than an hr of huddling with his unit portion watching the timepiece and the decreasing fig of remaining players, WSOP vice president Jack Effel announced that the tract would play to the wealth that nighttime alternatively of bringing backmost a fewer abbreviated stacks for Day 4.

On the bubble, the WSOP uses a hand-for-hand format successful which each the tables play 1 manus and hold to spot if determination are immoderate eliminations earlier immoderate array plays a 2nd hand. (The format is utilized to forestall players from being incentivized to discarded clip successful hopes that players astatine different array volition bust.)

The process of eliminating the past 5 players to get to 1,000 took astir an hr and a half.

Finally, astatine 1:25 a.m., Kevin Campbell had his pouch aces cracked by the ace-nine of Chris Alafogiannis, who made travel nines connected the river. The WSOP said Campbell volition person a spot into adjacent year’s Main Event, the accepted consolation prize for the past subordinate to decorativeness retired of the money.

Kyle Arora was the spot person astatine the meal interruption Friday with astir 3.2 cardinal successful chips, according to WSOP.com. Norbert Koh and Chance Kornuth each had astir 3 million.

Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 Main Event champion, was successful 18th with 1.9 million. Jessica Cai held the spot pb entering Day 4 with astir 1.8 cardinal successful chips and inactive had astir 1 cardinal Friday evening.

Marincola said helium got down to a meager 14,000 (barely 1 large blind) connected Friday earlier gathering up to implicit 600,000. He inactive had a workable stack of 395,000 astatine the meal break.

Moneymaker’s Cinderella tally to the rubric arsenic a amateur subordinate helped ignite the mid-2000s poker boom, and Marincola had his ain movie successful mind.

“I’m from Philly, truthful ‘Rocky,’ right?” helium said. “You instrumentality your shot, and that’s what I’m doing here.”

Contact Jim Barnes astatine jbarnes@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV connected Twitter.