Dean, 24, of The Woodlands, recently placed seventh in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, earning $675,000 in his first tournament against Qiu Qiu Online Terpercaya veteran players.
His big winnings all began with a $32 stake.
“It cost me $32 to win the entry fee online,” Dean said.
The World Series of Poker has a $10,000 entry fee; last year’s tourney winner, accountant Chris Moneymaker (yes, the name is real) brought the game to broader popularity because he qualified in an online tournament.
“Texas Hold ‘Em,” as played in the World Series of Poker, is a no-limit game where a player can risk all his chips with every draw of a card, guaranteeing high-stakes action.
Dean, the son of Rick and Heather Dean of The Woodlands, was one of the youngest players in the tournament. A 1998 graduate of Oak Ridge High Qiu Qiu Online Terpercaya School and a member of its varsity tennis team, he graduated last year from Southwestern University in Georgetown with a degree in accounting.
He was introduced to “Texas Hold ‘Em” in college.
“I played for pennies at my frat house,” he said. “The guys would get together on Wednesday nights; and as we got more into the game, we’d bet more.”
Then last summer, Dean and his best friend went to Columbia, S.C., home of the University of South Carolina, hoping to make some Qiu Qiu Online Terpercaya summer cash as waiters.
“We were both overqualified and underqualified,” Dean said. “We couldn’t find jobs, so we started playing poker online and won about $1,000, which was enough money for the summer.”
After spending the fall semester in law school and determining that being an attorney wasn’t for him, Dean came back to The Woodlands and got a long-term math tutoring job at ORHS.
“One of the kids I was tutoring told me about (entering the online qualifying tournament),” he said. “It seemed so far out of reach, but I thought it’d be amazing.
“Here I am now.”
The odds that Dean could make it past the qualifying round seemed remote; this year, a record 2,576 people entered the tournament. Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, a patent Qiu Qiu Online Terpercaya lawyer from Connecticut, walked away from the table Friday as the tournament’s $5 million grand-prize winner.
“It was pressure packed,” Dean said of his six days of tournament play in Vegas. “It was exhausting. We played 14 to 16 hours a day. You’re stuck sitting in the room.”
There’s a lot of luck and a lot of strategy involved in “Texas Hold ‘Em,” but Dean may have given himself a psychological edge over the competition.
“I was the least-experienced player there,” he said. “I made a list of reasons why I thought I would win. One was, ‘I want it more than the other players.’
“Once I kept moving up, I wanted to win the darned thing to say I won.”
Now $675,000 richer, Dean is taking all of two weeks off before he begins an alternative certification course to get his teaching certificate. He hopes to teach at his alma mater, Oak Ridge High School.
“Teaching’s always been in my Qiu Qiu Online Terpercaya blood, and I would love to coach tennis,” he said. “Six hundred seventy-five thousand dollars helps a lot. It makes that decision (to teach) a lot smarter.”
So far, Dean’s plans for his winnings are to put them into savings. He does want to try to get into a few more poker tournaments to “see how it goes,” he said.
And knowing that his students probably will ask him about his poker win, Dean has some words of advice for them or anyone tempted to play for high stakes.
“You always have to be careful with gambling,” he said. “Play with only the money you can afford to lose. There is a chance of getting hooked. I don’t let it consume my life. That’s the good thing about poker; it’s more of a skill game. It’s a lot of strategy.
“I guess I did maybe better than the average bear.”
