Released by TruePoker on Jan 18th, 2006
SMHS graduate big in online poker tournament
By Jennifer Warner - Features Reporter
Posted by: San Marcos Daily Record on Sunday, Jan 29, 2006 - 10:10:55 am CST
Jeremy Warshauer has never been to Las Vegas and has never set foot inside a casino. He's not even old enough to gamble in some states.
The 2004 San Marcos High School graduate learned to play poker in high school but never played it regularly until college. On Jan. 14, Warshauer, placed second in a truepoker.com online poker tournament in which the top three finishers earned the right to play at the annual World Series of Poker, to be held this summer at Harrah's Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
But at only 19, the Harvard sophomore is not old enough to participate in the tournament. In Nevada, the legal age for all forms of gambling, from playing slots to placing bets, is 21.
Because of his age, Warshauer was offered the cash equivalent for his seat in the tournament - $10,000. In November, as a way to foster the already infamous Harvard-Yale rivalry, truepoker.com sponsored a tournament between the two universities the same weekend as the Harvard-Yale football game. The winner received a seat in truepoker.com's World Series of Poker Super Satellite tournament.
It was a Yale student who told Warshauer about the tournament. On a whim he entered, feeling confident he could hold his own.
“I thought I could finish in the top five or so because the players weren't that strong,” Warshauer said. “They don't take it quite as seriously so I figured I had a pretty good chance.”
He did more than hold his own. Out of approximately 50 people, Warshauer took first place and was given a free spot in truepoker.com's online tournament. Everything was free at the Harvard-Yale clash and not actual money was bet but the Super Satellite tournament cost other players more than $1,000 to enter. If Warshauer had no won the Harvard-Yale tournament, he would not have entered the Super Satellite contest. He said that $1,000 is a lot to spend on a one-in-thirteen chance to win $10,000.
So when Jan. 14 arrived, Warshauer's roommates and neighbors crowded into his dorm room to watch as he played hand after hand in his biggest tournament to date. The boost of confidence that came from his November win did not hold out.
“I didn't think I would because I had never played big, multi-table tournaments. There's never any certainty. You never know how the cards are going to be or how the players are going to act.”
In an attempt to decrease his odds of coming out of the tournament empty-handed, Warshauer asked friends to invest in him. Five people offered up money, usually between $50 and $100, and in return he promised them a portion of his potential winnings. If he had lost, Warshauer would have still come out ahead.
Investing in his success gave Warshauer's friends and neighbors a stake in the game, so they crowded around his computer screen for four hours to watch the competition, encouraging him when he was behind and cheering each time he won a hand.
And his neighbors are not likely to find a better investment than what he was offering. One friend gave him $50 up front with the potential to win $1,000. Another supplied $100 and ended up $2,000 richer.
In total Warshauer owes his friends $5,000 of his prize but he said he does not really regret signing away half of his winnings.
“I don't regret it all that much. It was good, all of us kind of got a lot out of it. They were there supporting me the whole time, cheering me on and watching me play. It was good to have them there. Afterward you're like ‘that's $5,000 that could have been mine,' but it was probable that I wouldn't have won at all. I'm happy to take my $5,000 and my roommates have their's and we get to celebrate together.”
His first year in college Warshauer tried to start an official university poker club but Harvard would not support it because the city of Cambridge, Mass. does not allow games of chance. Truepoker.com offers a free, downloadable software on which poker connoisseurs can play for real or fake money.
Playing in an online tournament, Warshauer did learn the advantages and disadvantages of not seeing your opponents face-to-face. He said it was good that he could get comfortable and not have to worry about putting on a poker face but he didn't have the opportunity to read the other players and try to guess their hand. Online poker forces the player to rely more on the cards.
Because he is not yet 21, Warshauer was not given the opportunity to choose between the World Series bid and the money but he said that he had been he would still have taken the money.
“It's always nice to have cash in your pocket versus putting it on the table and letting it try to ride. I've never had this much in my life so it's nice.”
Warshauer plans on saving most of his prize, though he said he will probably set aside a few hundred to gamble with. He currently has no firm plans to visit Las Vegas, though he said he knows he will go there someday but probably not until after he turns 21.
