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Jordan Young talks to Nic Manion, another Muskegon poker player, about the hand that made Manion the WSOP Main Event chip leader on Wednesday.
Detroit News
Muskegon's Nic Manion will receive a seven-figure salary for his World Series of Poker Main Event at the final table. (Photo: WSOP)
Like many poker players its C is the year when a professional amateur / accountant named Chris Moneymaker won a place in the World Series of Poker Main Event via a $ 86 satellite tournament – and then went on to win it all, including the $ 2.5 million first prize.
Moneymaker is a fairy tale nowhere, fairy tale – combined, of course, with the perfect C & # 39; s is the beginning of the modern "poker boom", with the jump of 839 from the. Moneymaker year at 2,576 the following year, then 5,619 and 8,773 the next two years.
Quite simply, poker has not been the same since.
"Manion did not hurt me either"
"I broke my leg during the last race of our snowmobile series, and I watched poker on TV", said Manion during a recent interview. with the news from Detroit. "I was thinking," Well, that's silly, why is it on TV? "
" Then I ended up watching eight o'clock that day. "
For a year, Manion devoured poker on television.
Finally, he made the trip to Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mount Pleasant and bought $ 75 at a $ 3 limit table at 6. $
"I turned it into $ 300," said Manion, "and that's how addiction began."
Manion, 35, who grew up in Big Rapids and now lives in Muskegon, writes his own story Cinderella, as one of the last six remaining players in the 2018 Main Event. Despite a slight pullback on the eighth day of Thursday night, Manion enters the second action Friday night in chips and in a pretty decent position to become the fourth Michigan native to win the Main Event after Ryan Riess of Clarkston (2013), Shelby Joe Cada of Township (2009) and Tom McEvoy of Grand Rapids (1983).
Cada, remarkably, is also alive in this year's Main Event, m me if the second shortest stack came into play Friday night at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
"That did not really touch me," says Manion after a night of throwing and sleeper ahead of the first day of the final table
"Go with your instinct"
Manion is already guaranteed a salary of at least $ 1.8 million, sixth place. The salary jumps for each elimination become more substantial from now on
It's life-changing money, especially when you consider Manion's figures, he has never won more of $ 30,000 a year – it's just three times the buy-in of the Main Event. He was a factor in 2007-08 before being fired. And his life has been around poker since. He started playing poker in a charity room at Great Lakes Downs in Muskegon, earning $ 50 per shift. He took this money during his days off and bought local tournaments, live or online. Then, when he ran out of money, he would come back to $ 50 a night.
When he wins the Main Event, the first place pays $ 8.8 million. To put this in perspective, it would have taken 176,000 game card changes to earn this reward.
"It was weird because usually I watch the Main Event on TV, and you see people coming out, and then the money (payout) next to their name," Manion said. "
"It's the reality."
Nic Manion, center with blue hat, poses with the other members of the final table of the WSOP Main Event. (Photo: WSOP)
The Manion race to date is more remarkable than that of a man from western Michigan with three dogs warming themselves at the tables for a week in Vegas.
Consider this: It's not even He was certain that he would come to Vegas a few days ago – he had to make sure his father could watch his three dogs, an English Bulldog, a Boston Terrier and a French Bulldog. That's only when Dad confirmed that Manion bought his plane ticket.
He was traveling to Las Vegas because a Muskegon boyfriend had offered him a satellite tournament – a smaller and cheaper tournament, where prices are higher, more expensive
Manion's was a mega-satellite of $ 2,175, and he won a seat at the Main Event – but Manion and his boyfriend decided to sell this $ 10,000, for-profit seat, which is common leads you. But Manion then went into another satellite and quickly dropped to 5000 chips in the 500/1000 blind levels. Yet, remarkably, he rallied and won a Main Event seat there too, and this time he decided to use it.
Like this second satellite, the Main Event, its first WSOP event, did not start well. While he was getting up to about 100,000 early, he got cold when his right was crushed by a full house. That made him fall to 20,000 on day 1. He was at 11,000 chips, starting from a starting stack of 50,000 chips, on day 2.
More: A Once considered lucky, the poker community Cada's game
Then, slowly but surely, his fortune began to turn – with a little luck, and some impressive game. His most notable decision came at the end of Day 6 – after dinner break, where he was doing the Vegas home laundry of his poker buddy, Jordan Young, a native of Muskegon, since Manion did not think he was packing enough for a Extended Main Event. The suitcase count included five T-shirts, two pairs of sneakers, two pairs of regular shorts and eight days of underwear and socks. He was in Vegas for 13 days
Back to the pivotal hand of Day 6: Facing a big raise, he folded pocket kings – the second best hand in poker – after being convinced of the size of his opponent. have pocket ace. Manion's intuition was correct, and he saved his tournament life and advanced to the final three tables. (Aces ended up losing against three, which became a trip trip on the flop.)
Professional poker players can usually count on one hand – some on a finger – how many times they have already folded kings , fiasco. Manion called it an easy decision.
"When you have that feeling that it's not a good situation," he says, "then you have to go with your instinct."
Kings would play soon An even more important role in the Manion Main Event.
With 10 players at the end of Wednesday's night and the top nine guaranteed seven-digit payers, Manion kept his stack of decent sized chips, playing very few hands
That's it to say, until he wakes up to pocket aces. Facing a stack of the smallest stack of the table, Yueqi Zhu, Manion also pushed all his chips in the middle – and, incredibly, was called by another player, Antoine Labat.
The players turned their hands – and both Zhu and Labat had pocket kings, leaving Manion more than a 95 percent favorite to win the hand even before the flop was exhausted. This hand, now the conversation of the poker world, left Manion as the chip leader at the top of the final table, broke Zhu and left Labat in the short stack (he escaped to ninth place) [19659042] Nic Manion watches the cards run on his victories ” width=”540″ height=”405″ data-mycapture-src=”https://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/2018/07/13/DetroitNews/DetroitNews/636670734038109205-MANFEATURE2.png” data-mycapture-sm-src=”https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/230a4c1ddce7114bbd69df83ad4649a2e014f159/r=500×304/local/-/media/2018/07/13/DetroitNews/DetroitNews/636670734038109205-MANFEATURE2.png”/>
Nic Manion watches the exhausted cards on his winning hand late on Day 7, which makes him the chip leader. (Photo: WSOP)
"We were hoping to make the final nine with only 30 million chips just blinding," Manion said with a laugh. "It was just my goal."
"It's just crazy how it all happened."
Instead of his goal of 30 million chips, Manion – who returned to Young's home that night, had hundreds of Facebook notifications and He started playing Thursday with over 100 million chips and he experienced Thursday a difficult day, with 72.25 million chips. – but more than 80 million chips behind the overwhelming leader, Michael Dyer.
"What's going on?"
The championship is the end of the race, of course, but it is worth noting The friend who bought Manion in the satellite tournaments, Jeremy Martin, also a native of Muskegon, will receive half of his winnings and Damon Chittenden, another friend of the city, will receive 3% (they traded a piece of their Main Event winnings), and a fel low poker professional bought for a half-percent for $ 60. (This half-point is now worth at least $ 9,000.) Manion keeps the remaining 46.5% in a fairly standard arrangement for a tournament as expensive as the $ 10,000 Main Event
Manion does not. not yet seen a penny, aside from $ 8,000, for wearing poker site patches on his shirts during the game show.
You do not receive any of your poker winnings until you are eliminated, so for him, he will wait until Saturday night or early Sunday morning, when the champion should be crowned – the last player standing in a tournament that started with 7.874
Box: How do you receive such big winnings, anyway? Manion says that you can actually ask for money, but most players at this point get it most of the time in a bank transfer.
"I'd like to make it a bed," says Manion laughingly, "take the picture."
After that, he plans to start investing, with particularly focused views on the subject. real estate – the husband of his sister is a builder. And, of course, he intends to continue playing poker, the same issues that he has played in recent years. OK, maybe a little higher stakes.
It's a subject for another day, though. For now, he will continue to enjoy this ride of a lifetime – a race even more exhilarating than those snowmobiles that he loves to run home in western Michigan. His sister joined him in Las Vegas, and several other friends were also making the impromptu trip to cheer Manion off his rail inside the Penn and Teller Theater in Rio
"And I have just had another boyfriend who sent me a text message "Manion said. "He says, 'Hey, I'm in Las Vegas on a job: what's going on?'
Oh, you know, just playing a game – a game that does not seem so silly anymore.
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