The World Series of Poker will always have its neon names, the bracelet collectors, the high-stakes wizards, and the folks who can make a $50,000 buy-in sound as boring as an Allen Kessler lunch order. That’s part of the circus, and Lord knows we love the circus.
But the real WSOP, the whole weird-ass machine is more than a Google Sheet with great lighting. The real WSOP is made up of the yahoos, dreamers, and degens you might not know yet.
Somewhere out in the middle of the big WSOP floor, this year there is at least one person you'll be talking about for years to come. This week, we've met a couple folks who are getting close.
Prescription: poker
Alex Ho is fresh out of optometry school and 27 years old. He's already got his degree in his back pocket and could start working in that job today today. But once he got his degree, his poker dream was still sitting right there in front of him like a dare.
And so he made a plan to give poker a shot, and now he's about to start his first WSOP final table. It's a proof of concept that he's proving much faster than he could have anticipated.
Alexander Ho, WSOP 2026.
One trip a month
Then there’s Dayanna Sabaton, who had her whole next chapter mapped out. She retired with her husband. She sold her business. Sold the house in Florida, too. She was planning a trip around the world.
And then came the bad beat. Someone in her family got sick, and so the plan changed. She moved out to Colorado to take care of the important stuff. While she was there, she worked it out: she would take one poker trip a month. It wasn't traveling all over the world, but it was something.
This month, that trip was to Las Vegas, and wouldn't you know it? She made Day 4 of the Monster Stack.
That’s the WSOP I went to the first time back in 2003. That's my kind of WSOP.
There have always been big dogs and champions. There have always been world crushers and Hall-of-Fame shoe-ins. But they've always been surrounded by the dreamers with degrees, retirees looking for a fun second act, and people you'd only notice in the grocery store if they started waving around a WSOP bracelet in the produce aisle.
And the great thing about the WSOP is that any of those people could be wearing a bracelet before they go back back home to real life.
