Tricky Sam, Living the Poker Dream

If I asked you to name the most successful English Poker pro, measured by amount won, who would be your guess?

Roland de Wolfe, who swept all before him for a few years before retiring? No, he's 3rd in the list.

The great Dave Ulliott, aka DevilFish? Almost. 2nd place belongs to Dave, who tragically passed away in April of last year.

In fact, if we tot up the combined winnings of 2nd and 3rd, it barely comes close to the amount won by Sam Trickett, who has a jaw-dropping $20 million in live tournament winnings. You may ask why it is measured in USD, not sterling, but that's how Poker works, and is another story for another day.

Is life good for Sam, who goes by the nick of "Tricky Sam"? Just a bit.

Let me ask you another question - where have your travels taken you in 2016? I've been to Luton, Leeds, Leicester and London. And Sam? Well if you take a look at his Twitter feed, so far in 2016 he has visited Australia, Dubai, India, and is currently in Vietnam, of all places. On his rare visits to his Retford Notts home this year, he has played Poker at Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, who he supports, and in Nottingham where he has a private high stakes Poker room named in his honour - Trickett's Room. I really don't like to dip too often into the tired cliché bag, but what a life.

Remarkably, he never set out to do well at Poker, football was his first love. He had huge potential, but admits he never applied himself and before he could really get started, he snapped a cruciate ligament, and that was that. He remains a football fanatic to this day, and when I interviewed him at the WSOP in Las Vegas last year, he admitted he would swap all his Poker successes to have made it as a professional footballer.   

He soon found Poker, and he was a regular on the low-ball Midlands circuit, playing tenner rebuys in Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield. 

Not for long though, within a year, he had his break-through win in Luton, scooping a 6 figure sum. Within the next 3 years, he amassed no less than three 7 figure wins, in Melbourne, Australia and Cannes, France. I can't actually think of too many British Poker pros who have that many 7 figure wins.

It gets better though - in 2012, he finished 2nd in the One Drop event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, collecting a whopping $10.1 million. Think most of us could cope with 10 milly for finishing 2nd. The winner for $18 million was Antonio Esfandiari, with the self-styled Poker brat and multi WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth in 4th. Cirque du Soleil owner Guy Laliberte and legendary high roller Richard Yong, both of whom featured in last week's article, also collected tidy place money.

He has gone a little quiet on the live Poker scene of late, with no recorded cashes in over 12 months, but that's because he follows the global high stakes cash games in Las Vegas, Macau and the Philippines. The sit down (the minimum amount you can enter the game with) in these games is as much as $5 million.

He reportedly signed a deal in January of this year to be Brand Ambassador of a Poker site in India, which is virgin territory for online Poker, though that's all gone a little quiet now.

He also represents the London Royals in something called the Global Poker League, which sets out to popularise Poker globally via an online league, with the teams headed by the big name stars of Poker. His team includes Liv Boeree as captain, Vanessa Selbst, online multi triple-crown winner Chris Moorman, and the ever endearing and popular Justin Bonomo, who only this week took down a side event at the Monaco finale of the European Poker Tour. 

What is Sam like as a person? Good looking boy, solidly built, used to be a bit full of himself as a teenager - as any kid with talent might well be - but he's matured wonderfully, and these days he combines humility and humour to great effect, and is rarely seen without a smile on his face. I guess most of us would smile in his spot, but humility is a rare trait in one so stunningly successful. As you might expect, he enjoys the trappings of his success, including a gorgeous red Ferrari - A Ferrari MUST be red, surely? - and a beautiful young lady on his arm who travels the globe with him.

One of my yardsticks for assessing the character of a Poker player is how they react to losing. I like to see a player react with dignity in defeat, show a bit of class. How does Sam fare in that department? Well take a look yourself. Sam played in the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships, when he got it all-in with the somewhat modest looking 9 high. Commentary is by Richard Orford and Sam "The Squid" Grafton.

It's a very long road from £10 rebuys in Leicester to a $10 million payday in Las Vegas, and one which very few have travelled, but Sam has done it, and done it in style.

You played it just great, Sam.