ST. PAUL, Minn. – You thought your Spring Break was fun?
Mike Schneider, a student at the University of Minnesota, returned to campus this week with a story no one could beat. He spent last week on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, winning $1 million playing poker.
A soft-spoken journalism student with a good memory and math skills, Schneider, 22, beat out veteran poker players for the top prize in the PartyPoker.com Million V tournament, a competition that bills itself as the world’s largest Limit Texas Hold’em contest.
Schneider, from Eagan, Minn., is a regular at the Canterbury Park Card Club and uses poker to pay his way through school. The PartyPoker.com gig was his second high-stakes tournament.
When he boarded the PartyPoker ship, he wasn’t planning to play, Schneider said.
He had gone with a few friends who qualified for the tournament by playing online.
“I did not initially intend to play in the tournament, but once on the boat, I decided I wanted to,” Schneider stated in an e-mail, . “So I bought in directly and sold some of my action to some friends, too.”
High-stakes poker has exploded. Celebrity players have helped make it sexy, and television broadcasts have brought it to a huge new audience. College-aged students are among the fastest-growing player group.
While big-dollar tournaments have mushroomed the past five years, it’s still unusual to have someone as young as Schneider win so much so quickly.
As successes go, “it’s a pretty big one,” said Jerry Fuller, vice president of operations at Canterbury Park Card Club in Shakopee, Minn.
Schneider said he began playing poker in home games with friends four years ago during Spring Break.
“We all enjoyed the experience and continued playing with each other until we went off to college, and then I began playing some online, too,” he said. “I enjoy the challenge of poker and am very competitive.”
Patience, logic, math and observation skills helped him become a solid poker player, he said.
“He’s kind of a quiet kid,” said Kathy Schneider, his mother. “I think he’s a smart boy.
“I knew he was going (to the tournament) but, no, I did not expect this. I’m still kind of shocked.”
In a PartyPoker.com press release, Schneider said he wasn’t sure he’d make it past the first three hands on the second day of the tournament. He said he had two dreams: “one that I would bust out” and a second that he’d rally.
“That second dream was pretty close,” he said. “But I sure didn’t have a dream that foresaw a million dollars!”
Schneider expects he’ll get about $600,000 of the $1 million after taxes.
“My cut will be less than that because I owe some people money due to them taking a cut of my action in this tournament,” he told the Pioneer Press.
He graduates this year and hopes to play poker for a year or two afterward. Getting a degree is a backup plan “to ensure I have a variety of options throughout life.”
