Outfielder to Chip Leader: Seth Davies Among Top Stacks in $2,500 NLHE
Like many poker players, Black Friday left Seth Davies with a quandary. After a college baseball career fell through due to injury, he’d been playing online for a few years and found success. Now there were some big decisions to make. Abandon poker for another way of life? Leave friends and family behind for another country? Move on simply to playing live cash games and tournaments?
There was no easy option. Originally from Bend, Oregon, Davies eventually packed up his laptop and jetted off to continue his online poker life. From 2011 to 2016, Davies was a poker-playing nomad. He spent his first six months in Canada, but soon headed for a warmer climate – six months in Panama.
Then it was back to Canada for a year before settling in Playa del Carmen, Mexico for the next three years. During his time south of the border, Davies says his Spanish improved and he also met his fiancée. It wasn’t a bad getaway – winning poker, a tropical climate, and beautiful beaches. All that and a bit of romance, meeting his future bride.
Diamonds to Felt
After coming into Day 3 as chip leader in the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event, Davies was in good shape for a final table appearance. The day began with a bit of a struggle but he continued to build, and by mid-afternoon was among the final 16 players remaining.
“It's been exciting,” he says. “I've played a lot of big pots. I doubled up two short stacks earlier, which was unfortunate. But later I was able to knock one of those out, so I got some chips back.”
Several years before living and playing poker full-time in Sin City, Davies played another game in Las Vegas. In high school, he excelled at baseball and also played football and basketball. His prowess on the diamond led him to the College of Southern Nevada hoping for a nice collegiate career. That dream died pretty quickly however.
“I had two elbow surgeries in back-to-back years,” he says. “So I couldn't practice. I had nothing to do for six months at a time while I was recovering from surgery. This was when you could still play online poker in the U.S., and I had a bunch of time to kill.”
While the former outfielder admits he could have thrown himself more into his studies, Davies soon found he preferred tossing chips on the felt to tossing a baseball on the diamond.
He says laughing: “Studying isn’t quite as fun as playing poker.”
Vegas Bound
Now back to the U.S. and living in Sin City, Davies plays tournament poker for a living and things seem to be going well. For the last year and half, he’s stepped into the world of high roller events, accumulating some nice finishes. That includes several final tables in the last year.
“It's been going well,” he says. “The buy-ins are huge, so the swings are pretty ridiculous. It's been all right. But it's always nice to come back here to smaller stakes WSOP tournaments and have a shot at huge money.”
Davies’s biggest win to date came in 2016 in the $3,500 WPT Canadian Spring Championship at the Playground Poker Club for $203,992. He also scored a huge runner-up finish that same year at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in the $5,250 No Limit Hold'em Championship for $575,000.
As players advanced into the afternoon, Davies continued to chip up and stay among the leaders. Playing huge fields of players he doesn’t know comes with challenges, he said, and has to approach events like this one differently than those high rollers he plays at the Aria.
“In the high rollers I'm going to know pretty much every player for the most part – the player pool is pretty small,” he says. “In a tournament like this that's so huge, I know almost no players. So It's about being more fundamentally sound, not trying to make a mistake yourself first.”
How would it feel to win his first bracelet? Either way, the hunt remains fun after almost a decade in the game.
“It would be incredible,” he says. “I've wanted a bracelet as long as I've been playing poker. I've been playing at the World Series since 2010. Every year it's just exciting to come back here and try to win one.”
Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas. His work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions. He is also the host of the True Gambling Stories podcast, available on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, PokerNews.com, HoldemRadio.com, and TrueGamblingStories.com.
