Trevor Tracy's Journey from Backroom Chip Boy to PokerStars Qualifier
In the 1970s, long before the Poker Boom, online qualifier Trevor Tracy was introduced to poker in the same sort of dingy backroom games that iconic players like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim were becoming legends in.
While these games were in Arizona and not Texas, and Tracy was a chip-runner, not a player, they instilled in Tracy a deep passion for the game that's stayed with him for nearly half a century.
“My neighbor used to run all the illegal poker rooms in Phoenix back in the ‘70s," Tracy told PokerNews. "So I was chipboy when I was like 10 years old. So I’ve been around poker for 45 years. The neighbor was a gangster who owned like ten poker houses in Phoenix."
"It was cool. My allowance was like $2 a week and I’d make $100 a night there. It was great.”
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These days, Tracy, now based in Pittsburgh, travels the live circuit and plays everywhere from his home state of Arizona to up north in Ontario. He started playing online a year ago and "play(s) a lot of satellites," which is how he won his seat into the $600 Kickoff Event at the PokerStars 2024 Maryland State Poker Championship.
He's only played at Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland once before but it proved to be a fruitful trip.
“It was like the first tournament on the East Coast — this and the Borgata. I ended up chopping it, so I’ve had good luck here so far.”
Tracy built up a stack of Day 1f before losing a big pot as the night wound down — “I just took a big hit for 100k" — and eventually falling before bag time.