Hockey Player Josh Marvin Checking the Competition on Day 6

Josh Marvin may not be a name most poker fans recognize, but on Day 6 of the WSOP Main Event, he sits behind a mountain of more than 14 million chips, good for seventh as the event reached the dinner break with only 43 players remaining. If he can continue his run, Marvin has a chance to make a major mark on the poker world this summer.

A recreational hockey player who plays a few times a week back home in Sterling Heights, Michigan, Marvin hopes to keep skating past the competition. He played seven events this summer, but this is his first-ever WSOP cash — and it was certainly well worth the wait.

Marvin, 27, is normally a cash game player but mixes in a few tournaments each year. The Hendon Mob database lists eight tournament cashes for this rounder, but he notched a win for $724,200 in a $1,650 no-limit hold’em event in his home state in 2015.

While his regular game of choice is pot-limit Omaha, so far, Marvin has held his own in Texas hold’em on the game’s biggest stage and is enjoying his time as the action gets closer and closer to the final table.

“I don’t play many tournaments a year, so this is kind of fun,” he says. “I normally just focus on cash games. I fired a few bullets in the Milly Maker and played a few PLO events, but no luck until the Main Event — but this is the important one.”

A graduate of Oakland University in Auburn Hills with a degree in Finance, he now crunches numbers of a different sort. As play continued on Sunday, Marvin’s stack fluctuated a bit before gathering some nice pots with a fortuitous run of hands.

“I had a couple that vaulted me up and one that vaulted me down,” he says. “I chipped up to about 10 million, then went south to about 9 million, and then lost with kings to aces for about a 9-million-chip pot. Following that I had kings and queens three or four times in 10 hands, so I chipped back up. They were small pots, but they all added up.”

What’s been the reaction of friends and family back in the Great Lakes State to his streak through the Main Event?

“They’re all blowing up my phone nonstop,” he says, laughing. “My mom doesn’t really understand poker, so she’s been nervous since Day 3. If I final table, they’ll fly out here.”

If he can continue his big roll, stay sharp, and bring home a big score, Marvin hopes to put that Finance degree to good use.

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