Poker Stories: Daniel Weinman

Poker Stories

Daniel Weinman topped the biggest World Series of Poker main event field in history, outlasting more than 10,000 entrants. Incredibly, he almost didn't play in the event and had to be convinced by friends, including six-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb, to fly back from his native Atlanta, Georgia for the tournament.

It was Weinman's second career bracelet, having won his first in 2022 on the way to finishing second in the WSOP Player of the Year race. And despite winning a first-place prize of $12.1 million, Weinman was back at his day job the next week, working as a software engineer for RF Poker, a company that facilitates the operation and security of poker livestreams.

Although he focused on cash games for much of his career, Weinman also has a WSOP Circuit ring, and two World Poker Tour titles. In 2017 he won the Borgata Winter Open and followed that up a few months later with a season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions victory.

Highlights from this interview include sweating the Wall Street trader game as a kid, playing 24 tables at once, getting robbed at a home game, too much Chinese poker, winning a WPT with his back against the wall, taking a 9-to-5 'poker' job after winning his first bracelet, livestream integrity, how he got talked into the main event, how a two-outer saved more than just his tournament, the reluctant acceptance of added attention, getting his face on a trading card, plans for the bracelet, broken putters, getting fired from the movie theater for beating his manager, golfing with professional athletes and Trump, and how he started his bankroll by being one of the best guitar hero players in the world.