20yr Old Student Skips Class, Wins WinStar River Poker Series

The game of poker has become very attractive to the younger generation in recent years because millennials realize that they can make a full time career out of playing live poker and online poker.

Success stories also motivate them to keep their hopes alive of having a big payday and turning rich overnight.

Will Pengelly who is attending the University of North Texas decided to take a day off in order to play at the WinStar River Poker Series. He paid up the $2,500 buy-in and took part in the Main Event and ended up on top winning a nice $249,310.

The 20 year old Pengelly is no stranger to the WinStar as he has been visiting regularly ever since he turned 18. He generally likes to play cash games and has had decent success with local games but has never really had a major cash out in any of the premier poker tournaments.

Things changed this week when he held his nerve and ran deep at the WinStar Main Event taking down some veteran poker players. A five way deal was cut and in the end, he had to battle it out with Ekrem Bozkurt and Pengelly showed that he had what it takes to go all the way. Bozkurt finished in second place taking home $215,170, while Jeff Banghart finished in third place taking home $206,570, Ricky Green finished in fourth to cashout with $205,710 and Dean Baranowski took fifth place for $144,000.

Tournaments Similar To Lottery System

In a statement, Pengelly said

This is why you play tournaments. I think of tournaments kind of like the lottery. Many people enter and one player wins a lot of money. Today, that happened to be me

The environment at the final table was pretty interesting as Jeff Banghart offered the young Pengelly good advice from time to time. Banghart told the finance major not to make the mistake of quitting college even if he was doing well on the poker circuit.

Pengelly has no plans to quit college and being a finance major he plans to stash away more of his prize money and his only immediate purchase is going to be a nice car. The success at the poker table has inspired him to prepare for the 2019 WSOP as he will then be over 21 and eligible to participate.