Tom Marchese Wins 2010 Player of the Year Title Youngest-Ever Winner

Anyone can get lucky in one tournament, but only world-class tournament professionals can do it week after week, month after month, in an effort to string together enough high-profile finishes to claim poker’s most respected honor, the Card Player Player of the Year (POY) award.
Past winners have included the likes of Men Nguyen, T.J. Cloutier, David Pham, Daniel Negreanu, Tony Ma, John Phan, Michael Mizrachi, and Eric Baldwin. The 2010 winner is a 23-year-old from Parsippany, New Jersey.
Introducing the “King of Cards”
Tom Marchese was born to play cards, and has more than proven himself in the dog-eat-dog world of poker, but his rise to the top was anything but easy. Growing up in an ultraconservative Catholic home certainly didn’t help.
“I was definitely more sheltered than most while growing up,” Marchese said. “When I was younger, I focused on my academics and tried to be the ideal son. So, when I turned 20 and dropped out of school to move to Las Vegas, I guess you could say that it didn’t make my parents very happy.”
Marchese learned to play poker like most, sitting around the kitchen table with his older brother and friends, playing for $5 at a time. The game died with college, however, and Marchese was left searching for something to cure his boredom.
“I was commuting to Seton Hall during my freshman year, and I didn’t have as much time with my friends as I would have liked,” he remembered. “I ended up playing online poker, mainly just to pass the time. I started with freerolls and built up from there.”
Building up from there was an understatement. After making a few bucks here and there in some freeroll tournaments, Marchese quickly turned that into $30,000 in just a few months of playing for stakes that were way too high for not only his bankroll, but also his skill level. It wasn’t long before he had given it all back. After getting a friend to stake him $20, Marchese entered and won a 180-player sit-and-go for $1,800.
“I sent my buddy back $500 and immediately sat down in some 50¢-$1 limit hold’em games. I don’t know if the games were just that soft or if I was way ahead of the curve, but I wound up building my roll to about $50,000 in just a few months. I just didn’t understand the concept of bankroll management. At one point, I was taking shots at $100-$200.”
It didn’t take long before his grades began to slip, albeit not by much. “I had a 3.0 grade-point average in school, but that wasn’t quite good enough to keep my scholarship,” Marchese recalled. “My parents basically told me that I could either use my poker money to pay for school or transfer somewhere cheaper. I ended up doing both. I withdrew my entire roll and applied it toward tuition and living expenses at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.”
Marchese had strict orders to concentrate on school and stay away from the game that had paid for it, but like all young gamblers with the itch to play, he couldn’t stop himself. “I had built up a fair number of frequent-player points during my earlier stretch, and it wasn’t long before I had turned those points into cash, jumped back into the limit games, and built up another $40,000 roll. That lasted until Thanksgiving break, when I managed to lose all but $1,000 in three days of playing way over my head. After that, I decided that limit hold’em, especially the way that I was playing it, was too swingy. I switched to no-limit hold’em and ran well enough early on to build myself a proper bankroll for $5-$10.”
The Cash-Game King
Marchese readily admits now that it may have been ill-advised, but with a newfound respect for his surging bankroll, he dropped everything and moved to Las Vegas. Even though he was too young to compete at the World Series of Poker, he found ways to stay in action.
“One of my roommates, Rich “nutsinho” Lyndaker, was old enough to play,” he said. “I ended up buying half of him in the $5,000 six-max no-limit hold’em event; he finished second, earning $570,000. All of a sudden, I went from having a $5-$10 bankroll to having the ability to really take some shots at the higher limits.”
Playing as “kingsofcards,” Marchese quickly made his way to $25-$50 and immediately found success. Everything continued to go well for the young pro until September of 2009, when he and Lyndaker decided to split some action at Rail Heaven on Full Tilt. The $500-$1,000 games were built around an unknown player named “Martonas,” but with six-handed play, Marchese was forced to also contend with the likes of Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, and others. The end result was not what he had hoped for.
“For me, poker was exciting because I was always moving on to something new,” Marchese explained. “I was building my roll and moving up in limits, but after getting all the way to Rail Heaven, there wasn’t anywhere else to go. I had the money to play whatever limits I wanted, but, obviously, the lineups at the top aren’t really ideal, and I wasn’t a fan of burning money. That’s when I switched to tournaments. It was a new frontier, of sorts, something else that I could try to conquer.”
Cash-Game Skills Translate to Tournament Success
“Up until the beginning of 2010, I had played roughly 15 to 20 big buy-in tournaments, and hadn’t had any success whatsoever. At first, my goal was just to make a good effort and see what I could accomplish. Right away, I finished third at Borgata, for $190,000. Literally the next tournament that I played was at The Venetian, and I won it, for $827,000. I took a look at the Card Player POY standings, and I knew right away that I’d be spending my year chasing that title. It was my new challenge.”
Marchese put together one of the best years in the history of tournament poker. He won two titles and made 11 final tables, for a total of nearly $2.1 million. One testament to his success was that he was able to earn six separate six-figure paydays.
So, how was he able to find so much success in his first real year on the tournament circuit? Marchese credits both the tournament structures and his ability to play deep-stack poker.
“The cash-game background is really huge. I can honestly say that I play day 1 better than the majority of the pros out there. It’s a complete myth to say that day 1 is all about survival. In my opinion, that’s one of the easiest opportunities to accumulate chips. Think about it logically. You are sitting there with an average of 50-200 big blinds, and all of the weaker players are still in the tournament. Not only that, but those players are super uncomfortable playing deep-stack tournaments, and end up gifting you chips by going broke with hands as weak as overpairs. It’s a huge edge, because it sets me up for the rest of the event. I go into day 2 with a big stack, and it enables me to pick on the shorter stacks once the blinds begin to matter.”
Although he advocates his day-1 fishing method, he is quick to clarify a few points. “It’s not a ‘go big or go home’ mentality. It’s just calculated aggression. You are risking small amounts of chips to win big pots against bad players. It’s almost risk-free, if you think about it. Even if you run terribly on day 1 and never manage to make any hands, you really aren’t losing that much by speculating. The worst-case scenario is that you limp into day 2 with 20 to 30 big blinds and have some work to do.”
Part of what makes Marchese’s strategy so successful is the image that he establishes at the table. “I work really hard on my image. Depending on whom you ask, you are bound to get differing opinions on my game. You might ask one player, and he’ll tell you that I’m a little nitty. Ask another, and you may hear that I’m insane and play a ton of pots. The truth is that I’m probably somewhere in between. Certainly, I’m pretty loose in the early levels, but not to the point of being reckless.”
The Long Grind to the Title
Perhaps the most telling part of the Player of the Year race occurred in December in Atlantic City. Marchese had just finished up a two-week run of preliminary events and was told that even if Dwyte Pilgrim won the main event, he still wouldn’t be able to take over first place. With the knowledge that the POY title was his, Marchese didn’t even bother buying into the $10,000 tournament. Instead, he headed back to his room to watch some football.
“It was a long grind,” he explained. “There are a lot of fun stops on the tournament trail, but there’s also a lot of not-so-nice areas of the world that I’d rather not revisit. If you look at it from an hourly standpoint, it was a real sacrifice for me to play in all of these smaller preliminary events. Any winning $5-$10 or higher cash-game player would be better off grinding online than winning some $500 tournament in some run-down part of the country, but I obviously wanted to win the POY title, so I was willing to live out of my suitcase for a while.”
In many ways, Marchese was a man without a home in 2010. He spent half of the year living with a friend in Las Vegas in between West Coast stops, and the other half on the road, trying to maintain some distance between himself and the rest of the top 10. When asked if he would try to defend his title, Marchese was hesitant to commit to anything.
“I can’t really imagine continuing like this,” he said. “I think my plan for 2011 is to play only the big buy-in events. If I’m able to win something early on, I’ll definitely make another run at it, but I’m not going to go out of my way.”
At 23 years old, Marchese is the youngest-ever Player of the Year, beating the record set by 25-year-old Michael Mizrachi in 2006. Although he knows that his record will eventually be broken, he is proud that he represented his online peers well.
“The young guys are taking over, and I feel that I’m a good representation of that,” he explained. “The best live players in the world also have a very strong online background. That can’t be ignored. It’s pretty awesome to be a part of the new breed of players, and to be the best among them, at least for 2010, is quite an honor.”
It’s been quite a run for Tom Marchese. He dominated cash games, playing with the best for some of the highest stakes in the world, and in his first attempt at tournaments, he was named the year’s best. Perhaps the next challenge for him will be … finding a new challenge. ♠

Past Player of the Year Winners
Year Player Name
1997 Men Nguyen
1998 T.J. Cloutier
1999 Tony Ma
2000 David Pham
2001 Men Nguyen
2002 T.J. Cloutier
2003 Men Nguyen
2004 Daniel Negreanu
2005 Men Nguyen
2006 Michael Mizrachi
2007 David Pham
2008 John Phan
2009 Eric Baldwin
2010 Tom Marchese

A Look at the Numbers
Tom Marchese had a stellar 2010 tournament campaign, making 11 final tables, winning two titles, and earning nearly $2.1 million. Take a look at some of his major accomplishments:

Date Series Event Buy-In Place Winnings
Feb. 5 Borgata Winter Open Main Event $3,000 Third $190,027
Feb. 24 NAPT Venetian Main Event $5,000 First $827,648
March 17 Wynn Classic Main Event $5,000 Fourth $73,356
May 1 EPT Grand Final High Roller €25,000 Fourth €263,000
June 22 World Series of Poker Event No. 38 $10,000 Sixth $123,264
Aug. 14 Empire State Championships Main Event $2,500 Fourth $31,117
Oct. 4 EPT London Main Event £5,000 Seventh £100,000
Oct. 10 Festa al Lago Classic Event No. 3 $1,000 Fifth $13,745
Nov. 2 World Poker Finals Main Event $10,000 Third $211,759
Nov. 17 NAPT Bicycle Casino Shootout $5,000 Fifth $24,000
Nov. 28 Five-Diamond World Poker Classic Event No. 3 $1,000 First $45,958

2010 Player of the Year Top 10
Thomas Marchese and the Best of the Rest
1. Thomas Marchese – 6,738 points
Titles: 2
Cashes: 12
Final Tables: 11
POY Winnings: $2,068,658
Money Won Per Cash: $172,388
POY Points Won Per Cash: 562
Marquee Cash: Won North America Poker Tour Venetian $5,000 main event ($827,648 – 1,920 points)

2. Dwyte Pilgrim – 5,576 points
Titles: 5
Cashes: 13
Final Tables: 11
POY Winnings: $1,074,997
Money Won Per Cash: $82,692
POY Points Won Per Cash: 429
Marquee Cash: Won World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open $3,500 main event ($733,802 – 1,800 points)

3. Sorel Mizzi – 4,851 points
Titles: 4
Cashes: 16
Final Tables: 16
POY Winnings: $1,524,371
Money Won Per Cash: $95,273
POY Points Won Per Cash: 303
Marquee Cash: Third place in Aussie Millions $10,000 main event ($638,004 – 1,280 points)

4. Vanessa Selbst – 4,608 points
Titles: 2
Cashes: 3
Final Tables: 3
POY Winnings: $2,803,013
Money Won Per Cash: $934,338
POY Points Won Per Cash: 1,536
Marquee Cash: Won Partouche Poker Tour Cannes $10,000 main event ($1,823,430 – 2,400 points)

5. John Racener – 4,493 points
Titles: 0
Cashes: 4
Final Tables: 3
POY Winnings: $5,863,856
Money Won Per Cash: $1,465,964
POY Points Won Per Cash: 1,123
Marquee Cash: Second place in World Series of Poker $10,000 main event ($5,545,855 – 3,000 points)
6. Harrison Gimbel – 4,080 points
Titles: 2
Cashes: 2
Final Tables: 2
POY Winnings: $2,530,000
Money Won Per Cash: $1,265,000
POY Points Won Per Cash: 2,040
Marquee Cash: Won PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $10,000 main event ($2,200,000 – 3,000 points)

7. Andrew Frankenberger – 4,010 points
Titles: 2
Cashes: 5
Final Tables: 4
POY Winnings: $1,173,853
Money Won Per Cash: $234,771
POY Points Won Per Cash: 802
Marquee Cash: Won World Poker Tour Legends of Poker $5,000 main event ($750,000 – 1,920 points)

8. Jeffrey Papola – 3,870 points
Titles: 1
Cashes: 3
Final Tables: 3
POY Winnings: $1,176,919
Money Won Per Cash: $392,306
POY Points Won Per Cash: 1,290
Marquee Cash: Won World Series of Poker $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em event ($667,443 – 1,920 points)

9. John Juanda – 3,717 points
Titles: 0
Cashes: 5
Final Tables: 5
POY Winnings: $1,598,858
Money Won Per Cash: $319,772
POY Points Won Per Cash: 743
Marquee Cash: Second place in European Poker Tour London €5,000 main event ($856,372 – 1,600 points)

10. Jonathan Duhamel – 3,600 points
Titles: 1
Cashes: 1
Final Tables: 1
POY Winnings: $8,944,138
Money Won Per Cash: $8,944,138
POY Points Won Per Cash: 3,600
Marquee Cash: Won World Series of Poker $10,000 main event ($8,944,138 – 3,600 points)