Look Out: Pat Walsh

Pat Walsh won his first major-tournament title when he topped the field in The Big Event $10,000 bounty shootout at The Bicycle Casino in March. He took home $251,700 from a hard-fought final table that ran through the night and into the next morning. “There were a lot of big pots and people playing aggressively. It was kind of a winner-take-all tournament, so you really couldn’t just sit back and hope to move up. Final-table play went into the next morning, so it was really a battle to try to stay awake and keep your energy level up,” said Walsh.

Walsh is no stranger to the tournament trail; he has traveled its path for the last couple of years, focusing primarily on cash games while jumping into main events when they appear on the schedule. He also is no stranger to televised final tables, as he finished fifth in the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic main event last year for the largest tournament cash of his career ($310,694). He now has $610,530 in career tournament earnings.

He began playing poker in 2000, when he frequented casinos to play blackjack and dabble in poker during his leisure time. “I got into it by accident. I was working a full-time job and would go in on the weekend to play blackjack, and then I jumped into poker. Live cash games are where I learned the game, for the most part,” said Walsh. He had been working full time in sales for three years after graduating from Missouri State University when he found the game that would become his profession.

He played pot-limit Omaha and limit hold’em in St. Louis-area casinos during his first couple of years in the game, but quickly added no-limit hold’em to his repertoire when the game exploded in 2003. The 35-year-old pro now travels the tournament circuit about eight months out of the year, and he still maintains a home in St. Charles, Missouri, which is just outside of St. Louis. “I’m not there often, but when I need a break, I go back, because my friends and family are still there,” said Walsh.

As for his future plans in the game, his personal life will heavily influence any of his decisions. “I will always play on some level, but probably not as much as I’m playing now. We’ll see what happens in my personal life. If I get married and start having kids, I will have to slow down,” he said. ♠