Card Player WSOP Freeroll Qualifier Still Alive

In December, Jim Coca became the Card Player Freeroll champion by winning a tournament filled with 100 players who earned enough points throughout 2005 in CardPlayer.com's monthly $3,000 freeroll. Today, he's playing for a piece of about $100 million.

For winning the December tournament, Coca won a $12,500 trip to the World Series of Poker's main event. The prize package was put up by Bodog.com.

After five hours of play, Coca sits at 12,400 in chips. At one point, he had more than 20,000 after an incredible first two rounds where he was dealt aces twice and flopped a set of sixes. He won a big pot with one of his pocket aces hands.

"I had a good first level. A guy tried top make a move on me (when he had aces)." Coca said. "Thankfully, I haven't had any real scary players at my table yet."

No matter if he gets knocked out today or makes it to the final table, Coca said the trip has been a blast.

"It's been a good time, man. It's been awesome," said Coca, who, when he's not playing poker, manages a family business that does promotional embroidery and silk screening in Colorado. "It's as good as it gets, really, for a poker player."

"I think I'll have to hit up Johnny Chan's tomorrow," Coca said.

The party started earlier this year at the CardPlayer.com Player of the Year gala in Los Angeles. Coca got to join many of the most talented and famous poker players at the gala, and even was brought on stage to receive his award from Card Player CEO and owner Barry Shulman for winning the freeroll.

His first day is still a long way from ending, but he says he knows he has to have patience to last.

"I'm going to try to hang in there and see how long I can last, see if I could survive."

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