Marcy Topp To Continue Life's Road Trip After Deep Run In 2012 World Series Of Poker Main Event

If poker can be an outlet for coping with personal loss, playing deep in the World Series of Poker Main Event is the stone-cold nuts. For nomadic poker player Marcy Topp, it also served as a way to continue her life on the road.

The 53-year-old finished in 71st out of the 6,598-player field on Sunday afternoon, cashing for $106,056. It was her first-ever result in a major poker tournament.

Topp entered the Main Event via a freeroll hosted by South Point Casino. Before making it to a single-table satellite, she had to first outlast tons of players on the casino’s free-play website, South Point Poker.

Topp has been playing for about five years, with most of her experience coming up in British Columbia at a poker tournament series that also served as a fundraiser to combat breast cancer. During this time, she was working in the management field, which included a stint with a company that dealt in fire safety equipment.

“I married a Canadian girl and moved up there,” Topp said about why she left the U.S.

Topp hasn’t been employed for the past couple of years, deciding instead to change her life drastically after her spouse passed away from an aggressive form of Leukemia.

“It was sudden and unexpected,” Topp said. “So I sold everything I had and bought a 35-foot motor home and have been roaming the West Coast.”

According to her, poker has also served as relief from the pain. Topp was thinking about her late spouse during her Main Event run. “She was a greater supporter of me,” Topp said.

Topp built her stack over the more than five days of play by running some big bluffs. “Those are so much fun,” Topp said with a big smile. One of her most devious fibs was against poker pro Eric Buchman, who made the final table in 2009.

“I had the A-Q of diamonds, and there was a potential for a heart-flush on board,” Topp remembered. “So, I went all-in. We talked for a bit, and he was like ‘If I muck, will you show me?’ I said ‘sure.’ He was hating on me for a little while after that because he folded a good hand. He was steaming.”

She has come a long way from having the shakes when she first started learning the game, a problem that resulted in frequently knocking over her chip stack.

On the rail to witness her final hand was her sister and her new partner. Both ladies seemed proud of Topp’s memorable experience after her pocket sixes didn’t outrun queens.

Now that the tournament is over, Topp will pack up her motor home and head to Montana, where she is from originally. “I come from a big family, and there’s a wedding in August I think I am going to attend,” she said.

As for the money, Topp will pay off some debts and “top off her bankroll” in order to play more cards. Topp said she would love to work her way into the poker community by using the game as a profession.

“I have been broke,” Topp admitted. “I had been looking to go back to work. So, now that I have a pretty good score, I am going to go with the care-free lifestyle again for awhile and see if I can make poker work for me.”

Follow Brian Pempus on Twitter — @brianpempus

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