Dale Roesel Swims with the Sharks in Las Vegas
The Circuit staple is taking a shot a the $50,000 WSOP High Roller.
Dale Roesel is one of the best players on the Southern circuit with $2.3 million in earnings. He’s used to grinding out long tournaments, but on Wednesday, Roesel went from a big fish in a small pond to swimming with sharks.
“It’s an advantage for me,” Roesel said. “I’ve watched these guys play a lot of hands and they haven’t played with me, so they don’t know what I’m capable of.”
He’s an experienced player with four consecutive six-figure years, but playing with Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and Cary Katz is an order of magnitude more difficult than the spots he usually finds himself.
Taking a Shot
“I had some success at the $15K at PokerGO Studio the other day and my investors were okay with me playing this event,” Roesel said. “I like the structure on it, I knew it was going to be huge, so I'm pretty stoked to be playing it with some of the best players in the world.”
Roesel entered the $50,000 NL Hold’em High Roller, surged toward the top of the counts on Day 1 and benefitted from the long line of max late-reg players that joined Thursday morning.
“That was huge,” Roesel said. “It added a massive amount to the prize pool and put a premium on having chips at the time because you could pressure the short stacks.”
The event drew a $12.1 million prizepool for the top 38 players. The min-cash comes in at $102,024, a trip to the final table locks up $216,467, the top three finishers make seven-figures and the winner walks with $2.6 million.
Career High Cash?
The influx of players didn’t shake Roesel. “The new players had a redraw and were mixed up, so I played as I would,” he said. “It’s nice for the rest of us for such a boost to the prizepool.”
At the time of publication, the field was on dinner break, only five players short of the money bubble. Roesel had an average stack of 1.3 million for 32 big blinds.
Photos by Paul Oresteen.