The Education of a Third Generation Poker Player
Scott Seiver has poker baked into his DNA and is a lock for the Hall of Fame.
Scott Seiver’s career as a professional poker player was seeded early in life; he learned gin and bridge from his grandparents before he attended kindergarten. His grandfather taught him to bid his own bridge hands at five, he played quarter-ante poker at his parents’ kitchen table weekly through middle school, and hit the casinos on his 18th and 21st birthdays.
Mastering the math of games has been a singular obsession in Seiver’s life. It’s as natural as breathing. When prompted to think of a second career, he blanked for a few moments and then replied, “I don’t know, got any ideas?”
It was an expected answer given the 40-year-old’s poker resume: he’s earned $27 million in tournaments, won seven World Series of Poker bracelets, and was the 2024 WSOP Player of the Year.
The Education of a Poker Family
He cut his teeth playing online, like most of his generation, but proved to be ahead of his class on the live felt. Examining his tournament results in a geographic distribution graph over his career shows an inverse relationship with most of his peers. He began travelling the globe, dominating international events, but he hasn’t cashed outside of Las Vegas since 2016.
“The reason why my schedule seems so grouped was two factors,” Seiver said. “One, as I became increasingly enamored with playing mixed games, that took up a much bigger focus and portion of my time.”
“Other than the World Series, all tournament poker is basically entirely PLO and Hold’em,” he said. So, as I wanted to play more mixed games, I had to play more cash games. Then, the cash games were in Vegas, which kept me there.”
“So, that was one big part of it and the other was as I started playing bigger, a lot of the traveling for tournaments wasn’t really, I’ll say, economically feasible,” he added. “Although that’s kind of a bullshit phrase, but I was able to play bigger or higher stakes at tougher games than I would want in tournaments.”
“And sure, now there are all these Triton and super high roller events,” Seiver said. “But honestly, the top, top players in those are so unbelievably good that it doesn’t really spark the joy in me that I had playing previously or the feeling that I get playing mixed games.”
He has a mind-melting 49 six-figure cashes topped off with five seven-figure cashes and is somehow, hilariously, only in fifth place for New York’s all-time money list.
“Honestly, it’s pretty cool that New York is so strongly represented in poker,” Seiver said. “The true, top high roller crop has a lot of New York and East Coast players.”
World Series of Poker Specialist
Because of his interests, Seiver developed into a WSOP specialist, playing very little competitive poker outside of the summer marathon. “At this point in my career, I’m so entrenched and ensconced in what poker is; it’s deeply written into my core DNA that I don’t feel I need to maintain a specific level of readiness. It’s just like riding a bike, I feel very comfortable once I’m in there.”
As a former WSOP POY, Seiver has a tight grasp on the competition. “It’s an extremely fair race,” he said. “If anything, a couple of high rollers are overvalued, but that’s a good thing. It brings more people into the race.”
“It’s just not a huge number of players who are truly great at all the games that also have the stamina,” said Seiver. “It’s more stamina than bankroll – that’s the difference.”
Hall of Fame Bound?
Seiver turned 40 this year and supported fellow New Yorker Nick Schulman as a first-ballot inductee. But don’t be fooled by his laid-back personality; it’s a concrete goal of his.
“It’s a goal I actively worked for, and now that it is something that I feel will happen,” he said. “I definitely hope it happens. It’s a big part of why I played so much of the World Series last year and this year as well because I wanted to try and make a stronger push for it.”
“For the past ten years or so, I’ve played a smattering of World Series events here and there in between cash games as I’ve really focused on cash,” Seiver continued. “But I wanted to get back into the World Series for Hall of Fame reasons.”
Was becoming a HOFer always the goal as a young player for Seiver? “Honestly, it’s unbelievably arrogant, but I would have expected it. The whole reason I got into poker and stayed in poker is because of my desire.”
Life Away From the Table
“I’ve always wanted to find a career path that led me try to become the best at something,” he said. “I didn’t really care what that something was, I just wanted to push myself to prove that if I can set any goal, I can reach the apex of whatever that is.”
“I’ve always been an unbelievably goal-oriented person, so I wanted to just find a path that made it possible,” said Seiver. “And honestly, if I were less good at poker, I probably would have quit at some point to try and search for the next thing that I could have been the best at.”
While staying laser-focused on his goals, Seiver maintained a healthy personal life away from the tables. “The vast majority of my friends and social group aren’t poker players or gamblers at all,” he said. “I’ve never felt my involvement in the gambling world has affected my ability or understanding of the rest of the world.”
“I’ve never felt any disconnect because of it,” Seiver said. “The only real disconnect is when I want to gamble on the bill at dinner. I would say that’s the only like only disconnect – they don’t know credit card roulette.”
Revealing Weakness Is Strength
https://x.com/ChidwickStephen/status/1947324570840515055
The conversation found its way to discussing Stephen Chidwick’s revealing post about the high roller world. “I thought it was wonderful,” Seiver said. “It really opens up how hard it is to compete at a world-class level day in and day out.”
“To be at that level, you have to work every day, and I know myself well enough to know that is not what I excel at,” Seiver added. “We all have strengths and weaknesses and that level of singular determination and focus is not really what I do.”
“I’m happy to leave that for other people,” he added. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful thing to chase and achieve perfection in that way, but it’s never been for me.”
Losing A Legend
https://x.com/scott_seiver/status/1943694404193255603
“My grandparents taught me Gin and Bridge at like three or four years old,” said Seiver. “At five years old, they taught me how to count points in Bridge. That was my first exposure to math and strategy to bid. I have a lot of fond memories.”
“My family always had a weekly card night and would have their friends over and play for fun,” he said. “We’d play for quarters in all the normal games you think of at a home game - Follow the Queen, Chicago, Baseball – all those. As a kid watching, I just loved it – games, card games, board games.”
“There was just something that really sung to me about the competitiveness of seeing them actually have these chips, winning, and also just how much fun they all seemed to be having,” said Seiver. “Laughing, having a good time around the table - it was a core memory for me. I could satisfy the competitive need and social desire at a very young age. I found it beautiful.”
Stan Seiver enjoyed life for 95 years and played cards four times a week, including up until the week he passed. Doyle Brunson’s quote of “we don’t get old from playing, we get old when we stop playing” epitomized Stan’s life.
“Playing weekly was clearly very good for him,” said Seiver. “It was the center of his social circle and kept his mind sharp. It’s very easy to let your mind slip away as you get older, and completing a puzzle or small challenge to keep the mind working is unbelievably important to me.”
While many young players of Seiver’s generation fought their families when it came to choosing poker as a profession. But not him, he had quite the opposite. “I was very special to have someone, not just understanding what I did, but a genuine fan of it. To be able to share the journey with me, for him to cheer for me, was a true blessing. To have someone like that in your corner, it’s all you can ask for.”
Swimming (and Living) With Sharks
A long grind or downswing can ruin any poker player’s week, month, or year. Their livelihood is based on a zero-sum game. But Seiver finds comfort in his community of players. “It’s very easy for outspoken voices of bad things to make an impression that the poker community is in dire straits.”
“But in my experience, I’d say you’ll never find more honest and trustworthy people than in the poker world. Yes, there are bad actors, but there’s nowhere else on Earth that I can imagine where they would steal from me.”
“It’s easy to lose sight of that because it’s easy to focus on the squeaky wheel that ruins things for everyone,” Seiver said. “Poker is one of the few places left where your word is all you have. Once it loses value, you lose your reputation. There’s something beautiful about the concept of a handshake because your name is your name, not a contract.”
Photos courtesy of PokerOrg