Jeff Fielder Plays for WPT History on Day 4

By Matt Clark

The assorted field of 14 players left in the Season XVI WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship includes a November Niner, a WPT Player of the Year turned online poker developer, a mixed game pro, and some of the online poker world’s best. Jeff Fielder falls into the middle of all of those categories.

Fielder won the Season 4 WPTDeepStacks Championship at Thunder Valley in December and has the chance to become the first player in history to claim titles on both the WPTDS and Main Tour.

Upon being told of his chance at a slice of history, Fielder responded by saying, “That’s pretty cool, I didn’t even think about that.”

The traveling Iowa pro has cashes in 2018 across the country from Atlantic City to Blackhawk, Colorado, and is in Florida playing for the biggest score of his career. The $696,740 first-place prize is on Fielder’s mind deep at the Hard Rock.

Mid-major tours only offer so much competition and Fielder is thrilled to face off against elite talent with so much on the line. Most of the fields that Fielder is successful against are filled with recreational players. His numerous deep runs in WSOP Circuit events and a Day 3 appearance in the 2016 WSOP Colossus speak to his preferred player type.

The next two days represent the best chance of Fielder’s career to prove himself as more than a shark who only swims when blood is fresh in the water.

“The money is great,” Fielder said. “The caliber of player helps me elevate my game. I always say that ‘you can’t be the best unless you beat the best.’ It looks like I’m up for that right now.”

40-years-old, barrel-chested, and full of laughs, Fielder is a guy you want to share a beer with. Just look at the photo, beer in front of him with a big smile on his face. As the tournament progresses, the chuckles turn to stares for Fielder. His familiar Iowa Hawkeyes hat and over-ear headphones are glued to him every day. The music inside the headphones never appears to be on and that might be intentional on Fielder’s part. The intensity of the moment is apparent with every hand Fielder plays.

Fielder owns the mantra of “life is a freeroll,” but the money up top is impossible to ignore.

“That’s why I go to stops, is I look at the money first,” Fielder told WPT.com “I just try to play my best and let good things happen.”

Fielder is deep against a lineup filled out with pros who present a welcome blockade for him to claim his largest career score.

Brian Hastings sits on Fielder’s direct left and Faraz Jaka is beside the three-time bracelet winner. The challenge of facing off against killers drives Fielder’s game up to another level.

“It’s one of the toughest fields I’ve ever played in this deep,” Fielder said. “And I’ve played in tough fields and had tough tables, but this is the definitely one of the toughest tournaments I’ve played in terms of caliber of players.”

The middle of the pack is where Fielder’s 2.095 million resided when Day 4 began. The stars begin to look familiar at this stage and Fielder calls this run ‘reminiscent” of the WPTDS Championship at Thunder Valley.

All 14 players, with the exception of Victor Ramdin, are in search of their invitation to the WPT Champions Club. Fielder fits a profile owned by no other and a win this week this week carves him out one of the most special places in the World Poker Tour archives.

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