Daniel Strelitz is one of those poker players that could be found time and time again wielding a big stack deep in a tournament. The knock on Strelitz, though, has always been that he’s unable to seal the deal in a major event. That’s not to say Strelitz doesn’t have what it takes to compete on poker’s biggest stage, against the game’s best players. Tournament poker can be a cruel game sometimes. But, at the Season XV WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship event final table, in an event that is as prestigious as any other tournament in the world, it was Strelitz’s time to shine.
After amassing a big stack early in the event, the 27-year-old poker pro from Southern California held the chip lead at the end of days three, four, and five, and he headed into the final table with more than 40 percent of the chips in play.
Closer than he’s ever been to a million dollar score, all Strelitz needed to do was close it out.
“It all comes back to my 2012 [WSOP] Main Event, when I was two of 27 and got 24th,” said Strelitz when asked about the pressure. “I had just so many chips in that thing, and I just blew it. So that’s always in the back of my mind, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. It was like five years ago, but I should’ve been a millionaire back then and I wasn’t. Now to just actually go on and win is just unexplainable.”
Win is just what Strelitz did. When the dust had settled, Strelitz was $1 million richer and he had claimed the first major title of his poker career.
“I feel amazing,” he said immediately after, with a smile from ear to ear. “It’s really unbelievable. It’s crazy.”
Despite the great run from Day 3 through the final table, there were some bumps in the road for Strelitz under the bright lights of the WPT televised stage. He fell out of the chip lead a couple of times, but this event always seemed different from those the poker audience has seen him run deep in in the past.
Despite dropping chips and sliding down the leaderboard, it never truly felt like Strelitz was at risk of losing control.
“I was really calm,” Strelitz said when asked about his slide at the final table. “Actually, my mom was freaking out more, and it was kind of annoying me, but I had my friend Niall [Farrell], who is a WPT champion, who was like, ‘No, you’re doing fine. You’re playing great.’ That helped calm me down. Even when I started to question things, he was like, ‘No, you’re doing good.’”
Farrell, who won the Season XV WPT Caribbean $5,000 Main Event for $335,000, was on the rail for Strelitz the entire final table, having already played and busted from the WPT L.A. Poker Classic Championship a few days before, short of the money.
He wasn’t the only person there to sweat Strelitz, though. His entire family was there.
“It’s great,” Strelitz said of having his family there to witness the life-changing victory. “I’m so happy that my entire family and my in-laws were here. It’s unbelievable.”
One of the family members railing was David Strelitz, Daniel’s father, and he had been on the sidelines to watch his son play starting with Day 2 of the tournament, if you can believe it. For five straight days, David Strelitz stood two or three tables away from where his son was battling on the felt in one of the toughest events on the tournament circuit.
“My dad, starting Day 2, the beginning of Day 2, he was there, and he saw every single hand I played until now, until I won,” Daniel said. “From Day 2! It’s a six-day tournament! His dedication is unbelievable. I can’t believe — he’s a crazy person, obviously, but I appreciate it so much.”
“I was here since Day 2, everyday,” David, Daniel’s father, said when asked about watching his son play. “I missed a couple of hours one time. We always knew he could do it, but still, 521 people and the best players in the world, it’s still amazing. Unbelievable.”
David added that while he plays poker himself, his son, Daniel, didn’t learn the game from him. David got into poker later in his life.
“My wife’s grandfather is instrumental in helping him do very well,” David said. “He’s the one who got him into poker. I got into poker maybe five years ago or so, and I would probably recommend for the fans out there that 52 years old or so is not the best age to get into poker. You need to start earlier, when you’re mentally tougher and just tougher in general.”
Having such a strong support system, especially that of one’s family, is something common amongst many great winners in poker.
Another Daniel, Daniel Negreanu, always had his mother following his every move, cooking him meals, and checking in on him regularly when he was rising to the top of the game. Jason Mercier’s parents, Rick and Dottie, have traveled time and again to all different parts of the globe to watch their son compete, and Rick is always the first to text Jason when the next day’s seat draw is released with a scouting report on his opponents. David Williams’ mother, Shirley, could always been found on the final table rail during her son’s breakout years in poker.
The ups and downs, the adrenaline rush, the heartbreak, the triumph — it’s all part of playing high-stakes tournament poker, and Daniel is well versed in taking it all in stride. For him, it just comes with the territory. But as Daniel alluded to earlier about his mom “freaking out,” his family was often the ones more on edge than he was. Even his dad, who plays poker.
“I play a little bit of poker, but I don’t play this kind of poker,” Daniel’s father, David, said. “I said to a couple of people while I was watching from afar, ‘Do I want him to fold? Do I want him to bet?’ I know you can’t fold your way to a championship, so I would kind of go back and forth with how I felt while watching.
“It’s really unbelievable because I’ve been to a number of final tables where I was just interested to see the production, the lights, it’s all really cool. Now, I couldn’t believe it’s my son out there who did that. We’re very proud. Very, very proud.”
For Strelitz, his family is local to Southern California, which helped a large group on both sides, both his and his wife’s, be at the televised final table for the million dollar victory. In addition to the seven-figure win and having his friends and family there to be there for it, Strelitz was thrilled to have scored the first major win of his career at a venue that means a lot to him, Commerce Casino.
“This event is especially important because, first of all, I was down so much at Commerce [Casino],” he said. “I’ve won a few tournaments at the Bike, but at Commerce I just haven’t done anything. So me making this run just feels so good, especially because I’ve been living in [Southern California] my whole life and this is the biggest tournament you can win in [Southern California]. To just win it is unbelievable.”
Following his memorable WPT L.A. Poker Classic victory, which you can read more about in the event’s final recap, Strelitz took off for San Jose, CA, to play in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star $7,500 Main Event. That event set a record for field size with 806 entries, but Strelitz was unable to find his way to the money. Nonetheless, we’ll likely see Strelitz at WPT Rolling Thunder as the final leg of the WPT California Swing, and then we are guaranteed to see him in the WPT Tournament of Champions at the end of the season. Each WPT Main Tour winner from the current season gets an automatic entry into the season-ending $15,000 event.
“It’s pretty great,” he said about competing in the WPT Tournament of Champions. “It’s going to be a relatively small field and a very high buy-in, so I’m very excited to play it. Especially because I can swap with my friend (Niall Farrell) now because we’re both champions. It’s crazy. I’m excited to play it.”