2015 WSOP -- Blumenfield looks to overcome the odds at final table

November 6, 2015

Since the inception of World Series of Poker November Nine in 2008, no player over 60 years old has ever made the final table of the main event. Only Dennis Phillips (53 in 2008), Kevin Schaffel (52 in 2009), Steven Gee (57 in 2012) have even made the final nine in their fifties. When 61-year-old Neil Blumenfield made this year’s November Nine, he understandably expected to establish a new record for the November Nine. But he may not have that honor, as Belgium’s Pierre Neuville will sit down on Sunday at age 72, but he does own the title of the oldest amateur to have made it to this point in WSOP history.

“I’m a little irritated," joked Blumenfield. "I thought I would set the [age] record. Now I going to have to come back 12 years from now and make the final table again to break Pierre’s record.”

Nevertheless, the San Francisco amateur is living the dream of every poker player and will enter Sunday's final table with a third-place stack of 22 million in chips.

“It is incredibly cool. This is nirvana for anyone who plays this game. And for me, as one of the two amateurs at the final table [Zvi Stern being the other], it is even more special for me because it is more unexpected. It’s incredibly special and I feel just overwhelmingly fortunate to be where I am.”

Blumenfield admits that he feels that he is less experienced than most of his counterparts, primarily due working a full-time job and the fallout of Black Friday.

“I haven’t been playing online since Black Friday," said Blumenfield. "Most of my experience is playing at the WSOP and some local live events. Also I’ve been holding a full-time job. So my experience is definitely less compared to the other guys, including the young players who have played lots of hands live and online.”

Growing up outside Chicago, Blumenfield learned the game in junior high and high school with his friends in home games, but they didn’t play hold ’em.

“Hold ’em didn’t exist back then," he said. "So when I was in high school, we would play dealer’s choice at $0.10/$0.25. We would play games like seven-card stud, Baseball, Follow the Queen. And the night would always end with guts.”

After college, he played seven-card stud a little in Reno and Las Vegas, but really didn’t play regularly until about eight years ago, when envy drove him back to the game, especially tournaments.

“Friends of mine went to the WSOP to play the Seniors event," he said. "I couldn’t go with them because of work. However, one of my friends, Nick Baxter, who was not a serious poker player, but was a math genius, cashed very well, something like 77th. So, I was very jealous and started playing in local tournaments at Lucky Chances. After a couple of weeks, I won one of the tournaments and then went to play in the WSOP Seniors event the following year.”

During the first couple of summers he attended, the WSOP Seniors event was one of only a couple events he played. His dream was to make the final table of this 50-and-older bracelet event, but this year was the first time he cashed in the event, finishing in 268th place.

“I did think that the Seniors tournament was one where I was most competitive in, and that was my best chance to go deep. However, up until this year, you only started with 3,000 in chips so it was a bit of a crapshoot. It was a tough tournament to go deep in without getting some breaks. Ironically, it’s still a goal, as I still haven’t made the final table in this event yet. But it’s okay. I’ll trade it for the WSOP main event final table."

Entering this year’s WSOP, the poker amateur was at a crossroads in his life. The San Francisco native has been part of the software startup industry for the past three decades. Two years ago, he was President of Elastic Intelligence when it was acquired by Intuit, where he has been for the last two years. Just couple of weeks prior to the 2015 WSOP main event, the company and Blumenfield came to a mutual agreement that he would step down in August.

“I was actually deciding what to do with my life. I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to devote 60 hours a week to another technology start up, which I had been doing for the past 30 years," he admitted. "I was in a quandary. I didn’t feel I was ready to retire and was thinking of supplementing my income with poker. However, I was not sure that was really going to work due to the huge variance in poker. So the timing was pretty incredible.”

Having worked for so many years in the unstable start-up world, Blumenfield used his work experience in his poker efforts, especially during the WSOP main event.

“Technology start-ups are a lot like tournament poker," he said. "The variance is incredible high. About 10 percent of them cash and very few of them are big winners. I’m used to being in that kind of grind, situations that are not stable, not very comfortable and having to remain calm in these pressure situations. When people ask me if I felt pressure during the main event, I laughed because I was just playing poker. I’m playing the game I love to play.”

Entering the 2015 WSOP main event, Blumenfield had played in three of the last four main events. The impending changes at work left him wondering if he'd be in Vegas in July.

“One of things I was deciding on was whether or not to go back and play the main event because $10,000 now becomes a big deal. But I decided that it was something I really wanted to do.”

Good decision.

Prior to 2015, his deepest run was in 2012 where he made it almost to the end of Day 4. After the 2012 main event, he realized that going deep could be a reality, but never in his wildest dream did he consider making the November Nine. He set a more attainable goal for this year: make it to Day 5. During the first few days of the event, Blumenfield had a good start, but nearing the end of Day 4, he began grinding a short stack with hopes of achieving his goal.

“Once I made it to Day 5, I was playing on house money, freerolling from there and everything from there on was gravy," he said. "I kept grinding and was doing this for a lot of Days 4, 5 and 6, even the beginning of Day 7. When there was 69 left, I was 68th. When there was 39 left, I was 39th.”

Although he was focused, he admits that his age and stamina may have caught up with him on Day 5. Exhausted, the 61 year-old felt he misplayed two hands late in Day 5 versus Daniel Negreanu and for 2010 November Niner Matt Jarvis, which sent him tumbling down the leaderboard.

“Going into the last level of Day 5, I was in pretty good shape with over 3 million in chips. I hadn’t had real trouble with concentration or focus until the end of Day 5. And a fact of life is when you are 61, it’s just hard to maintain that concentration like you could when you were 25. There were two big hands, the first against Negreanu and the second versus Matt Jarvis. I played both those hands badly and they were expensive. They brought me down from 3 million to like 450,000 and that hurt as I ended Day 5, 68 out of 69.”

However, as it often happens in tournament poker, things change in a heartbeat, as it did for Blumenfield during Day 7. Two monstrous double ups - K-K versus A-K and A-A versus 10-10 - both against John Allan Hinds within 15 minutes sent Blumenfield skyrocketing up the leaderboard and among the chip leaders.

“I was in a mental state where these chips were not going anywhere," he said. "These chips were not leaving this stack without being clawed away from me. That put me in good position until with 11 players left, I doubled up again and that was it.”

Unlike some other players, Blumenfield appreciated the time off between the final table.

“For me, the break is a great thing because it gives me an opportunity to improve a lot. Over the years, my game has certainly gotten better but I expect it will get a whole lot better before the November Nine.”

No matter what happens in the next few days, Blumenfield will set out on his next adventure with a new career in poker and will no longer have his “amateur status”.

“I’m now officially retired from the software industry. ... Poker is now my future.”