To say that Norway’s Felix Stephensen, who sat with 1.355 million chips at the start of Day 6 of the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event, had come out of nowhere would not be an understatement. According to the Hendon Mob, Stephensen had only earned two cashes in his tournament poker career for just over $22,000 in earnings prior to his big run in the Main Event. With this in mind, we have to look at his course through the 2014 Main Event to determine just how he got here.

Coming out of the Day 1C minefield, Stephensen chipped up a bit over his starting stack to end the day with 39,350 in chips and deep in the pack of players that emerged from that day’s carnage. By Day 3, however, Stephensen was able to move that stack into the top 200 players, finishing off that day’s action with 362,000 in chips.

The upward tick continued on for Stephensen on Day 4 as he inched closer to the top 100 and finished with 739,000 in chips, culminating in his grinding drive just outside of the top 50 at the close of Day 5.

His Day 6 table draw could have been advantageous to him. There were massive stacks surrounding Stephensen that might have given him a chance to make it onto Day 7 of the 2014 Main Event. Although Stephensen was the third shortest stack, Stephensen had the button when Luis Velador‘s 3.78 million chips were in the small blind. If Stephensen were feeling a bit frisky, Kyle Keranen‘s 6.67 million chip stack was within striking distance of Stephensen and might have provided an opportunity to continue his grind up the leaderboard.