Entering Day Six of the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event, then-29-year-old poker pro Matt Waxman was in the middle of the pack of the 79 remaining players with 3.125 million in chips. Unlike some of his remaining competition, this wasn’t the pride of Parkland, Florida’s first time at the rodeo.

Inspired by the success of Robert Varkonyi and his victory at the 2002 WSOP Main Event, the athletic Waxman and his friends decided to pick up the game. Throughout high school, Waxman took on his friends for money, keeping score on a notebook rather than actually betting for money at school, and, once he turned 18, Waxman was able to take those winnings into the Seminole Indian casinos of Florida. Once he turned 21 and was able to enter all casinos in the United States, Waxman’s career took off.

Waxman earned his first career tournament cash in 2008, but his first taste of success was earning the championship of a WSOP Circuit stop in Atlantic City back in 2010. In 2011, Waxman took the championship of the World Poker Tour’s Grand Prix de Paris for his largest ever tournament score at the time ($721,178) and in 2013, he collected his first WSOP bracelet in besting Eric basebaldy Baldwin in a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event.

All totaled, entering the 2014 WSOP Main Event, Waxman had 28 WSOP cashes, six WPT cashes, and over $2.8 million in career winnings.

Waxman was facing a few challenges as he entered Day Six of the WSOP Main Event. Even though he had a comfortable stack, he had top pro Luis Velador(3.78 million) two seats to his left, which could be an obstacle. Those two weren’t even the top chip counts at the table, as Jorryt van Hoof(3.9 million) and the second place stack of Kyle Keranen (6.67 million) also looked to make their drive toward the November Nine.

He busted on the second-to-last day of the July play in the 2014 Main Event in 45th place for $186,000.