Players who make televised final tables often times will go out of their way to dress up for the occasion. Some buy a new suit or get their favorite shirt pressed. Down to the final 27 players in the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event, Michael Ruane took some time out of his day to go shopping for new clothes for Day 7.

He bought new socks, new underwear and a plain black t-shirt at Walmart. It wasn’t about looking good though necessarily, he just ran out of clean clothes.

“I didn’t come out with enough clothes because I didn’t expect to get this deep in the Main Event,” said Ruane, who hails from Maywood, New Jersey.

If you look at Ruane’s Hendon Mob profile, you’d think he fell off the planet in December 2012. He either just stopped cashing in live events or stopped playing them. It makes Ruane a real unknown commodity to his opponents.

“Yeah, I’m trying to keep it that way. That’s the goal,” Ruane said. “It’s totally an advantage, so that’s why I’m not going to elaborate more on it.”

Ruane admits he did play on PokerStars frequently prior to Black Friday and no, he’s not willing to share his screenname either. While he won’t give away his online identity, he does play on the legal online poker sites in his home state.

“I live in New Jersey now so I play on the regulated online sites there,” said Ruane.

It’s been an interesting week for Ruane. He came out to Las Vegas not long before the Main Event, played a $1,000 buy-in WSOP event and then dabbled in some online poker, including the $1,000 online bracelet event on WSOP.com. .

“Just came out for the Main essentially so yeah, pretty cool that I came out for one tournament and I’m here right now,” said Ruane. “Here” is sitting with a top five stack with just 12 players left.

A few days ago he left the Rio, jumped in an Uber and headed to the house he was staying at. Five days of poker was taking its toll on him and he was frustrated over a hand he felt he misplayed. He woke up the next morning, refreshed and ready for Day 6, but there was a problem.


He wasn’t positive they were in the Uber though.

“I was so frazzled. There was a hand at the end of the day that I was so frazzled by and discombobulated that I was flustered for two hours after that,” said Ruane. “So I didn’t put it past myself that I would leave my shoes in a strangers car.”

So Bryan Piccioli, who had busted at the end of Day 5, was kind enough to lend Ruane his shoes for Day 6. Ruane ended that day with basically the same stack he started with – roughly 25,000,000.

Things got even better when he got back to his house. The shoes that Ruane thought he had left in some strangers car were in fact outside by the pool. He found them Monday morning and wore them to Day 7.