Where Are They Now: 2007 PCA Champion, Ryan Daut
The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has a rich tradition dating to 2004 when Gus Hansen outlasted 221 players to capture a $455,780 first-place prize aboard a cruise ship. Now, nine years later, the PCA returns to Paradise Island in the Bahamas from Jan. 5 through 14, and continues to attract some of the best players in the world.
In preparation for the 2012 PCA kickoff, we caught up with 2007 PCA Main Event Champion, Ryan Daut, who outlasted a field of 937 to win a $1,535,255 first-place prize. To do so, he overcame a stacked final table that included Isaac Haxton, Robert Ford, Robert Mizrachi, Jonathan Little, and Frank Rusnak.
At the time, the PCA was a part of the World Poker Tour and aired on the Travel Channel; you may recall that final table was played outdoors. Check out the following hand, which features some pretty sick bluffing.
Since his win, Daut has stepped out of the poker spotlight. He still plays but prefers to play online and chooses his live events sparingly. Aside from some small cashes at the World Series of Poker, none for more than $17,000, Daut’s only other notable cash came at the 2007 WPT $15,000 Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic where he finished sixth for $192,715.
What have you been up to since your PCA win in 2007? Are you still living in New Jersey?
Back in 2009, I stopped traveling the live circuit, so I moved out of my parents' house and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, with a few friends. Then about a year ago, I moved out to Orange County. For the past five months, I’ve been traveling back and forth to Vancouver so I can continue playing online.
Did you consider going back to the live circuit after Black Friday as opposed to relocating to Vancouver?
I've always been mainly a cash game player and just played a handful of good tournaments on the side, so after Black Friday I first tried to grind it out at the Commerce. After three grueling sessions, I knew I couldn’t handle being a live poker player. It's just far too slow, and I'm used to playing a few two-hour sessions a day, which just isn’t possible with the commute and wait time to get in games at a casino. So a couple weeks later I deposited some money on Merge and tried to make a living there, but I wasn’t making enough money, so in July I decided that after the WSOP I would make the move to Vancouver and continue grinding online.
Do you have a lot of money stuck online as a result of Black Friday?
I have a little over $100,000 on Full Tilt and maybe $1,000 to $2,000 on Absolute. I actually bought another $10,500 on Full Tilt for $4,500 about six weeks ago because I feel confident now that the deal with Groupe Bernard Tapie will go through.
What games and stakes do you prefer to play online?
Over the past three to four years, the online cash games have gotten a lot tougher, so I've been progressively moving down in stakes over the years and actually made the switch to pot-limit Omaha. I would have to put in far too many hours to be a pro playing no-limit hold'em cash since the $2/$4 and higher games online are very difficult now.
On the side I probably play about 15 Sundays a year. I wouldn’t be able to handle playing tournaments full time because of the variance and the small edges nowadays, but Sundays are still very soft and I can deal with tournaments one to two days a month. I actually got pretty lucky last year and chopped the Sunday Million and a WCOOP for $208,000 both times, so I will probably just keep grinding mid-stakes cash and playing Sundays on the side in 2012.
How did you enter the PCA in 2007? Did you satellite in, buy in, etc.?
In 2006, I played very few tournaments and almost exclusively cash games. It was my first year as a pro, and I managed to have a $100,000 year. I had a few friends going down to the Bahamas, so I played two super satellites and ended up bubbling them both. I decided that since it was a one-time tourney I would just buy in direct for about 8 percent of my bankroll.
It was only my second live tournament at the time, but I had played probably 50 hours of live cash and thought the tourney would have a good enough structure to favor a cash game player, so I played it and ended up getting pretty lucky there.
How did your life change after the win? Did you make any big purchases with your $1.5 million?
After I won, I started playing a lot more live tournaments, jumped up in stakes from $3/$6 to $10/$20 to $25/$50 and started a backing business, which I still have going today. I'm not really a big purchase kinda guy. I got my parents a pretty nice car a few years ago, but besides that I don’t think I spent more than $5,000 on any one thing.
What was it like playing such a major tournament outdoors? Likewise, what was it like playing against a tough final table that included Isaac Haxton, Robert Mizrachi, and Jonathan Little?
At the time, the five younger guys were pretty much all unknowns, but from a limited amount of time playing with them I knew they were all pretty good players. At that point, the only thing I knew about Robert Mizrachi was that he was the Grinder's brother, and on Day 1, one of my buddies was really beating the Grinder's brains in all day, so I wasn’t intimidated going into the final table
The only thing I remember about playing outdoors was that the sun was in my eyes and it was pretty windy, so we had to be really careful with the cards all day. I wouldn’t want to do it again.
With the event being televised, did you acquire any fame and recognition?
I was definitely recognized a bunch after the tournament aired, but I've never been much of a self promoter, and since I've only been on TV twice for final tables and rarely play live tournaments anymore, I don’t get recognized nearly as much as other people who had big results from that time period.
Will you be making a trip to this year's PCA?
I won't. I haven’t been back there since 2008. In the past few years, the only tournaments I play have been the LAPC Main Event and a handful of WSOP events. This year I may also consider playing the EPT Madrid Main Event, but other than that I don’t have any live tournaments planned in the near future.
What are your thoughts in regards to the future of online poker in the U.S.?
With the recent statement from the DOJ that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting, I suspect that legislation will go through sometime this year and that a casino site owned by someone like Caesar's Palace will open early to mid 2013. I don’t think the sites will be huge immediately though, so my hope is that PokerStars is let back into the U.S. market sometime next year
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In this Series
- 1 Where Are They Now?: The 2003 WSOP Main Event Final Table
- 2 Where Are They Now?: The 1989 WSOP Main Event Final Table
- 3 Where Are They Now?: The 2002 WSOP Main Event Final Table
- 4 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Tablist, Phillip Hilm
- 5 Where Are They Now: 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Tablist, Rhett Butler
- 6 Where Are They Now: 2003 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Tomer Benvenisti
- 7 Where Are They Now: 2005 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Steve Dannenmann
- 8 Where Are They Now: 2009 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Kevin Schaffel
- 9 Where Are They Now: 2006 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Dan Nassif
- 10 Where Are They Now: 2005 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Aaron Kanter
- 11 Where Are They Now: 2007 PCA Champion, Ryan Daut
- 12 Where Are They Now: 2003 Aussie Millions Champion Peter Costa
- 13 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Tablist, Raymond Rahme
- 14 Where Are They Now: Eric Crain
- 15 Where Are They Now: WPT Season 1 Stars Ron Rose & Chris Bigler
- 16 Where Are They Now: WPT Season V Borgata Poker Open Champ Mark Newhouse
- 17 Where Are They Now: WPT Season II Borgata Poker Open Champ Noli Francisco
- 18 Where Are They Now: WPT Season IX Foxwoods Poker Finals Champion Jeff Forrest
- 19 Where Are They Now: Adam Friedman
- 20 Off The Felt With Nadya Magnus: Where Are They Now?
- 21 Where Are They Now: Don Zewin, the Man Who Finished Third to Hellmuth & Chan in 1989
- 22 Where Are They Now: 1981 World Series of Poker Main Event Runner-Up Perry Green
- 23 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Finalist Lee Childs
- 24 Where Are They Now: 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event Bad Beat Victim Paul Snead
- 25 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Player of the Year Tom Schneider
- 26 Where Are They Now? Harrah's New Orleans Poker Dealer Darrell Guillory
- 27 Where Are They Now: Former Team PokerStars Pro Pat Pezzin
- 28 Where Are They Now: 2007 WSOP Main Event Fifth-Place Finisher Jon Kalmar
- 29 Where Are They Now: The Nine Past EPT Barcelona Champions
- 30 Where Are They Now: EPT Season 1 Barcelona Champ Alexander Stevic
- 31 Where Are They Now: 2006 WSOP Main Event 12th-Place Finisher John Magill
- 32 Where Are They Now: The Past Nine EPT London Champions
- 33 Where Are They Now: EPT6 London Champ Aaron Gustavson
- 34 Where Are They Now: EPT4 Baden Champ Julian Thew
- 35 Where Are They Now: Past EPT Prague Champions
- 36 Where Are They Now: 2011 WSOP Main Event Champ Pius Heinz
- 37 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Runner-Up Tuan Lam
- 38 Where Are They Now: Stan Schrier Reflects on Historic 2001 WSOP Final Table
- 39 Where Are They Now: Bracelet Winner Matt Hawrilenko Temporarily Comes Out of "Retirement"
- 40 Where Are They Now: Battling Multiple Sclerosis, Paul Darden Returns to WSOP Felt
- 41 Where Are They Now? Mike Gracz Returns To Poker After Three Years To Lead Event #31
- 42 Where Are They Now: 2004 Poker Boom Breakout Gabriel Thaler
- 43 Where Are They Now: "Minneapolis" Jim Meehan Pretty Much Out of Poker
- 44 Where Are They Now: Poker's Good Guy, a Survivor, and a Rogue
- 45 Where Are They Now: 2006 WSOP Stud Dmitri Nobles
- 46 Where Are They Now: Esther Rossi’s 7-Card Stud Journey
- 47 Where Are They Now: 2007 WSOP & WPT Champ Bill Edler
- 48 Where Are They Now: Fabian Quoss Announces His Exit from Poker
- 49 Where Are They Now: Jon Aguiar Fondly Remembers Tilting Brandon Cantu
- 50 Where Are They Now: Family & Business First for Adrienne “TalonChick” Rowsome
- 51 Where Are They Now: Xuan Liu Swaps Poker Passion for eSports
- 52 Where Are They Now: Alan Boston Offended to Return to WSOP After Long Hiatus
- 53 Where Are They Now: An 'The Boss' Tran Fighting Curse from Selling Bracelet
- 54 Where Are They Now: 1996 WSOP Chinese Poker Bracelet Winner Gregg Grivas
- 55 Where Are They Now: Ali Eslami Returns to WSOP After Five-Year Hiatus
- 56 Where Are They Now: Former EPT Champ Sander Lylloff Competing in Biggest Backgammon Duel in History
- 57 Where Are They Now: Dustin Woolf Back in Poker But Not as Player
