David Tuthill sat at the poker table in quiet excitement, adjusting to the new reality that he just won $223,197 in a poker game. Tuthill was the last man standing at the World Series of Poker circuit at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nev., taking home the biggest pot in his professional career.
“It felt amazing,” Tuthill said over a phone interview. “Going to school for a year and a half and sort of draining my savings… I finally feel financially secure now.”
For Tuthill, and many like him, it all started in 2003 when ESPN aired its first World Series of Poker event, won by Chris Moneymaker, an accountant from Tennessee who had obtained a seat after winning a $39 online tournament.
“I was in eighth grade sitting at home watching Moneymaker win it all,” Tuthill explained, “it just really got me interested in everything.”
While the World Series of Poker had been around since the 1970’s, it didn’t begin to gain popularity until ESPN aired the 2003 event, which was broken down into made-for-TV hour-long episodes that featured several new cameras that engaged the viewers at home.
“At that same time online poker was also beginning to get big,”Tuthill said, “the game of poker really started to take off.”
Tuthill, a St. Petersburg native who’s broadcast several University of Tampa sporting events, began playing online poker shortly after and saw his success begin to escalate in high school.
“I started seeing success when I was a junior or senior in high school,” Tuthill said. “I have kind of a one track mind, I enjoyed doing it so that’s all I did.”
In 2009, while in Aruba for a tournament, Tuthill became close with a group from Portland, Ore., including Stephen Bokor.
“I met David the first or second night at the tournament, we were at the same table,” said Bokor. “I kept going all in and he kept matching me. We started talking, partied a little bit, after about nine days we had gotten really close. David had the idea of throwing a poker house together with five or six of us in Portland.”
In the fall of 2009, Tuthill dropped out of the University of Central Florida and moved to Portland to play poker full time.
“Malcolm Gladwell says you’ve mastered something after playing for 10,000 hours,” Tuthill asserted. “I just played all day every day in Portland. I got a ton better.”
Bokor, who now rooms with David in Tallahassee Fla., dropped out of Western Oregon University also to play poker full time.
“We all made each other better when we were in Portland,” Bokor said, “talking about hands, playing hands, talking strategies. There’s so many different ways to play the game, we all got so much better.”
Bokor, like Tuthill, was watching Moneymaker in the 2003 World Series of Poker and became intrigued with the game.
“I started off playing with dimes and pocket change,” Bokor reminisced, “ then moved up to $20. It became a weekly thing, friends would come over and we’d have games.”
Bokor, now 24, continues to play full time, traveling around the United States playing in tournaments. He is currently on an all-time high, recently winning a career high $155,000.
“I’m taking poker more seriously than ever before,” Bokor said. “I want poker to be my main focus right now, school later.”
For Tuthill, it was a different approach. He returned to FSU to pursue his degree in social sciences and currently has two semesters until graduation.
“Poker is certainly not what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Tuthill said. “I could support myself doing it but I want to start a family, finish my degree, maybe start a business. Poker will always be a fall back if need be.”
Tuthill says he is fortunate to have family and friends who have supported his playing career, one of which is his other roommate, Aaron Lorenz.
Tuthill and Lorenz go all the way back to kindergarten orientation. When they attended different high schools, the two lost contact but reconnected when Tuthill’s father bought Lorenz a plane ticket to see him play in Las Vegas.
“It was completely out of the blue,” Lorenz said. “I think he kind of wanted me to see what David was up to. We hung out in Vegas and have been close ever since.”
Lorenz doesn’t play poker but is more than familiar with Tuthill’s ups and downs. “I think I’ve seen him a total of two hours since he won the $220,000; he’s been playing non-stop,” Lorenz said. “But I know no matter how much he’s up or down, he’s gonna be the same guy. That’s just who he is.”
Tuthill maintains now that he is 24 he is much more responsible with his winnings than when he was younger but that won’t stop him from having a little fun with the over $200,000 bump to his bank account.
“I bought an Ipad and a Tempur-Pedic mattress,” Tuthill said, “I’m probably also gonna have some big parties, you know, being in Tallahassee and all.”
Nathan Krohn can be reached at nathan.krohn@spartans.ut.edu.