First-Timer Scott Blumstein Battles with the Best

With under 200 players remaining in the World Series of Poker Main Event, the tables around the Brasilia Room are breaking and quickly disappearing to storage areas around the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. In turn, the places where some Main Event first-timers have been hiding are also disappearing and moving forward, there will likely be no such thing as a good seat draw.

Prior to the last break, one of those first-timers, New Jersey’s Scott Blumstein, found that out the hard way. He was moved directly to Ben Lamb’s right and in poker terms, there may not be a more polarized table pairing in the room. Lamb is a former WSOP Player of the Year and November Niner, while Blumstein is an online player from New Jersey, who is making his WSOP Main Event debut.

Throughout the first few days of the Main Event, you wouldn’t know it though. Blumstein burst onto the leader board after the money bubble burst and controlled a top-ten stack for parts of yesterday’s Day 4 session. A few hours into Day 5, both Blumstein and Lamb are sitting with over 3 million chips.

“No, to answer your question, it’s not just poker.” Blumstein said bluntly during the last break, when asked how to approach playing against a player with Lamb’s pedigree. “He is a beast, he literally wins the second the hand is dealt, because he’s in the big blind and nobody wants to play with him.”

Blumstein doesn’t have an option today. His table is likely not going to break for the foreseeable future and while this is his toughest table draw thus far, Blumstein will be looking to find his balance.

“He’s certainly intimidating,” Blumstein admitted, before adding, “I’m trying to find the right balance of being intimidating and being intimidated…but I have a lot of chips, so I don’t have to do much anyway.”

Players from New Jersey and the East Coast have done damage in the last few Main Events. In 2015, Joe McKeehen led the Beast Coast into the November Nine, which included runner-up New Jersey pros Joshua Beckley and recent bracelet winner Tom Cannuli. Last year, Michael Ruane finished 4^th, to keep the Garden State final table run alive and Blumstein knows those results have only raised the bar back home.

“There is no tougher place to play than on the East Coast. I definitely feel like I’m in this position because I’m from New Jersey.” Blumstein said, before adding, “I mean, look who won Colossus, Tom Cannuli, the list goes on and on. It’s no coincidence. I think I’m here because I got pushed here, it’s just Darwinism, survival of the fittest.”

So far, Blumstein has survived the toughest test of his poker career, in the event got him and so many other young players excited about a card game over a decade ago.

“The Main Event, it’s why I’m in poker.” Blumstein said, before bluntly adding, “2003, Chris Moneymaker, that’s it. That’s why I’m here.”

Over the years, the Main Event has turned countless first-timers into household names, just like Chris Moneymaker. If Scott Blumstein is able to continue to battle the best and his run through this year’s Main Event, he could be the next first-timer that is here to stay.