Nicholas Grippo

A pro tournament grinder from Chicago, Illinois, Grippo is best known for winning the 2012 SCOOP $10,300 Main Event for a huge $798,675 (along with a commemorative watch). Playing as the screenname ‘GripDsNutz’ on PokerStars, this score boosted his annual winnings to over $1 million and placed him in the top 0.01% of MTT earners on the site for the year.

Impressively, this wasn’t the first time that Grippo ranked highly on such leaderboards. He had back-to-back six-figure years in 2009 and 2010, where he won $386,350 and $662,149 respectively. More recently, he earned a second SCOOP title when he shipped the 52-M $215 NLH 8-Max event for $156,462 after beating well-known tournament streamer and multiple-time Supernova Elite Parker ‘tonkaaaa’ Talbot in the final heads-up showdown.

In addition to his $3,000,000+ in MTT earnings, Nicholas regularly attends live tournaments on the North American circuit where he has a six-figure score and collection of five-figure wins to his name. Unfortunately for Grippo, he was the bubble boy of a WSOP final table in 2014 at the $5,000 NLH Eight-Handed event after he exited in ninth. This followed a similar close finish in 2011 when he finished three place short of the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed Championship final table. Although he managed to outlast the likes of Jason Koon, Joe Cada and Ben Lamb, it was fellow American Joe Ebanks that went on to win the bracelet and earn himself a seven-figure payday.