Blumstein is a 25-year old pro from Morristown, New Jersey who plays much of his poker online within his home state, although he has also won over $312,000 in live tournaments since his first cash for $ 3,817 in 2012 at the Empire State Poker Championship in Verona.
His 2017 run to the WSOP Main Event final table is his finest result ever, the guaranteed $1,000,000 payday dwarfing his previous best cash of $199,854 when he took down the $500 buy-in $1million guaranteed Deepstack Kickoff at the 2016 Borgata Summer Poker Open in Atlantic City.
Blumstein credits Chris Moneymaker’s incredible 2003 Main Event victory as the catalyst and inspiration behind his own love of poker, and he enters the 2017 final table as chip leader with a chance to take down the very same tournament.
He has stated in many interviews during the event that he considers New Jersey to be ‘one of the toughest places to play poker in the country’ and successes from likes of Joe McKeehen, Tom Cannuli, Joshua Beckley and Michael Ruane seem to back up this argument quite well.
Local Las Vegas bookmakers had him marked down as betting favourite entering the final nine mainly on account of his chip stack, which accounted for 30% of all chips in play, despite him being a WSOP rookie and there being several more experienced players still in the event.
