From 2005-10, few players had a rapid ascent in the poker world than Roland De Wolfe. The writer for Inside Edge Poker Magazine, De Wolfe amassed more than $5.3 million in lifetime earnings – which included becoming just the second player to capture poker’s Triple Crown (winning WSOP, WPT, and EPT titles) at the time – before essentially dropping out of the poker scene in 2010.
De Wolfe, who hails from the UK, was recently spotted in the record-breaking World Poker Tour Main Event at the Seminole Hard Rock Showdown. It was while there he chatted with PokerNews – you can listen to his interview in this week’s PokerNews Podcast here – and helped us answer the question “Where are they now?”
Days in the Poker Spotlight
De Wolfe actually played in the first-ever $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop in 2012, and a few years ago made a short and largely undocumented appearance in the World Series of Poker Main Event, but for all intents and purposes he stopped playing tournaments in 2010, his last cash being eighth in the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Sydney Main Event for $49,715.
So, what happened?
“Over the years, I just kind of felt like I didn’t want to travel for tournaments,” he told PokerNews. “I’d done that thing, it’s an amazing thing to do in your 20s and early 30s, but it’s grueling that stuff. I have ultimate respect for the guys like Erik Seidel or whoever can just do that. They’re in for life. Amazing that they can find that motivation to keep going.”
He continued: “Everything has its lifespan, and my lifespan in poker, I wasn’t going to be a Seidel battling away into my 80s or however old he is. He’s quite a bit younger, maybe mid-70s. I actually had dinner with Erik as the Florida WPT. Definitely one of my favorite poker heroes going all the way back to Rounders.”
De Wolfe’s tournament poker lifespan may have been short, but it was impactful. In July 2005, he won the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris for $574,419, and less than a year later finished third in the WPT $25,000 Championship for a career-high $1,025,205. That was the same year Joe Bartholdi, who made headlines himself earlier this year, beat David Matthew heads-up to win $3.7 million.
In October 2006, De Wolfe took down the European Poker Tour (EPT) Dublin Main Event for $696,960, and at the 2009 WSOP he won the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo event, a variant he had very little experience playing, to win a $246,616 top prize and a WSOP gold bracelet.
By winning WPT, EPT, and WSOP titles, De Wolfe captured poker’s elusive Triple Crown and at the time joined Gavin Griffin as the only player to ever complete the hat-trick.
“It’s amazing to win a bracelet and the Triple Crown. All of it, it’s just a dream really,” said De Wolfe. “You do realize, but less so at the time, how lucky you are and how much you’re living the dream, especially doing it all in the time when it really kind of mattered to win those things.”
Life After Poker Burnout
If he’s not playing poker, what is De Wolfe up to these days?
“I live in London and my brother and I have kind of run the family business, which is we have a recording studio in London. It’s hired out to singers, bands, and stuff like that,” he explained. “We have some property and some other companies. He’s the lynchpin but I give my advice. I’ve also done a lot of traveling and done a lot of different hobbies that I follow. it’s kind of a life of leisure. … It’s not like I’ve become a crypto-wizard, though that’s a space I’ve explored a bit.”
While he stopped tournaments in 2010, De Wolfe did continue playing cash games for a while, though he did face allegations of cheating from wealthy businessman Iraj Parvizi.
“The cash games, I did enjoy them, I do enjoy them. It’s not like I’ll never play, I’ll play once in a while, but it has to be really fun,” he said. “So, I’m looking to play with people that I know who are fun. I don’t really want people who are really solid wizards.”
While poker didn’t completely disappear from his life, it clearly played a much smaller role, and thus far De Wolfe didn’t really explain why. Why did he deprioritize poker? It took some prodding, but eventually, he gave an answer.
“There was a couple of years where I didn’t want to go near a poker table. I guess I was doing a lot of sports gambling at that time, and other forms of gambling and trading, so I didn’t have the patience to just sit there. Even in a good game. I’d be looking for something to bet on. That’s always kind of been my personality, but there became a point where I didn’t have the concentration skills to sit at a poker table. I kind of lost the lust for it, just burnout I guess.”
Part of the lost lust was that poker, his longtime love, was evolving. Gone were the days of “Poker Boom” personalities and in were the young wunderkinds forged by innumerable online poker hands and polished by solvers.
“I think the game did change somewhat … it’s not a secret that the entertainment factor combined with it not being the boom anymore made it more difficult for the industry and the casual fan to really love it,” he said. “I guess that was the same for players. The original guard of poker players were people who had a lot of life experience, were super fun, and the next generation a bit less because they had less life experience. Fair play to those guys, amazing the people who put all the work in and get all the success that they get, but it’s not quite the same as watching the characters [of the game].”
Return to Tournament Poker?
In the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown, De Wolfe made Day 2 but fell unceremoniously.
“I actually enjoyed it. In my head, poker tournaments have lost some of the things I thought made them fun, but that was actually fun,” he said. “I don’t know if that was a misappropriation on my part, or just after the pandemic a lot of people are coming out. And in Florida, it’s probably always a fun place to play. There weren’t like pros on the tables, or they might have been pros but didn’t seem like super pros. They weren’t tanking, were chatting. I quite like the plexiglass by the way.”
"I think I wouldn’t be butchered apart from maybe in the high rollers, but the level I’d be able to win at would be pretty low."
He continued: “I was pleased at how I was able to pick it up, and I was kind of most pleased with how I enjoyed it. That’s what it’s all about really. It’s just a recreational thing to go and play, and it was really quite fun. That was the most important thing.”
De Wolfe was also realistic about how the game, especially tournament poker, has changed over the past decade. Simply put, players have gotten much, much better. When asked how he felt he’d do against today’s competition, De Wolfe didn’t mince words.
“I think I’d probably do ok if I went to a series and played every event, I think I wouldn’t be butchered apart from maybe in the high rollers, but the level I’d be able to win at would be pretty low. Like you said, when you’re spoiled in the poker boom and everyone is bad except for maybe one or two players … people just giving away money and you’re always used to winning, it becomes so much less appealing [when players got better] … against anybody good, I’ve got no shot basically.”
That is why De Wolfe has such respect for those “people who are still playing from back in the day” like Seidel and Daniel Negreanu, players he used to go toe to toe with.
While there’s no plan to return to poker and grind like he did more than a decade ago, De Wolfe did say there is a good chance poker fans may see him more in the future.
“I’d love to come and play a couple of events. I enjoyed the Florida WPT much more than I thought I would. It was quite fun.”
For more on De Wolfe, check out the video interview he did with PokerNews:
