He headed back home to Illinois broke, in debt, and still without even a high school diploma the story has echoes of Matt Damon’s Rounders. Then Vayo lost almost a million dollars in six short weeks, he tells TIME. The pair gallivanted around Europe, ordering caviar room service and renting a villa in Corfu. Together, they thought they were “untouchable,” and at one point he took in nearly $700,000 in just a few heady days, he says. That all came to a head when he started playing with a friend. “I had no concept of the value of money,” he explained. “Prestige,” he added, “comes from doing well in live circuits.” And he did well. While with online poker Vayo could play multiple low-stakes games at a time, hedging his bets, live games required more substantial buy-ins… and correspondingly larger payouts. At his first big game in Barcelona, he started realizing the importance of image. “Live, you have to deal with the human element. “Online is a very technical game it’s all game-theory-oriented,” he explained. He was 18, and had already been ranked number 15 in the world, earning over a million dollars. He drove straight to Vegas, he said, and then headed to Europe. Somewhat devastated (and diploma-less), Vayo bet big on his future with poker. Just a few weeks before graduation, he was called to his principal’s office-and was expelled for skipping class. He racked up enough cash to buy a BMW and rent an apartment where he could throw parties, but not without without consequences. Vayo first became enamored with the game when he watched televised tournaments of the World Series in his early teens, by high school he was regularly playing hooky to compete online (against the wishes of his parents, of course). Neither is he a “nerdy kid,” although some members of his generation of online poker players revel in that title. Growing up in suburban Bloomington, Illinois with musician parents, Vayo isn’t exactly a denizen of some secret poker underworld. You just have to be “pretty competitive.” Anything else? “You need that killer instinct.” “You don’t have to be a math genius,” Vayo tells TIME. But his journey to the top has had its share of lows. Now 27, Vayo got his start as early as 17, when he was already making more money than both of his parents combined, skipping school just to compete. One of those nine-Gordon Vayo-has been working up to this moment for the majority of his life. On Sunday, nine of the world’s best poker pros will take to the table for the main event of the World Series of Poker, the highlight of the globe’s largest annual gathering of players with an $8 million prize.

Poker pros that went broke