Dylan Meier Living Out a Main Event Dream in Honor of his Brother
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Nebraska native Dylan Meier always shared a passion for poker with his brother, who he lost two years back. In the intervening years of mourning and missing his dear brother, Dylan held on to the dream they had together to play in the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event. Little did he know, that dream would soon become a reality.
Poker Dream Come True
Meier and friends of his brother started a memorial golf tournament in his brother's honor at the golf course where Dylan works, and he got a big surprise when they held the tournament again over Dylan's birthday weekend in early June. Knowing about the shared Main Event dream, some friends of his brother had been working to do something special for Dylan and pulled together enough money for him to play in the Main.
"Right after the tournament, they gave away raffle prizes and stuff like that and at the very end, they gave me this Happy Gilmore sized check to get in...because me and my brother both had a big passion for poker," Meier explained. "Pretty sweet. It's one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me."
"They gave me this Happy Gilmore sized check to get in...because me and my brother both had a big passion for poker."
Dylan could have saved the freeroll to play another year, but he decided to go ahead and use it to play this year and not delay pursuing his biggest poker dream.
"I'm super excited to be here and I'm having a blast. [I'm] running really well so far... I've cracked aces in the last three days at least once."
Meier built from 50,000 up to 277,700 on Day 1c, putting him top ten in chips for the flight. On Day 2c, he continued to climb, bagging up 565,300. An early gift on Day 1 helped prepare Meier's ascent and he shared the hand details with us. After calling a three-bet with pocket nines, he flopped quads only to have his opponent move all in.
"The pot was about 20k and the guy just ships 50k with ace-high," Meier recalled. He has built from there, mostly staying steady on Day 3 as of the final level of the night, the money bubble growing ever more near.
Bad Beat, Good Omen
Meier has been saving up some rungood for this very event, unloading some bad luck just before heading out to Vegas. After coaching a baseball game in Omaha two hours from his home in central Nebraska, Dylan went to dinner with his girlfriend. He went outside following dinner and found that his car had been stolen, the night before he was due to fly out. A stressful situation before hopping a flight to Vegas to play in the biggest tournament of his life, Dylan saw the whole debacle as a good omen.
"One, I needed a new car to start with, and two, I just feel like it's sending me with good vibes coming here." He explained further: "If you have a string of bad things happening to you and you just keep moving forward and you don't let it bug you too much... There's worse things that can happen to people than getting your car stolen."
"There's worse things that can happen to people than getting your car stolen."
Armed with a sense of perspective, Dylan continued on to fulfill his dream of playing in poker's biggest event of the year. He got news from police the morning of the Main Event that the car had been found - a relief even though some items had been stolen.
Living a Dream
With just around $30,000 in live tournament earnings according to Hendon Mob, his best score being $12,434 back in 2016 for winning a $365 Council Bluffs Circuit event, Meier is hoping to add significantly to that total. Cashing the Main Event would mean his largest poker score and he hopes to keep his smooth run going.
"I have not had my tournament life at risk at all so far. I've just been coasting as a big stack and picking up chips as I go, the only way I know how."
Asked what a deep run in the Main Event would mean for him, Meier shared: "It would mean so much. With my brother passing away - kind of for him and for me, for everybody."
Follow Dylan Meier's progress as he lives out his WSOP Main Event dream in Las Vegas. You can get all the updates right here at PokerNews.
