Courtesy of World Series of Poker

Libertyville’s own Mr. Dawson will test his skills at this month’s World Series of Poker.

In the upcoming weeks, there will be millions of dollars exchanged in the annual tradition of the World Series of Poker (WSOP). When the WSOP pops up on ESPN, viewers falsely believe that it is the 45-minute, high stakes, high intensity poker play with a massive pot its conclusion. In reality, though, it is rigorous process that began on Wednesday, May 25 with a Texas Hold’em event, and concludes with the ending of the main Hold’em event on Tuesday, July 7. The WSOP features the top poker players from around the globe, one of which is a teacher at Libertyville High School.

That man is chemistry teacher, Mr. Pete Dawson.

This year marks the sixth time that Mr. Dawson will take his talents to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, with a chance of returning home with a big pot. In those five appearances, Mr. Dawson has twice returned home with cash.

According to Mr. Dawson, he has “been playing card games since [he] was 10 years old” and playing a lot of poker in high school and college. He has played competitively since then, but more so as a competitive hobby than as a means of making a living. He once came in 28th place out of thousands of participants, but he would not trade his teaching job for the chance to go on the road and compete as a job. Mr. Dawson says that being a professional poker is “not all that glamorous” because it is just such a “hard way to live, being on the road all the time, it’s not very family-oriented.”

He said that when his students find out that he is an elite poker player, they suggest that he make a living out of it, but he stresses that what is condensed into a 45-minute ESPN program is not the real thing; “it’s a twelve-hour day that requires a lot of waiting and grinding” in order to make it through the first day of the Hold’em event that he has participated in.

According to Mr. David Kreutz, a fellow science teacher at LHS and a good friend of Mr. Dawson, Mr. Dawson “sees multiple sides of everything” and “is a good reader of people,” which really benefits him at the poker table where he is not too anxious to make a risky move. He is also very patient, which is a necessity on the first day, when a lot of the competitors are looking to make a big splash. On the first day of the event, he plans to “play straight forward and feel out the other players” until they play themselves out of a spot at the table.

His patience and high intelligence could prove very beneficial in the next few weeks when Mr. Dawson hopes to make the top 10 percent of the field and advance to the next day, with opportunities to cash in. To young, aspiring LHS poker players, Mr. Dawson recommends it as a “hobby, not as a profession, because the more you play and depend upon it, the less fun it becomes.”