{"id":107,"date":"2006-03-27T11:22:38","date_gmt":"2006-03-27T16:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/partypokermillion\/blackjack-winner-has-been-beating-the-odds-for-five-years.html"},"modified":"2020-03-12T15:29:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T15:29:28","slug":"blackjack-winner-has-been-beating-the-odds-for-five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/blackjack-winner-has-been-beating-the-odds-for-five-years.html","title":{"rendered":"BlackJack winner has been beating the odds for five years"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u0080’VE BEEN BEATING THE ODDS FOR FIVE YEARS – TUCKER KEELING FROM BIXBY, OKLAHOMA WINS PARTYCASINO.COM $250,000 WORLD BLACKJACK CHAMPIONSHIP<\/p>\n

CARIBBEAN SEA: MARCH 2006: 38-year-old Tucker Keeling from Bixby, Oklahoma, won the inaugural $250,000 PartyPoker.com<\/a> World BlackJack Championship on board the PartyPoker.com Million V in the Caribbean last week. Tucker took home $113,000 but has suffered from ALS, a motor neurone disease, for five years. In 2001 he was given between two and five years to live. He credits his good luck charm &mdash;\u0080\u0093 a little Buddha statue – with bringing him the luck to win the tournament.<\/p>\n

“\u0080\u009cI suppose I’\u0080\u0099ve beaten the odds in more ways than one,”\u0080\u009c said Tucker. “\u0080I’\u0080\u0099ve been beating the odds for five years, I’m delighted to win. My illness meant I had to quit work some time ago. I had a serious amount of luck in the tournament. Even going into the last hand I didn’\u0080\u0099t think I was going to win but I hit 20, which proved to be enough. In the semi- finals, I only won by $25 after betting all my chips and catching BlackJack. It was one hell of a ride.”<\/p>\n

Tucker certainly knows his BlackJack<\/a>. He dealt cards in Vegas for 12 years. He qualified for the tournament online through a raffle on PartyPoker.com. He also tried to qualify for the main $5 million limit hold\u00e2\u0080\u0099em poker event but didn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t get through the special satellite qualifier on the first Sunday of the cruise.<\/p>\n

“My little Buddha statue brought me great luck. I’\u0099d have him sat at the table by my cards. In the first round I nearly went out but I didn’t have him with me then. In every other round I had the statue sitting there bringing me good fortune.”\u0080?<\/p>\n

Tucker is married to Lori, 32, a pit manager of a casino in Oklahoma, who works while Tucker rests at home and she was delighted by the win. “\u0080\u009cIt is really great news, he really deserves it,” she said. As for the money, Tucker is no doubt about what he’\u0099s going to do with it, “\u0080I’\u0080\u0099m going to enjoy it,” he added.<\/p>\n

A PartyCasino.com spokesman said: “Tucker’s story is inspirational. We are both glad and sad for him at the same time. There couldn’t have been a better winner.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u0080’VE BEEN BEATING THE ODDS FOR FIVE YEARS – TUCKER KEELING FROM BIXBY, OKLAHOMA WINS PARTYCASINO.COM $250,000 WORLD BLACKJACK CHAMPIONSHIP CARIBBEAN SEA: MARCH 2006: 38-year-old Tucker Keeling from Bixby, Oklahoma, won the inaugural $250,000 PartyPoker.com World BlackJack Championship on board the PartyPoker.com Million V in the Caribbean last week. Tucker took home $113,000 but has<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":79796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2182,300],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81447,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/81447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}