January 8, 2007

An Ottawa graduate student climbed out from under his $30,000 debt Sunday in a novel way: he won $1 million US in a poker tournament in the Bahamas.

Quillan Nagel, 30, is actually scheduled to defend his master's thesis next week at Carleton University's Norman Patterson School of International Affairs. Although the head-space transition from casino to academic hot-seat may sound challenging, Nagel probably has the demeanour to handle it. After winning the 16-hour tournament, Nagel turned down the prize package option that included an Aston Martin DB9, opting for more cash. Using up six-figures worth of equity on a car was out of the question -- and besides, the Glebe resident wanted to buy a Toyota Prius hybrid instead.

Nagel became one of 27 players to earn entry to the tournament, qualifying from a field of 800,000 people playing poker on-line. He went to the tournament with his wife, Lisa. Their three-month-old daughter, Audrey, is in Toronto with Nagel's mother-in-law (the trip had been booked since August, and Nagel was guaranteed to win a minimum of $5,000).

Making the man an even more interesting character he is a former professional ballet dancer with the Washington and Cincinnati ballets before having to retire because of injuries. Born in Victoria, he went to Toronto at age nine to study ballet in Toronto.

And Sunday, just after 3 a.m., after outbluffing a Florida man who seemed to be able to fool everybody else, he became a Texas Holdem champion.

While the game was high-stakes, the scene wasn't the smoke-filled room full of hardened professionals steadying their nerves with a shot of whiskey. The tournament area was a strictly no-smoking zone and Nagel, like many of his competitors, was drinking water and just a little bit of coffee.

His opponent in the finals, Jerry Watterson, was the president of the student body at a Florida university. The fourth-place finisher, Steve Bazzo, was a 21-year-old who made sandwiches at a Subway franchise in Michigan. According to the tournament web site, he plans to use his $118,000 winnings to move to Las Vegas with friends and become a professional poker news player. His mom supports the idea.

And then there is Nagel, the graduate student, whose thesis -- which he plans to defend on schedule -- is about U.S.-Iranian relations.

In an interview last night from the Atlantis Paradise Resort and Poker Casino, he told the Citizen that international relations has something of the high-stakes poker game about it. But his ballet training might have done more to prepare him for competitive poker, especially in terms of focus and dealing with the unexpected.

"You've got a girl above your head and you're walking and you're the only people on stage and something goes awry. I mean, what do you do? You have to be able to make very quick and proper decisions -- and poker is all a game of decisions. Whoever makes the best decisions and the least mistakes usually wins."

While it's not the case that he expected to win the tournament, he said he really didn't think about things in those terms.

"I just take everything in stages," he said.

One good sign was the fact that when he flew to the Bahamas, he didn't set the metal detector off. Because of one of his ballet injuries, he has a metal screw in his ankle.

"It looks quite funny on X-rays. It looks just like a screw from Home Depot," he said.

He sometimes sets off alarms at the airport, which isn't pleasant in the post-911 world.

"I hate beeping now," he said.

Now, after his big win, he said he's not sure what type of work he'll do.

"I was just going to sort of cast my net and see what sort of opportunities arose," he said.

He is not interested in making a career of poker playing, but he said he will probably play some more tournaments.

Stuart Rothman, a friend of Nagel's who plays poker with him on a regular basis said what sets his friend apart from the rest of the players is his ability to read cards and people.

"He is a genius at crunching numbers in his head, calculating odds, which is helpful and difficult," said Rothman, 24, who studies with Nagel at Carleton University. "He is also an excellent bluffer. He can raise on a hand when when he has absolutely nothing.

"We knew he is a good poker player but to win a million dollars is just amazing."

The marathon tournament started just after 11 a.m. on Saturday. Each player started with 10,000 in chips, taking sixteen hours for the group to be narrowed down to one.

There were six Canadians and three Americans at the final table of nine players. Before moving on to the last round, each player was guaranteed to walk away with at least $32,000 -- which alone would wipe have out Nagel's $30,000 student loan debt.

Nagel was quoted on the PokerStars.com web site as saying the win "feels pretty good."

"It seems like somehow he got lucky on the last hand," said Rothman. "The other person was bluffing and he had almost basically nothing and then Quillan knew he was bluffing, and called him on it. So not only is he a good bluffer, but can call other people bluffs."

Rothman said he and his friends were up all night, getting regular updates on the web site to track Nagel's progress; and then finally learned of his win at 4 a.m.

"He looks star struck," said Rothman, referring to the photo of his friend standing in front of one million dollars. "And pretty exhausted."

But Nagel said he last night that he'll be where he needs to be emotionally for the thesis defence.
"I'm looking forward to doing that," he said. "I'll be fine."

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