Montco man is the one to beat in World Series of Poker

When the first card hits the felt at the final round of the World Series of Poker next month, all the glamour of Las Vegas and glare of TV cameras will be focused on a 24-year-old Montgomery County man who insists he is an "average Joe."

He does look the part. In a sport known for eccentric personalities and brash outfits, Joseph McKeehen is partial to sweatpants and T-shirts. He drives a Prius and still lives at home with his parents in North Wales.

But with years of experience under his belt and 63.1 million in chips, McKeehen will be the one to beat. He enters the Nov. 8 tournament with more than twice the chips of his nearest competitor, and a third of all the chips on the table.

Seated to his right will be two other young men from the Philadelphia area: 24-year-old Josh Beckley of Marlton and 23-year-old Thomas Cannuli of Cape May County, N.J.

McKeehen considers them friends but said that won't stop any of them from gunning for the first-place prize of $7.8 million.

"I'm very confident," he said in an interview Tuesday. "It's just another poker tournament to me. It's not like it's a big moment."

Later, he was more humble, conceding he's never played anything on this scale, the biggest poker tournament in the world.

"It will depend if I play well, if I get lucky - all that stuff," he said. "I can't say I'm going to get top three for sure. That would be silly."

That balance of confidence and caution, restraint and aggression, experts say, is golden in the game of poker.

"He's really smart," said McKeehen's coach, one of Las Vegas' top strategists, who asked not to be named - for strategic reasons. "He's able to hyper-focus on each individual person around the table and know where he stands and where they think he stands."

The coach said McKeehen, Beckley, and Cannuli all benefit from their youth, and from their proximity to casinos in an age in which gambling is increasingly moving online.

"They're all in tune with the online world, so they know really good strategy, but they also get to play live," the coach said. "It's a good combination. Also, they're at a good age where they're able to sit at a table for a long time and focus."

Endurance could make a big difference. The tournament's Main Event began in July, with more than 6,400 players. After eight days of poker, just nine remained. The first round of their three-day final next month is expected to last 12 to 15 hours - beginning at 8 p.m. It will end when the table has been reduced to four players. The second day will cut the table to two.

While McKeehen is well-known among elite poker players, he burst into fans' consciousness at the World Series of Poker in July, when he knocked superstar Daniel Negreanu out of the competition.

Negreanu has been a key part of marketing and promoting for both the World Series of Poker and ESPN, which telecasts the events.

"I don't think there's anything anyone can say that's negative about him," McKeehen said of Negreanu. "He's the consummate professional."

Toppling a titan earned McKeehen some unsavory feedback on social media - "McKeehen killed poker," said one post; "With Daniel out, who the hell cares?" said another - but McKeehen said it was just business. "He was just another player in the tournament," McKeehen said of Negreanu. "I couldn't treat him different from anybody else."

McKeehen is not prone to smile and seems unimpressed by the hoopla around him - beating a celebrity, becoming a celebrity, winning millions of dollars.

He travels the world, but stays mostly within his hotel: "If I do anything outside, it's probably because I lost."

In his downtime, he likes to play an online warcraft game called Hearthstone. "I think I'm pretty good at that as well," he said.

Interest in poker exploded in 2003, after a player named Chris Moneymaker rode an $86 online poker game all the way to a $2.5 million World Series of Poker cash-out. Ratings have evened out over the last four years, according to ESPN, but the number of players continues to grow.

This year's World Series of Poker was the biggest ever, with 6,420 contestants from 111 countries, including the oldest at 94 and the youngest at 21.

With Atlantic City nearby, the East Coast has always been a prominent force in poker, and McKeehen said he finds players here tougher than those from the South and the West - though not as tough as Europeans, two of whom he will face in the finals.

McKeehen began playing poker online - not for money - in middle school, and got serious about it as a teenager, he said, when he realized he was consistently earning more per hour at poker than at his grocery-store job.

When he began treating poker as his job on summer break and after school, McKeehen said, teachers didn't always understand it. But his parents were tentatively supportive.

McKeehen recalled an adviser's reaction at La Salle College High School when he heard about the poker plan: "He looked at me funny and said, 'I had a nephew that did it and lost all his money.' I'm like, 'Well, I'm probably better than him.' "

Christine Reilly, senior research director for the National Center for Responsible Gambling, said that although young adults are "very much a high-risk group" for gambling addiction, a problem gambler would probably never reach the level of McKeehen and his peers.

"One of the hallmarks of a gambling disorder is that someone keeps gambling despite losing and adverse consequences. They can't control it," she said. "That's not the type of behavior that would last very long on a [professional] circuit."

By his senior year at Arcadia University in Glenside, McKeehen was winning six-figure pots at tournaments during spring break and summer. He finished his degree in mathematics, though he's skeptical now that he'll ever use it.

As of July, McKeehen had racked up more than $3 million.

November's tournament at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas will be the first time his parents have gone to watch him play.

"I told them they're going to be very bored. I wouldn't be surprised if they stayed there an hour and left," he said, adding that he doesn't want to see them until it's over.

"I don't need that distraction and them to teleport their stress to me. I just want to play, I want to win - and, afterward, we can talk all they want about it."

Once the tournament is over "and I know how much money I have," McKeehen says, he'll hire someone to invest it for him and continue to play the game for as long as it continues to be fun and lucrative.

"There are definitely moments of heartbreak and moments of sadness for everybody that aren't going to get shown," he said. "It's pretty glamorous, though."

Still, McKeehen says, he would advise his 10-year-old brother against trying to follow in his footsteps.

"Everyone that's still in the Final 9 is very lucky to get there, including myself. I might never get this spot again. I probably won't."

jparks@philly.com

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