Roman Hrabec got to enjoy his former roommate Max Neugebauer’s win in the WSOP Europe
Main Event in November. Now,🧲 with chips deep in the 2024 WPT World Championship,
Hrabec’s chasing a major title of his own.
Lance Bradley
Last month, Roman🧲 Hrabec
busted the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event in Rozvadov and immediately jumped
in a car with his🧲 girlfriend to make the nearly six-hour drive home to Vienna. Upon
arriving home, Hrabec and his girlfriend jumped back in🧲 their car and made the trip
back to Rozvadov and that led to what Hrabec, one of the top-ranked online🧲 players in
the world, having what he describes as the “best poker experience of his life” – and he
didn’t🧲 win a single hand, bluff a single person, or win a single Euro.
Instead, he was
on the rail watching one🧲 of his best friends, Max Neugebauer, win the WSOP Europe Main
Event for €1,500,000 ($1,631,588 US).
“We lived together for over🧲 a year, so we were
very, very close,” Hrabec said on Day 3 of the WPT World Championship, where he🧲 was
amongst the big stacks with less than 200 players remaining.
The pair met through poker
and eventually shared an apartment🧲 where Hrabec was able to coach and stake
Neugebauer.
“I was playing higher than him and I used to stake him🧲 and stuff. I gave
him lot of advice and taught him a little bit and introduced him more to the🧲 good poker
world and the high stakes and stuff like that,” Hrabec said. “So I feel like I was
proud🧲 of him, like having a son and someone is right. So there was kind of this
feeling, I can sort🧲 describe it that way. When I win, obviously I’m happy, but this was
just very different feeling.”
While watching Neugebauer’s win🧲 may be his best poker
experience to date, Hrabec has had plenty of success of his own at the poker🧲 tables. In
2024 alone, he’s surpassed theR$2 million earnings mark in live tournaments and now
he’s got a chance of🧲 winningR$5,678,000 and the WPT World Championship.
“I can’t
complain. I’m obviously very, very grateful for everything. I had a bunch of🧲 nice
scores. I’m just enjoying life playing fellow of poker and just having a good time,”
Hrabec said. There is🧲 one thing missing from Hrabec’s resume though – something that
Neugebauer has now – a live win. Despite having cashed🧲 90 times and having made 16
final table appearances, Hravec has never won a live tournament. He does have
second-place🧲 finishes, including finishing one spot behind only Chin Lim in aR$25,000
No Limit Hold’em Triton event in Vietnam last March🧲 forR$653,600.
“I got a lot of final
tables but never managed to win it. I mean it would be obviously amazing,”🧲 Hrabec said.
“That’s probably the dream of every poker player to win some massive main
events.”
Neugebauer and Hrabec have more🧲 than just poker in common. Both are former
professional athletes. Neugebauer played professional basketball before finding poker,
while Hrabec was🧲 a pro hockey player. Between 2024 and 2024, Hrabec was playing in the
Swiss pro leagues when an injury forced🧲 him away from the ice.
“I was kind of injured
and I was playing a little poker and then I was🧲 semi-pro hockey and semi-pro poker,”
Hrabec said. “But I was doing the two things together and then I quit ice🧲 hockey and
then I basically right away started playing poker professionally.”
After enjoying some
massive scores online and putting together the🧲 type of consistency that many of the
game’s top grinders can relate to, Hrabec decided to see where he stood🧲 on PocketFives
(now PokerStake), the site that tracks and ranks online poker players. After he created
his account and added🧲 his screenames for tracking he was given a surprising result when
he appeared at #2 in the rankings.
Second place. Again.
While🧲 Hrabec isn’t driven to
chase down that #1 ranking, he’d be more than happy to leave Vegas withR$5,678,000
first place🧲 prize money and get that funky runner-up monkey off of his back.
For the
record, second place paysR$3,772,200, though – just🧲 in case.
