He was supposed to become a football player, but a serious knee injury made Sam Trickett switch his career to poker. The decision turned out to be a good one as Trickett became one of the most successful British poker players. He won millions playing live poker tournaments and was named the 2011 European Poker Player of the Year, and Britain’s Best Cash Player the same year.

Intro

Sam Trickett is a professional poker player from Nottingham, UK. In the live tournament circuit Trickett is best known for winning the 2011 Aussie Millions A$ 100,000 High Roller event for $1.5 million, then taking down the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event in Cannes for 1 million euros a little later that very same year, and of course for his runner-up finish at the biggest poker event in history, 2012's The Big One for One Drop collecting more than $10 million in prize money.

Background

Trickett was born in 1986 in East Retford, United Kingdom. As a teenager he pursued a career as a professional football player, but in 2005 Trickett suffered an injury which ended his football-playing days and made him seek a new career. That was when Trickett discovered poker. He started playing at local casinos and soon brought his newly acquired skills to the online felt. Trickett who is also known by his online alias “Tricky” started from the $10 S'n'G’s and went to the top from there.

World Series of Poker

Trickett made his first World Series of Poker money finish in 2008 by placing 4th in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em event taking home more than $240,000. He came back to Vegas two years later for a much better record, six WSOP cashes including one runner-up finish. Trickett placed second in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em event falling just short of his first bracelet. He lost the final battle to Jason DeWitt and collected a little over half a million dollars for his performance.

Trickett scored three more WSOP cashes in 2011 including the fourth-place €77,642 he collected at the WSOPE €5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event in Cannes. However, Trickett's biggest WSOP moment came in 2012. The British pro was one of the 48 to put in the $1 million buy-in and play for the largest first-place prize in poker history at the WSOP's The Big One for One Drop. Trickett was very close to winning that tournament, however, he eventually lost the heads-up match to Antonio Esfandiari and took home just over $10 million for his second-place finish.

In 2019, Trickett finished runner-up in the €25,500 WSOPE Platinum High Roller for $412,256.

Despite his poker success, Trickett has yet to win a WSOP bracelet, making him one of the best poker players without WSOP gold.

Sam Trickett's Top 5 WSOP Results

European Poker Tour

So far Trickett has several European Poker Tour cashes to his name. He made his first attempt at winning the EPT trophy in 2010 Vilamoura Main Event. Trickett finished the tournament in fourth place for almost €140,000. One year later he made another EPT final table in London. Trickett finished seventh at the ￡20,000 High Roller event which was good for ￡68,800.

Other Achievements

In 2008 Trickett came out victorious in the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Main Event in Luton collecting the ￡109,050 first-place prize. Two years later he scored another big finish taking down the PartyPoker.com World Open VI in London. His Main Event win gave Trickett's bankroll a $200,000 boost. The year 2011 was the highly successful for the young Brit in terms of winnings and titles. He started off by finishing first at the Aussie Millions A$100,000 High Roller event and taking home $1.5 million. Then just a few days later he came in second in the A$250,000 Super High Roller collecting another $1.4 million.

Then in September Trickett won the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event taking home €1 million in cash. In 2012 Trickett scored another big money finish at the $258,000 Super High Roller event at the Macau High Stakes Challenge. He placed seventh in that event for just short of $1 million.

In October 2019, Trickett took down the $25,500 partypoker MILLIONS Sochi Super High Roller in Sochi for $435,000.

Sam Trickett's Top 5 Live Cashes