Ylon Schwartz

Professional gambler Ylon Schwartz has been a regular in American casinos for almost 20 years and at the grand old age of 38 went into the WSOP final table as one of the oldest ‘November Nine’.

Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Schwartz started his gambling career at the age of 13, hustling the legendary 80s chess games in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park with the now iconic Eric ‘Sheets’ Haber. He became a professional chess player until realising that he had to expand his gambling empire to make more money and turned his attention to pool, darts, horse betting & eventually backgammon. After being introduced to poker, Schwartz started making regular trips to Atlantic City & Foxwoods and fast became a fixture on the east coast scene. In an interview with Fox Sports, ‘Sheets’ credits Schawrtz with introducing him to poker when taking him to a $50 freeze-out and teaching him the rules in a cab on the way there.

With live tournament winnings of over $250,000 and 11 previous WSOP cashes, Schwartz has clearly made the right decision to move to poker. His previous highest World Series finish was 17th in the 2006 $2,500 NLH for $28,187 and cashed in this years $2,000 Limit Hold ‘Em (Event #20; coming 15th for $10,046.)

Schwartz is also a prolific online MTT’er (playing on PokerStars as ‘TenthPlanet’) and likened the latter stages of the ME to the deep end of the Sunday Million (going on to add “except the Stars Million is probably a little tougher when you go deep”).

In April 2007 he won the Sunday Second Chance for $50,654 and has won the $100 re-buys twice (November ’07 & April ’08) for a combined score of over $35,000. Despite admitting to being spooked by playing on a TV table, he still managed to finish 4th after an aggressive showing that did his image no harm.