Ian Pelz’s Cold-to-Gold World Series of Poker Ain't Over Yet
After back-to-back final tables, and his first WSOP bracelet win, Ian Pelz is onto Day 3 of the WSOP Main Event with eyes on improving on his 2024 performance.
By his own admission, the first three weeks of the 2025 World Series of Poker weren’t going great for Ian Pelz: a min-cash in the opening event, the $1,000 Mystery Millions, and a min-cash in the #2,000 No Limit Hold’em event. As the WSOP was hitting the halfway point, Pelz had just $5,329 in earnings.
A slightly-better-than-min-cash in the Millionaire Maker didn’t feel like something that could offer momentum, but in hindsight it was the start of a run that has seen Pelz win half a million dollars, his first career WSOP bracelet, and has him in position for another deep run in the Main Event.
Before winning the gold however, Pelz made it deep in the $3,000 Limit Hold’em event.When the final day began, Pelz was sitting in 11th out of 12 remaining players and had just 10 big bets to start the day with. As the day progressed however, Pelz kept climbing while others around him were busting. Eventually, Pelz was eliminated in third place by eventual champion Moshe Gavrieli. After a summer of frustration, Pelz was happy with the result.
“I was short the whole day and it’s Limit Hold’em, especially with the nature of that game. I really didn't feel like I had a chance to win at any point, so I was just happy to ladder to third,” Pelz said.
It called for celebration. Drinks and dinner with a few friends. Nothing too serious. A few days later however, Pelz was out celebrating and was in no position to drive so he left his car in the Horseshoe parking lot. The next morning a friend dropped him off to pick up the car and return home but Pelz couldn’t help but notice the $300 Gladiators of Poker event on the WSOP schedule.
Three days later, Pelz survived the second-largest live poker tournament in history - 24,629 entries - to claim $420,680 and the bracelet. While most players took full advantage of being able to re-enter each of the four starting flights up to two times, Pelz was in for a single bullet.
“One hungover bullet,” he told PokerNews during the winner's interview.
“I just kind of ran good right away. I got really lucky at the beginning. I tried to put my money in bad, but I got really lucky and then just ran good the rest of the way,” Pelz said.
He started the final day in a familiar position - second to last in chips.
It was pretty surreal. I wasn't expecting it at all. Again, I was short coming into the day,” Pelz said. “Then everything just kind of went perfectly and then got all the cards heads up. It all happened so fast because the structure is really turbo.”
His win in the Gladiators event, which was a career-best, pushed Pelz’s lifetime earnings past the $1 million mark.
Pelz took the next few days off to rest up for the Main Event. He got caught up on sleep and replying to all the well wishes people had sent him after his win. He entered Day 1B and finished the day with 126,800, better than double the starting stack. He then better-than-double that on Day 2ABC and finished with 266,000. He started play on Tuesday (Day 3) sitting 614th of the 3,453 remaining players.
He’s cashed in the Main Event before. In 2019, he made it all the way to Day 6 before busting in 37th place for what was then a career-high $211,945 score. Last year, he came in 1082nd place for $17,500.
It was not long after the 2024 WSOP wrapped up that Pelz began working with TJ Jurkiewicz, a fat loss coach who has a client roster made up almost entirely of poker players and industry professionals. A poker player himself, he’s familiar with the challenges that come with trying to eat healthy while playing long hours and living mostly out of a suitcase.
“TJ's been good. He's really good at keeping expectations reasonable and I've been in some of the best shape I've been in in five or ten years,” said Pelz, who has lost approximately 40 pounds while working with Jurkiewicz.
The program is largely built on following a routine for both food consumption and workouts. Pelz concedes that spending the summer in Las Vegas and grinding a full WSOP schedule while sticking to any routine is challenging.
“It is, but we have a pretty good plan that's kind of sustainable and has some leeway and allows you to do some fun stuff and enjoy all the good food in Vegas,” Pelz said.