One poker pro gave up a big stack last week because something much more important was happening.
While poker players are notoriously late for a lot of things, the start of Day 2 with a chip lead is not one of them. It would take something very special for them to forfeit the stack entirely.
That is exactly what Nick Yunis did on Day 2 of the $1,100 Triple Stack event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in Florida. He bagged 509,000 chips which was the 11th biggest stack in an event with a $136,570.
His reasoning was very good, however, the birth of his new son:
If anybody is wondering why I abandoned my 11 of 105 players stack in Day 2 of the 1k/500k at the @shrpo is because my wife had a last minute c-section and about 2 hours ago I became a father. 😍 Welcome to the world, Matthew James Yunis. May God bless you as He has blessed us.
— Nick Yunis (@nickyunis) April 17, 2024
This is not the first time this has happened. Jason Koon famously forfeited in the $250,000 Super High Roller (and got a refund) when his wife went into labour.
Yunis told PokerNews that he had a backer in this particular event who had no issue with forfeiting his stack. It no doubt helped that he won the $1,100 Deep Stack event in this series earlier this month for $34,005.
What was your reason for forfeiting a big stack on Day 2? Let us know in the comments: