BBZ student turns $5 into $12K WPT package: “I wouldn’t be here without BBZ”

The World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship kicked off yesterday (Monday, December 12) at the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas. With a $10K buy-in, three starting flights and a staggering $15 million guaranteed in the prize pool, it’s going to be an epic event.

And one of our own will be there to play his very first $10K buy-in tournament.

Known in the BBZ Poker Discord as “b33njammin80”, Ben won a package to the event worth $12,400 from a $5 satellite. That’s quite the spin-up, and it’s sure to be quite the experience.

“Man, what a ride winning this package was,” he tells us from the airport on his way to Las Vegas. “It actually started out as a giveaway on my Twitter. I started with $5 satellites and did a “Ride or Die” giveaway series to Satty into the event.

“I ended up making it to the final Satty for the $12k package three times and lost heads up for the package to Andrew Neeme and Amanda Botfeld on the first two.”

But the third time was a charm and Ben wouldn’t be denied.

“I built a nice stack and then used the knowledge I have learned from Jargo to pretty much fold my way to the seat,” he says. “After bubbling the first two I felt relieved and excited!”

Ben has been involved in our community for around 18 months, first discovering BBZ Poker through Conor O’Driscoll’s Twitch stream.

“He knew his game and I quickly became a part of that community,” he says. “During a “Drink and Bink” stream we raided apestyles, and I had known of Jon for years from playing online pre-black Friday when he was crushing everything over on Stars.”

Ben immediately connected with BBZ coach Jon ‘apestyles’ Van Fleet and became a part of the apestyles primate community, then eventually Community Manager.

The first BBZ content Ben invested in was the Apestyles Bundle, followed by the BBZ Bundle and the Quantitative Strategy videos. He now owns almost all of the bundles on offer.

“I am also a member of the BBZ Daily seminars and they have helped take my game to the next level,” he says.

The question now is, how has he been preparing to play such a big live event?

“‘ve been studying and going over my content to prepare,” he tells us. “The biggest thing I need to work on is focus and patience. I tend to force myself to play hands I shouldn’t at times when I get impatient from folding.

“[BBZ’s Mental Performance Coach Frank Hamel’s content has helped a lot with this aspect of the mental game and I will continue to work on that as well.”

Now he’s in Sin City ready to take his seat in the biggest tournament of his career to date.

“Overall it’s been a wild ride and I’m excited to meet up with apestyles and other members of the BBZ community in Vegas,” he says. “I truly wouldn’t be here without BBZ.”