Steven Jones is a Realtor by day and card shark by night.
"At 21, 22 I started going into the casino thinking... I was the man. And then I don't think I really was as much as I thought I was. But I would say probably like maybe age 27-ish I really started getting it," said Jones.
The lifelong poker player tells us he believes the two hustles are similar.
"Can you draw parallels to what you do during the day to what you do at night?" we asked.
"Yeah, nothing's guaranteed, right? If you don't hustle in real estate, you're not gonna get any clients, and then in poker, like nothing's guaranteed. You're not guaranteed a paycheck. You could lose your money," Jones replied.
He's lost money entering the World Series of Poker before, coming up short four of a kind.
"I think before I would go into day one and just kind of play too many hands because you would get good hands. But you don't really need to inflate pots. You can just really take your time and try to lose the minimum because it's such a marathon," said Jones.
This year Jones came in 2nd place taking home $6.5 million.
"I have a lot of gratitude. I will say the two words are gratitude and overwhelming. That's for sure, but definitely very thankful," said Jones.
However, before that poker moment, he placed a call to the person who put him in that position.
"There [were] like 30 players left. I called my mom. So, that was my first phone call because she taught me poker at a young age, and I was like 'I'm flying you out. It's getting real,'" said Jones.
"I was prepared for it," said Shawn Holowecki, Jones' mother. "I already told them at work, my boss, that I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be going to Vegas. I just don't know when. So, I was just sitting tight till I got the call because I didn't want to feel like I was jinxing him."
Holowecki knows the pressure, since she's a poker player herself, teaching Jones to play at age 10.
"He caught on quickly. He had the card smarts. Just like the rest of us. My other two children, not so much," said Holowecki.
But being at the final table doesn't fulfill his big pot plans. Jones wants to be all-in and win.
"For years he has told me that he was going to make it [to] the final table for an event like this and he's still yet to win a bracelet. He says he's going to do that as well and I believe him," said Holowecki.
"I actually have a picture of the champion from, I want to say 2018 John Cynn on my vision board for the last five years and I visualized that, I mean, maybe not daily but I mean as much as I can and he's holding the bracelet and all the money's on the table. And you know, I didn't win but I was there with the money on the table, so you can't say these things don't work," said Jones.
This year had the highest purse ever for the World Series of Poker because so many people entered. The winner took home $12.1 million.
