The 2016 November Nine: Seat 3, Fernando Pons

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The mysterious European with few live results and about whom little is known has almost become an archetype at the World Series of Poker Main Event final table. Sylvain Loosli, Felix Stephensen, and Federico Butteroni have played the role in recent years, and for 2016, Fernando Pons has earned the part.

Hailing from Spain, Pons is a 37-year-old manager in a retail corporation. While the WSOP Main Event final table sees more and more professional players seemingly every year as the structure gets slower and slower, Pons very much represents the recreational player.

He picked up the game about five years ago, and it’s been a small part of his life ever since.

“I play about three-to-five live tournaments per year,” said Pons, speaking through a translator the day after he bagged his stack on Day 7. “I can’t believe this result.”

A glance over his list of live cashes, which totaled about $10,000 before his $1 million and counting score in the 2016 Main Event, shows just one result in a tournament with a buy-in over $1,000 – a cash for $4,059 in the 2014 Wynn Summer Classic Main Event. Normally, Pons sticks to local tournaments in Spain, with very modest tournaments such as €20 and €50 rebuys.

Typically, Pons splashes around in these events with many of the same people, competing for a few hundred euros in prize money. Now, he’s going to be butting heads with the likes of Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy for the chance to win $8 million.

The idea of Pons, who is the shortest stack by a good amount at the final table with just 12 big blinds, overcoming such odds might seem daunting or even impossible. But, he’s in a spot where he’s truly already won.

It’s common knowledge that pros often sell large amounts of their action to help deal with the insane variance of playing tournament poker for a living. Pons, though, qualified for the Main Event in a €30 satellite online at 888poker. Even a min-cash would have been a great result and a nice windfall for the Spaniard. Instead, he’s locked up that six-figure sum that draws thousands of starry-eyed dreamers to this event every year.

“The first thing I did was call my wife,” said Pons, who could be …

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