FPN's Longest Attending "Barfly" Plays His 20th Championship in Las Vegas

The Royal Court National Championship Main Event began with a request: raise your hand if you've played at an FPN Vegas National Championship before.

Dozens if not hundreds of hands raised up throughout the ballroom, but most of them dropped as the announcer asked if they had played five FPN championships. Ten? Fewer hands now.

The number of hands raised turned to single digits as players were asked if they had played 15 championships. Sixteen? Seventeen? Eighteen? By the time the announcer got to 20, there was only one player with his hand raised: seminal FPN grinder Glenn Schaefers, the single player in the room here since the tour's inception.

"I Can't Believe It"

At last year's festival, PokerNews reported on Schaefers hitting quads twice in the first five hands of the day. He's also had a hot start this year, which is fitting for his 20th anniversary playing the tour that he watched grow through the Poker Boom of the 2000s.

“In 2009, it was at Harrah’s. There was only 25 players at the National. It’s like three tables. And now look at it."

The South Dakotan teared up as he pointed around the ballroom to the hundreds of players in the Royal Court National Championship.

"I can't believe it," he said with a shaky voice.

Schaefers described himself as a "barfly" who has spent two decades playing bar poker all over Sioux Falls — from The Thirsty Duck to Woody's. It's a game he first learned from his grandparents.

"Who don’t grow up with cards in the family? We’d always play poker. We’ve always played cards, no matter what form," said Schaefers.

What keeps Schaefers coming back to Vegas year after year? “The thrill, the adrenaline," he said before pausing, "friends. You meet a lot of new people."

The self-described barfly's 20th winter in Las Vegas is shaping up to be a memorable one as he has grown his stack up to 200,000.