Poker Stories: Adam Friedman

Adam Friedman got his start in poker with a deep run in the 2005 World Series of Poker main event. Just 23 at the time, he has since put together a remarkably consistent career playing both cash games and tournaments. In 2006, he won the Midwest Regional Poker Championships main event. Incredibly, after skipping the tournament in 2007, he won the very same event again in both 2008 and 2009. This would not be the last time that Friedman was able to successfully defend a tournament title. The Gahanna, Ohio native scored his first WSOP bracelet back in 2012, topping a tough final table in the $5,000 stud eight-or-better event that included the likes of Todd Brunson, John Monnette, Bryn Kenney, and Phil Ivey. In 2013, he won the HPT main event in Indiana, and in 2014, he final tabled the L.A. Poker Classic. In 2018, he won his second career bracelet, earning $293,275 in the $10,000 dealer's choice event. Amazingly, he returned to Las Vegas this summer and won the very same event again, this time banking a $312,417 payday. In total, the 37-year-old mixed-games specialist has $2.9 million in career live tournament earnings. Highlights from this interview include summer series accommodations, becoming a Hoosier, sleeping through the final four, a love for sports but not sports betting, being too emotional at the table, demanding the safe at the Tropicana, the 2005 WSOP main event, why his dad took away $100k, Ohio living, making sure he booked a win at Commerce, a slow peel vs. Phil Hellmuth, a compliment from Doyle Brunson, the emotional turmoil of downswings, taking ego out of the game, why you need a plan for your money, betting on The Voice with Gavin Smith, back-to-back bracelets, drowning his sorrows in room service, and why we're drawing dead on another 1,000 years.