Our Verdict:
Thanks to the Bellagio Cup Luke Staudenmaier left
Vegas with more than a new tattoo on his arm.
The U of Pittsburgh history student certainly made
history as the first person eliminated in the 2007
ME.
A whole summer in Vegas had yielded a 67th place in one
of the early $1k re-buy tournaments until his third place
in the $15k buy in WPT event earned him $452k.
Not that Luke was going to return to Pittsburgh and
ask for a welfare cheque as he is "iweargoggles" and
LukefromB13 online.
In 2007 Official Poker Rankings ranked him #14.
22 year old Luke described his style as "raise fold".
This was something that David Benyamine seemed to be
aware of at the final table, constantly re-raising Luke.
In late November 2007 Luke won the $750k guarantee
on Full Tilt. That was worth just over $142k.
In mid March 2008 Luke finished second in the Full Tilt
$1m guarantee which was worth just over $126k.
This was only a week after he won the Sunday warm up
on PokerStars. Luke turned his $215 buy in into first
prize money of over $108k.
According to Official Poker Rankings the average field
size of iweargoggles is 527 with an average buy in
of $279.
Luke has no plans to move to Vegas, happy to spend
time with his girlfriend and family in the house he
brought with his online poker winnings, in the suburbs
of the old steel town of Pittsburgh.