So, you are a poker tourney regular. It is your job to size up your competition as quickly as you'll. Put a reputation to a face. Create a backstory you need to use. Do anything to realize an edge. It's what you do. You are a pro.

So, what's your read in this guy?

What do you're thinking that? Are you a favourite against him? Maybe he's an old home game player who has more cash than fear. Maybe you think that you were given lucky to have him at your table.

He would consider you. He didn't start playing poker until he was nearly 50 years old, and so far as he's concerned, that's much too late.

"My belief is that you just cannot be world class at anything unless you begin young," the person said this morning. "I just started playing poker, unfortunately, late in life."

This guy knows something or two about being world class at cards. After all, he's Harold Lilie.

Who is Harold Lilie? Well, you'll be able to Google him for those who like. Otherwise you can just attempt to walk him through a bridge tournament.

"I'm in bridge what these individuals are in poker. Or I WAS anyway," Lilie said.

Harold Lilie is a multi-time national bridge champion. He started playing at age 18 and turned himself into one in every of America's best.

"In bridge, I'd have the equivalent of 5 or six bracelets," he said today.

This isn't something Lilie advertises. It's a must to corner him within the hallway simply to confirm the main points of his background and ask a relevant question: how are you continue to here?

That question means a large number of various things. First, it is a question of ways he's still alive after five days of WSOP Main Event play. He started Saturday a few of the final 240 out of the 6,737 who registered for this event.

"To me, it is a miracle. I've seen the way in which these people play. I DO KNOW I AM NOT that good, but I enjoy it so much, and that is the important thing at this stage in my life," Lilie said.

When he says that, "this stage in my life" means much more than the truth he'll turn 70 next year. Why? Because it is not only a question about how he's still alive on this tournament. It is a matter of the way he's still alive at all.

See, Lilie have been playing poker since 1990. He started playing on the planet Series in 2010. Since then, he has managed to cash yearly he played, including creating a Seniors event final table. He got to the purpose he called himself a "Seniors Specialist."

And then his doctor called.

"It was a whole shocker to me, because at that time in time, I USED TO BE strenuously exercising each day. Walking no less than three miles. Shedding weight. Getting into shape. I had no pain. No shortness of breath. No problems," he said.

He felt fine, but he wasn't. He needed a kidney transplant. He ended up on dialysis and couldn't play poker most days of the week.

Never one to backpedal from a fight, Lilie dug in, found a donor, and got ready for his surgery. That's when his doctor called again.

"They said you might have six major blockages. Your heart is operating at like 30 percent," Lilie remembered today. "At no time limit in all my problems did I THINK anything but great. I USED TO BE exercising like a demon."

It was a type of real life bad beats, one you do not see coming. He went from thinking he was completely healthy to needing bypass surgery, six months of recover, after which a kidney transplant.

So, that is what he did. He spent most of 2015 facing surgeries and recovery, and on December 20, he received his transplant. By this summer, he was healthy enough to go into the WSOP Main Event.

Lilie has his doctors to thank for his new good health, but he has only himself to thank for making this far within the WSOP. He's was a number of the oldest people to begin the day.

"That's a miracle. That's a larger miracle than my medical problems!" he said.

Lilie set a goal for himself, and it wasn't simply to cash here. The WSOP paid out a larger percentage of players this year, but Lilie desired to cash by old standards. He desired to make it to the highest ten percent.

He ended up doing much better than that. He made it to 237th place, the highest four percent of the field.

"If you told me I would've gotten this far before the tournament and never go a step farther, I would've said, 'Where do I sign?' I'm thrilled," Lilie said. "I BELIEVE totally blessed. Here I am, an old man who started poker late in life who's cashed normally Event. I'm very proud to have done this."

For everyone watching here (including his stepdaughter, Jayne Furman, who's one in all our valued photographers), seeing Lilie go was a tricky thing to look at. Nevertheless, if Lilie has proven anything prior to now year, it's this: he'll be back to fight again, and next time, you'll know his name.

$1 million Spin & Gos running now! Click here to get a PokerStars account.Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging. Follow him on Twitter: @BradWillis. WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

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