– General Introduction –
Nick Petrangelo is an American professional poker player. He was born on January 2nd, 1987 in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts.
He is a 2-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner. He won his bracelets in the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout event in 2015; and in the $100,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller event in 2018. Overall, he has $23.072 million in live tournament cashes.
He’s also seen great success in the high stakes online MTT scene, including a WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) High Roller title from 2017. His screen name is “caecilius” on PokerStars.
In addition, Petrangelo is a coach for Doug Polk’s premier poker coaching site Upswing Poker.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2008: He finishes third in a $3 rebuy tournament on PokerStars for $1,700. This gives him the bankroll and confidence to quit his job and become a professional poker player.
- 2015: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout event for $201,812.
- 2017: He wins the $25,000 WCOOP High Roller event for $624,677 on PokerStars.
- 2018: He wins his second WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the $100,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller event for $2.910 million. That is also the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.
– Nick Petrangelo’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
Petrangelo talked to a Slovakian website allin1.sk about the earliest stages of his poker career in 2015.
Growing up in Massachusetts, he was an avid amateur golf and hockey player. He graduated from Skidmore College in New York with a degree in Economics and Finance.
As for poker, here’s what he had to say:
“I played for fun with friends in high school and developed a strong interest in the game that led me to learn as much as I could on my own. I also read as many books as I could find, but I was still clueless. I thought I was good, but I had no idea how little I knew. I was scraping together whatever money I could, while I was in school to put it on PokerStars or go to the casino, starting at the lowest stakes cash games and moving up to $5/$10 and of course eventually losing it all each time.
Then I met professional poker player Jonathan Jaffe. I have learned that I needed to change my approach if I wanted to be a serious player. Jonathan was from the same small region of Massachusetts as I was. He mentored me. He let me watch him play for years, answered all of my questions, coached me. He also backed me for low stakes tournaments. When I turned 21, I finished 3rd place in the $3 rebuy on PokerStars for $1700. I quit my job at the golf course and never worked again!”
→ Live Tournaments ←
Petranngelo has $23.072 million in live tournament cashes, according to his Hendon page. That sum is the product of ITM finishes in 124 different live events over the course of 13 years. That puts him in the top 25 on the site’s all time money list; and in the top 20 on the USA all time money list.
The first recorded cash on his profile is from January 2009. He came in 4th in a $560 NLHE 6-handed tourney at the Winter Poker Meltdown in Verona, NY and won $3,958. The first time he made a live cash for over $100K was in January 2015. He took down the $5,300 No Limit Hold’em – Turbo 8-Handed event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas for $103,853.
He delivered two more major scores later that year. In August 2015, he finished 3rd in the €10,300 NLHE High Roller 8-Max event at EPT Barcelona for €592,840. In December 2015, he made a runner-up finish in the $100,000 WPT Alpha8 – NLHE High Roller at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas for $1.015 million.
Petrangelo made another major runner-up finish in January 2017. He took second place in the $25,750 NLHE High Roller event at the PokerStars Championship Bahamas for $740,032. In May 2018, he came in 6th in the $300,000 NLHE Super High Roller Bowl at the Aria. He pocketed no less than $600,000 for that performance.
The American poker pro from Massachusetts has a title from another prominent tourney series as well. In January 2017, he took down the A$100,000 No Limit Hold’em Challenge event at the Aussie Millions for A$882,000 (which equaled around $666K at the time) at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.
In January 2022, he won two events within two days (!) at the fresh new high roller series Stairway to Millions at the Aria. He topped the star-studded fields in the $50K NLHE event for $567,000, then in the $100K NLHE event for $1.026 million the next day.
→ World Series of Poker ←
Nick Petrangelo has won two WSOP gold bracelets so far.
In 2015, he took down the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout event for $201,812. “Shootout” is a rare tournament type in which every table plays out like a “mini-tournament”. The winner of each table gets to advance to the next round, where new tables are drawn from the previous round’s winners.
In 2018, he won the $100,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller event for $2.910 million. That is Petrangelo’s biggest live tournament score to date. He beat fellow American poker pro Elio Fox heads-up for the title at the end.
In the same year, also in 2018, he finished 3rd in the $50,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller (Big Blind Antes) event for $720,103. Two years earlier, in 2016, he came in 7th in the High Roller for One Drop – $111,111 NLHE event for $628,679. In 2019, he took 5th place in the $50,000 NLHE High Roller for the 50th Annual event for $335,181. And lastly, in 2021, he made a deep run in the Main Event, eventually busting in 45th place for $163,900.
Overall, Petrangelo has cashed in 25 World Series events for a total of $5.735 million combined.
→ Live Cash Games ←
In December 2020, Petrangelo appeared on the first season of PokerGO’s revived version High Stakes Poker (which is the 8th season including the ones on The Game Show Network).
There, he played a session of $400/$800 NLHE cash game against, among otters, Bryn Kenney, Tom Dwan, and Rick Solomon.
→ Online Poker ←
Petrangelo plays under the screen name “caecilius” on PokerStars. This odd choice for a screen name refers to a banker from the Ancient Roman Empire in the 1st Century A.D.
While Petrangelo’s online MTT scoresheet is no longer publicly available on the online poker tournament database PocketFives, plenty of his big online wins have been recorded in poker news sites’ reportings.
In September 2017, he took down the $25K WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) High Roller event for $624,677. Exactly one year later, in September 2018, he won a $2,100 Sunday High Roller on Stars for $40,489.
In May 2019, he made it to the final table in the $10,300 SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) Main Event – High Tier. He eventually busted in 8th place for $127,290. To finish the pattern, here’s one of his big online scores from 2020 as well. In August 2020, he topped a field of 999 players in the $3,200 WPT World Championship 6-Max Online event on partypoker. He earned a hefty $494,550 for that victory.
→ Sponsorships ←
Nick Petrangelo is creating poker strategy content for Upswing Poker, a successful poker coaching site owned by famous American poker pro Doug Polk.
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