Inside Mark ‘Weazel_1991’ Rubbathan’s storybook run at the Triton Super High Roller Series

Professional poker player Mark “Weazel_1991” Rubbathan enjoys a challenge. He once spent seven months turning $1,000 into $10,000 at the low-stakes online poker tables and streamed the entire process on his Twitch channel. He later attempted to grow his initial poker bankroll from $500 to $25,000.

His biggest challenge yet was his most ambitious: turning $0 into $686,000.

Rubbathan capitalized on this opportunity by winning a series of challenges at poker site America’s Cardroom. He received $100,000 in tournament buy-ins at the Triton Super High Roller Series in Hoi An, Vietnam, where he had a chance to increase that number.

Rubbathan mostly plays no-limit hold’em cash games online with a buy-in of $200. He tries his hand at eight-or-better pot-limit Omaha games when he finds an opponent stupid enough to take on him. In a typical month, he makes a few thousand dollars. In Vietnam he would be up against the best tournament specialists in the world for six or seven figure sums.

“Come on, how can you not be nervous,” he said on his YouTube channel before leaving for the series.

Rubbathan had one advantage the other pros didn’t have: a die-hard collection of supporters on his Discord and Twitch streams.

“I’ve built a community of people who have a personality similar to mine,” Rubbathan told The Sporting News. “I think I speak a pretty good game. I have some good content on how I approach the game and talk about hands.”

What makes Rubbathan endearing to his Twitch audience, and maybe a little different, is that he’s also willing to show the human side of the game. Poker can involve brutal luck, and it can get maddening even for seasoned pros.

“I’m very unpredictable and easily frustrated,” admitted Rubbathan. “People like to watch me romp.”

Rubbathan would need all the support he could get. He entered the $20,000 No Limit Hold’Em Mystery Bounty Event as a huge underdog against 178 of the best players in the world.

“I wasn’t concerned with making money,” Rubbathan said. “I just wanted the experience and I was really looking forward to it.”

Rubbathan did more than that. After the first day of play he came through as one of 30 remaining players.

On the second day of the tournament, Rubbathan got what he called the best card luck of his life. He skillfully maneuvered his stack into the back nine, where he held the chip lead. From there he sent high-stakes pro after high-stakes pro.

First on the list was Pedro “pvigar” Garagnani, who was named the world’s best online player of 2021 by Pocket Fives. Next up was Timothy Adams, who ranked 17th all-time with over $30 million in career tournament winnings on the Poker Money List. Rubbathan was ranked 49,661 with less than $50,000 in career earnings.

Hours into the final table, Rubbathan had eliminated four of the five remaining players. He was heads-up against Wiktor “Limitless” Malinowski.

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If Rubbathan were to pick an opponent playing for the title, Malinowski would be at the bottom of this list. Malinowski is such a feared heads-up opponent that almost no one will play him in this format. He once challenged to play against world-class pro Fedor Holz while drunk to even the odds.

“Obviously you’ve got the top names here, but I’ve never really felt affected by it,” Rubbathan said. “I don’t think, ‘Oh my god, they’re going to destroy me.'”

The heads-up portion didn’t start out as smoothly as Rubbathan had hoped. He doubled Malinowski down on the first hand, but just a few hands later, Malinowski peeked at the king-nine of diamonds and moved all-in. It took Rubbathan three seconds before he called with a jack nine suited, giving him only a 31 percent chance of winning.

The flop brought Rubbathan no help. On the turn, he only had a 14 percent chance of winning the hand. This miracle happened: A jack paired his card on the river and gave him the win.

Rubbathan stood up in a daze, shook Malinowski’s hand and touched the trophy that was in the center of the table as if to make sure it was real. He had just won $636,000 picking the best of the best.

“The whole experience was crazy from the start,” Rubbathan said afterwards. “This exceeds all expectations, absolutely wild.”

With the huge win, Rubbathan’s thoughts went to the community that had supported him on his daily journey for the past two years.

“The support I’ve had on stream has been great,” Rubbathan said. “I can’t wait to talk to the guys.”