Stefan Clemens is used to the spirit of competition as a soccer player and now a coach. He brought that competitive spirit to the final table of the World Series of Poker Circuit main event today at Graton Casino, and won the biggest cash of his poker career along with a gold ring.
We caught up with Clemens after his victory for a final-table-side-chat about his tournament win along with getting to know his origin story. Here is what transpired in the conversation with our new champion.
On scoring his biggest tournament win:
“It’s pretty surreal. Yeah, I feel pretty grateful that I’m able to afford something like this and take three days to come play. I’m grateful and happy with the whole production of it, and thank you to you guys for that. When I went to bed on Friday night after making Day 2 … I just dreamed about the good hands. It’s such a fun game to play. I just told myself to play patient and play tight, I’m a tight player. I had some swings on Day 2 but I then made the final table. And then the same thing on Sunday. ‘Holy crap! First final table.’ So I just just took it one step at a time. But just the whole time inside I was just super excited – and giddy – but on the outside I tried to stay calm.”
On the learning experience along the path to victory:
“I learned a lot in this process in terms of watching other people and their bet sizes, and their timing. I’ve played in other live tournaments and done OK in other live tournaments but going through a final table down to short-handed that’s where I learned a lot today. And grateful that I got some pretty decent cards. I had a couple of full houses against other top two-pairs and capitalized on them; and in my experience from watching other winners – you gotta get good hands.”
On his background as a soccer coach and player:
I’m not a pro poker player. I own a couple of businesses. I started two youth soccer businesses. One is a private training business where myself and a few other coaches work with kids and train them outside of their club teams or their school teams. We help supplement their training, and work with them for like two hours a week on their finishing and technical skills, and conditioning. That’s called Double Scissors, like Christiano Ronaldo getting his legs around the ball like a scissor. My other business is Soccer Days that I co-founded with a good friend of mine named Ramon Zambrano, that’s a youth camp business. Ages 5-12 on the weekends, and holidays, and summer camps. So all of my time is scheduling and coaching. I used to coach at Cal-Berkeley for three years as an assistant for the men’s team there from 2017-2020. That was awesome, but when the pandemic hit I left Cal and went on with my own entrepreneurial soccer businesses which I’m really proud of.
On transferring his competitive background from sports to poker:
“Great question, some might not consider it a sport, it’s a card game, but what I try to explain to people is that it’s not a lot of physical, cardio, running around. But the intellectual mind games, strategy, reading people, when to go, when to be patient. It really tests you. So that absolutely comes into play. And as I get older too, I love physical sports, but I love doing the mental game too.”
On choosing when he plays tournaments and playing at Graton Casino near his hometown of San Francisco:
“It’s all based on scheduling, and life is busy, but I had this on my calendar for the last couple of months. Usually I coach during the weekends, but I took it off. And even today I had work, but If I made it to today I would just call my clients and say, ‘Scheduling conflict, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Graton is is fantastic with just about an hour drive from the City with traffic. I live in San Francisco now. Everything about it here is really nice, it’s clean, it’s spacious, good food, great staff. So I feel comfortable and look forward to coming here … good environment.”
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