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Raymond Harper earned a seat on ClubWPT into the $5,000 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) bestbet Scramble Championship, which just so happens to be his first ever live poker tournament.

The Buffalo native feels fortunate to be in Florida at bestbet Jacksonville, and not only because he won a free seat into the major poker tournament and travel expenses on ClubWPT. He's survived four strokes and spent two years bedridden, and just being alive has him feeling fortunate.

First Time for Everything

It's never too late to play your first live poker tournament, not even at age 68 like Harper who won his seat into the big tournament Aug. 18 after 10 years of playing on ClubWPT. The World Poker Tour's online poker platform, as he said, has done wonders for his mental state as it gave him a hobby and escape from his his health issues.

“I started playing on ClubWPT roughly 10 or 11 years ago, and I play every single day, for hours and hours on end,” Harper said in an interview with the World Poker Tour. “After I had a couple of strokes, and I was confined in the home, I always wanted to learn how to play and I was fascinated with the No Limit Hold’em game. I taught myself on ClubWPT, and I’ve been playing there ever since.”

Harper entered Day 1b of the WPT bestbet Scramble, the second of two starting flights. Each player began the tournament with 50,000 chips, and the qualifier hovered around his starting stack and even slightly above at times for the first few levels. But he ran into some misfortune and dropped all the way down to just 3,000 chips before quickly doubling up twice back. That gave him a bit of comfort playing in his first ever live tournament. He, however, would bust on a bad beat 20 minutes before the dinner break when his flopped set lost to runner-runner flush.

The ClubWPT qualifier didn't cash in his first tournament. But he scored a dream package that any poker player would love, which included $1,500 in travel expenses to Jacksonville. And he had the opportunity to play live poker, which isn't always easy for him given that he lives three hours from the nearest poker room.

“The closest place for me to go play live is almost three hours away. And I go there every now and then. I like playing live-action, mostly cash games. But after a three-hour drive, it’s kind of a letdown. That’s why I’m looking forward to Jacksonville, to be able to spend three or four days down there and be able to enjoy being around other live people playing instead of just playing online on my computer," Harper told the WPT's Tim Fiorvanti.

Harper's local poker room closed down after COVID, which made ClubWPT even more valuable to the poker player as it gave him an opportunity to play cards regularly.

*Images courtesy of Katerina Lukina/World Poker Tour.