When Ylon Schwartz chose a street career hustling chess in Washington Square Park over becoming a Wall Street stockbroker, no one expected his gamble to pay off.
Now, after moving on from chess to cards, the 38-year-old Brooklyn man is vying for $9.1 million as one of nine players to make the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event.
“I was poor, and I just did it because I loved it,” Schwartz, of Park Slope, said of street chess, which earned him up to $100 a day.
Before his newfound fame, “when I went out with girls, none of the parents ever liked me. But now they all love me,” he said.
Schwartz started playing chess when he was 13. By the time he was 16, he was making a living from chess and backgammon in the East Village, and at 23, he became a chess master.
He dropped out of the Borough of Manhattan Community College after a year to concentrate on his games.
“I got horrible grades, but I didn’t care,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz said his reputation as a gambler brought him several job offers from Wall Street, but he turned them down because he didn’t like taking orders.
“I could have already been a multimillionaire if I had taken those jobs, but I didn’t want a boss,” he said. “I liked my lifestyle out there too much to give it up.”
In the early 1990s, Ylon took up poker, and by 2000, he was making a living from cards.
His success has included winning thousands of dollars in previous World Series events.
As one of the final nine of 6,844 competitors in this year’s $10,000-entry Main Event, which resumes Nov. 9, he is already guaranteed a prize of more than $900,000.
Like fellow poker professionals Dan Harrington, a former backgammon player and chess master, and Gus Hansen, a world-class backgammon player and youth tennis champion, Schwartz has found his experience with other games has helped with poker.
“You get used to competing,” he said. “You’re constantly analyzing problems in other games.”
“I still live in the same apartment,” he said. “I go to the pub. Nothing has changed, except that I’m getting attention from TV people.”