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Staggering around Stockholm in a daze one morning, Bluff bumped into Scott Berriman, a fearless young protégé of PokerRoom.com. The online card room had laid on a glitzy spread of partying and poker in the Swedish capital the previous evening (something tells me there’s a lot of money in this online poker biz), and now, regretting vodka cranberry number umpteen, we’re feeling a little fuzzy round the edges. The sub-zero temperatures and the glare of sun on snow aren’t helping either, so we go somewhere warm and talk poker.

Scott is a 22 year-old computer-engineering student from Detroit, Michigan , who went to bed even later than we did, but manages to be twice as articulate. Last September he briefly became a legend of poker, when he qualified online for The Legends of Poker at The Bike.

“I played in a $7 qualifier to the daily tournament, which I won,” explains Scott. “I then won the daily tournament, which got me a free entry into their monthly tournament, which I also won. And that sent me to LA.”

Scott seems full of confidence when he talks about poker, and the air of nonchalance with which he describes his defeat of three hundred people in four hours to take the prize seat, is striking. Or is he just hungover?

Nope, it’s nonchalance. Despite having never played a real live game (apart from poker with friends, which he’s been doing as long as he can remember), Scott was distinctly unfazed by his adventures at the Legends.

“I was surprised, but I didn’t feel intimidated. I knew I’d won the three tournaments to get there, so I must have been doing something right. I didn’t change my style; I played fairly tight and very aggressive – basically the game I always play.”

Even when he found himself sitting immediately to the left of Doyle Brunson, or to the right of Chris Ferguson, Scott kept his cool and refused to shy away from the pros. He was rewarded for his bravery when he doubled up against Mike Matusow.

Despite outlasting 95% of the field, Scott’s roll would come to an end courtesy of a pair of aces. “There were three people left to act and I was to the right of the button. I was getting kinda shortstacked at this point. Blinds were 3000/6000 and I had about 40,000 in chips. I looked down to see pocket threes and went all in. The guy on the button had pocket aces. I knew the game was up when he called immediately. He got another ace on the flop, just to rub my nose in it.”

But he had finished 31st out of 667, the largest ever field at a WPT event, turning seven bucks into $11,570 in the process.

After that sobering story, it was back into the freezing cold with just time to catch a few of the sights, use up the rest of our Krona and wonder just how many Scott Berrimans there are out there: young, savvy, fearless and, because they’re unknown quantities, potentially deadly. Pros everywhere, be very, very wary.

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