Steinberg, five others remain at WSOP final table; McKeehen’s lead huge — PHOTOS

When Max Steinberg missed the online poker boom, he and his twin brother made a promise.

They weren't going to miss the next trendy, money-making opportunity.

"We saw daily fantasy (sports), and it's about two years ago, and it just seemed like it was going to be something that could really explode," Steinberg said. "And so, I sort of just really stopped focusing on poker and started focusing on learning how to beat daily fantasy. And I was able to quickly learn how to beat it and started making good money immediately."

Steinberg, a 27-year-old Las Vegas resident, earned his seat to the World Series of Poker Main Event by winning a $27 satellite on the daily fantasy sports website DraftKings in April.

Steinberg was one of six players remaining when play stopped in the 46th annual $10,000 buy-in No-limit Texas Hold 'em World Championship on Sunday night at the Rio's Penn & Teller Theater.

Steinberg was in fourth place with 16 million chips when play was halted at 10:30 p.m. Joe McKeehen of North Wales, Pa., was responsible for all three eliminations and owned a commanding lead with 91.45 million, more than half of the chips in play.

The Main Event, which drew 6,420 entrants, continues today at 4:30 p.m. (5 p.m., ESPN2) and is scheduled to pause when three players remain. The tournament will resume at 6 p.m. Tuesday (6:30 p.m., ESPN) when the winner of the $7.68 million first prize will be determined.

"I would say that two years into my online poker career I was not as skilled as I am two years into my daily fantasy career," Steinberg said. "But I've been playing poker for a really long time. I would hope that I have more skill in poker than I would in a game I've spent two years doing."

Steinberg was born in Washington, D.C., and his family moved to the Transcendental Meditation community of Fairfield, Iowa, when he and his brother Danny were eight.

The Steinbergs began playing online poker when they were still 17, sharing an account under their father's name. In 2008, a 19-year-old Max entered his first live tournament and finished second at a Latin American Poker Tour event in Costa Rica for $144,773.

Soon after, he dropped out of American University to become a professional poker player.

Steinberg has more than $1.6 million in WSOP lifetime earnings and is the only player remaining with a WSOP bracelet to his credit. He topped a field of 2,795 players to win the $1,000 buy-in No-limit Hold 'em event in 2012 for more than $440,000 and also was runner-up in two WSOP events in 2013.

"I think that the experience of having made multiple televised final tables is invaluable in this situation," Steinberg said. "I have a particular game plan about how to approach this final table that has to do with things I've noticed from playing other final tables, like how people approach them. Whether they play tight at certain times, when people start to loosen up, when you can attack people. Things like that that you're not going to be able to get a feel for unless you've been there."

With poker becoming increasingly difficult to beat, Steinberg turned to daily fantasy sports in 2014. He created a DFS strategy website (Dailyfantasywinners.com) with his twin brother and became a successful player, specializing in baseball.

"I've sort of always been a baseball fan," Steinberg said. "It's more to do with the numbers. My twin brother, actually, used to work at a high-frequency trading firm, and a lot of stuff he learned there actually translated into baseball specifically, so it was easy for us to pick up."

Steinberg won his seat to the Main Event, topping a 600-person field in a basketball contest on DraftKings. The one-time Oakland, Calif., resident stocked his lineup with reserves from Golden State on a night the Warriors rested their starters and didn't even have to sweat the outcome.

"I had like Shaun Livingston and Justin Holiday, who I don't even know if he's on the team anymore," Steinberg said. "I didn't do anything that was that special, but the fact I had like (DeMarcus) Cousins, who had a monster game, and Kyle Lowry basically put me over the top."

Steinberg, who has lived in Las Vegas since 2010, said he was not affected in the short term by Nevada's recent daily fantasy sports ban as he spent much of October playing poker in preparation for the "November Nine" final table.

But he said the Nevada Gaming Control Board's ban on unlicensed daily fantasy sports websites will likely force him to move out of state.

"I play daily fantasy for a living and I want to be able to do that," Steinberg said, "and if I can't do that from Nevada, it means that I can't be here."

The first day of the final table saw little action after McKeehen sent Patrick Chan of New York to the rail in ninth place on the second hand. Players spent several minutes to make decisions during hands, and there were few large pots contested.

Federico Butteroni, who started play as the short stack, went out in in eighth place ($1,097,056). Pierre Neuville of Belgium, who was bidding to become the oldest Main Event winner at age 72, busted out in seventh ($1,203,293).

Neil Blumenfield and Ofer Zvi Stern were the most active players outside of McKeehen, as each increased his starting stack during the first five hours.

— Contact reporter David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow him: @DavidSchoenLVRJ