Alex Schwint continues his accent as one of the best online poker players in Pennsylvania with another victory in a championship event. Yesterday, he won the $300 Pennsylvania Championship of Online Poker (PACOOP) Main Event for $39,807 and a $20,000 prize-package to the newly relaunched North American Poker Tour in Las Vegas next month. He rebought three times.
The two-day event brought in 877 entries who played seven-and-a-half hours on Sunday. The surviving players then logged back on at 6 p.m. EST Monday to finished the headliner. Later that evening, somewhere in Philadelphia, Schwint stood up from his desk with his biggest online poker achievement bagged.
The professional accountant started playing online poker as soon as he turned 21 in 2017, and online success didn’t come to him quickly.
From his bio on Team Sun Runners, where Schwint offers coaching:
“I started playing poker as soon as I turned 21 in 2017. I played on PokerStars NJ starting with $1 spin n go’s. I then found tournaments and quickly fell in love with the format. My biggest score there was an NJSCOOP win for $5,000.
PokerStars PA opened in 2019, just a few months after I moved to the state permanently. I had some early success in tournaments, but struggled in 2020 due to leaks in both poker and life. I was working a demanding day job and playing when exhausted, not studying properly, not following proper bankroll management, or game selection. I appreciate these struggles because they have made me a more resilient and grounded poker player today.”
His Sharkscope chart for his Pennsylvania PokerStars account visually confirms his story.
He said his poker game took off after “a coaching session that completely changed how I think about the game.” That was in late 2020. In the first week of 2021, he scored his first big pop in a $70,000 guaranteed tourney on PokerStars Pennsylvania for $11,000.
It’s been mostly up, up, up for him since.
He considers 2021 his breakout year, and he should. He rang in the New Year down about $6,000, but ended up about $68,000 (according to SharkScope) by the time it was over. That required him to win or final table some of the biggest events of the year, including his first PACOOP in April for $13,800, which was the second of a total of four cashes north of $10,000. He also hit one for $9,800.
Schwint then started 2022 by winning two World Series of Poker Circuit rings online before winning his first WSOP bracelet in July in $500 online championship. Each of the Circuit ring victories were worth just nothing of $10,000, and his bracelet, $27,000.
The win on Monday on PokerStars is his largest to date. Along with the prize money, he received a $5,300 entry into PokerStars’ NAPT, which takes place Nov. 10-12. He also gets 10 night at Resorts World, a three-day pass for two to Oracle Red Bull Racing Fan Experience, and $3,653 towards flights and expenses.
