Thomas Kearney Gives Twitch Followers WSOP Sweat of a Lifetime

Kearney streams his online poker sessions live on Twitch and before the WSOP began he sold percentages of his WSOP action to his followers.

“A lot of people ask me to buy shares for my summer,” Kearney told PokerListings.

“Basically I just set it up so people could buy really small shares and have a fun sweat. I put everything on Twitter and all that and it's made it so I have a bigger following than just some random guy who goes deep."

Kearney said there are 13 people who have pieces of him in the Main Event. One Twitch follower has a whopping 10 per cent while the smallest piece he sold to a follower was one per cent.

To put that in perspective, if Kearney wins this tournament, the Twitch follower with 10 per cent will take home over $768,000. One per cent will earn almost $77k.

“Twitch enabled people to buy shares who normally couldn't,” said Kearney.

Kearney Sees WSOP Run as Second Chance

Tom Kearney got into poker at the right time and he reaped the benefits, but that doesn't mean he knew what to do with loads of poker winnings when he was barely out of high school.

"I was young and dumb with money."

“I started playing in college, picked it up real quick and started doing really well,” explained Kearney.

“I was one of those kids that did amazing back in the day when the games were good. I made a ton of money and stopped going to school. I was basically young and dumb with money. If you give any 19-year-old a ton of money they're going to be stupid.

“I'm kind of at a point now where I've learned from my mistakes and I'm looking at this as a second opportunity to get the ball rolling.”

Kearney was earning a good living playing online when Black Friday hit and he says it was a big challenge. Since WSOP.com started offering online poker in the US again, however, he's been able to go back to making a living at the online felt.

Now, armed with experience and more maturity, Kearney plans to make the most of his WSOP winnings.

“If I have a really big score today it'll enable me to travel a bit more. Right now when I play live cash I play like $5/$10 No-Limit and you're not going to travel to play that.

“So I'll have more money to travel to bigger tournaments and open up bigger opportunities. I'm fortunate to be in this position.”

Watch the video below and check out our live coverage of the 2015 WSOP Main Event to keep track of Kearney's progress.