Who Are The Top Five Poker Players From Iowa?

The Midwestern state of Iowa is considered one of the safest places to live in the United States. That may be true but your poker chips aren’t safe when the Hawkeye State’s top talent are playing.

Iowa is known for its rolling plains and cornfields, but others know it for its poker prowess. The state’s five biggest winning players share $8,449,990 in winnings. While this isn’t the biggest total of the states we’ve covered recently, it’s still an impressive haul. Which players won this money? These guys you’re about to read about.

William Reynolds: The Original Iowa Poker Star

William Reynolds of Sioux City, Iowa was one of the original online poker stars. Reynolds has online MTT cashes dating back to 2007 when online poker was in its relative infancy. He has more than $1.7 million in online cashes, including one for a massive $205,372.

Reynolds has 59 recorded live tournament cashes to his name. The add up to $1,886,428 in total thanks, in part, to four six-figure hauls. $576,240 is the largest of these prizes. Reynolds collected this when he won the $25,500 High Roller at the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Darrell Dicken: The Man From Iowa Known as “Gigabet”

Darrell Dicken of Waterloo, Iowa may not be a name you’ve heard but you will know his online alias. Dicken is better known as “Gigabet” and, like Reynolds, is one of the original online poker stars.

Dicken’s poker career was short-lived, lasting only four years in the live and online arena. He wasted no time during this period, racking up almost $400,000 online and another $1,865,553 live.

Five of Dicken’s live cashes are worth six-figures. He won $372,780 after becoming a WSOP Circuit champion in San Diego in 2006. That is his largest recorded prize.

“Gigabet” disappeared from the live poker scene in 2009 and online in 2011. Rumors of going broke circulated but have never been substantiated.

Jeff Fielder: WSOPC Ring Winner

Jeff Fielder hails from Des Moines, the capital of Iowa, It’s from this base that Fielder has accumulated $1,785,511 in live tournament winnings. Fielder is a regular on the WSOP Circuit since 2010 and it’s here where his biggest cash stems from.

Fielder won the $1,675 NL Hold’em WSOPC Choctaw Main Event in 2013 and bagged $312,080. Throw in three more WSOPC final tables and you can see why Fielder is feared and respected in equal measure.

It isn’t only the WSOPC where Fielder shone, he has a WPTDeepStacks title, too. He won a $2,500 buy-in event in Lincoln and scooped $220,216 in December 2017.

Alexander Condon: $10K WPT Main Event Finalist

Sioux City, Iowa is where you find Alexander Condon when he’s not travelling the U.S. playing poker. Fifty-eight of Condon’s 107 live cashes come from the WSOP. He won a WSOPC ring online in September 2019, his largest on the circuit.

Condon’s two biggest live results make up more than a third of his $1,650,980 winnings. He won $181,278 in 2013 in a $5,000 buy-in event in Las Vegas. Three years later, Condon secured the $494,889 fourth-place prize in a $10,400 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, which James Romero won for $1,938,118.

Dustin Dirksen: Four WSOP Final Tables

Dustin Dirksen is another Iowa resident you don’t want at your table. Why? Because he has bags of ability. $1,295,347 is Dirksen’s live tournament tally to date, but he could have had bags more.

Dirksen finished second in a $1,500 NL Hold’em bracelet event in 2007. It netted him $381,381 but there was $615,955 up top. Three more WSOP final tables (4th, 5th, and 6th places) won large sums but a bracelet still eludes Dirksen.

His largest live score weighs in at $400,000. He collected this for a sixth-place finish in the 2009 PCA Main Event in the Bahamas.

Matthew Pitt

If it’s something you can play online for real money, chances are Matthew knows a bit about it. He’s been writing about slots, craps and poker for the better part of the last decade. He’s written for PokerNews, PartyPoker and many other respected online gambling websites during the last nine years.

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