Dan Kelly Bio
While a few players may have accomplished more than Dan Kelly has, few have done so at such a young age. At just 21 years old, Kelly has a resume that would make most veteran poker professionals proud – but in reality, his career is just beginning.
Play with Dan Kelly at DoylesRoom – Get an exclusive $1,000 signup bonus!
Kelly – who goes by several online names, but is mostly known as Djk123 – first powered onto the poker scene while he was still much too young to play in most American casinos. While a student at Villanova University, Kelly had already begun his assault on the online poker world, winning significant tournaments as early as 2007. He was just 18 years old, but he was regularly winning several thousand dollars at a time in medium- and high-stakes online poker tournaments. As the year wore on, the wins began to get bigger; Kelly took down a $41,515 prize in September during the World Championship of Online Poker, along with several other five-digit cashes that had to be thrilling for a college student.
That was just a taste of what was to come, as 2008 would prove to be Kelly’s breakout year. The Mechanical Engineering major continued to play online, and the wins began to pile up. Big cashes bolstered his bankroll throughout the year, setting the stage for his breakthrough. In November, Kelly won over $104,000 by taking first place in a Full Tilt Online Poker Series tournament, capping an exciting year of consistent results for Kelly. That level of consistency allowed Kelly to end up in 6th place in the 2008 Card Player Online Player of the Year competition, despite the fact that he couldn’t play as often as possible and was still hard at work in school.
If anyone hadn’t heard of Kelly by this point, 2009 would change that – particularly one fateful day in September that will go down as one of the best days any player has ever had in tournament poker history. On September 20th, Kelly entered two of the largest events of the year: the World Championship of Online Poker’s main event, which had a prize pool of over $10.7 million, and the WCOOP HORSE event, a $10,300 buy-in spectacular that offered over $1 million in prizes. Not only did Kelly win the HORSE event (which paid a cool $252,350), but playing both events simultaneously, he also reached the final table of the Main Event, eventually finishing 4th for a $643,200 cash. This run was part of an amazing WCOOP run which included 11 cashes and two titles, along with the 2009 WCOOP Player of the Year award.
Amazingly, Dan Kelly had accomplished all of this before he could even participate in most of the world’s major live poker tournaments. That made his rookie campaign in the 2010 World Series of Poker the subject of much scrutiny, as poker players from around the world wanted to see if this online prodigy could duplicate his success on the live circuit.
They wouldn’t have to wait long to find out. Kelly cashed four times in his first World Series, including winning the $25,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, pocketing over $1.3 million and taking home his first WSOP bracelet. Several other young professionals, such as Annette Obrestad and Jason Somerville, have singled out Kelly as one of the greatest players of all-time.
With nearly $6 million in career earnings, and a resume that most poker players can only dream about, it came as no surprise when Kelly was scooped up to be a part of the Brunson 10, Doyles Rooms crew of young poker pros. Amazingly, Kelly is still working towards his degree, meaning he has yet to fully devote himself to the world of poker. Once that happens, there may be little that can stand in the way of Dan Kelly becoming one of the most dominant forces in tournament poker history. Click here to play with Dan Kelly at Doyles Room.
