Cue the unlikely sports fairytale—no buzzer-beaters, no knockout punches, just a click, a card, and a Filipino finally crashing poker’s velvet rope.
Rommel Orbigo, a veteran public relations man with an amateur poker label that now feels wildly outdated, has become the first Filipino to win a PokerStars Gold Pass. He outlasted more than 640 players from across the globe in a pre-dawn online satellite on Dec. 22, turning a modest USD55 Snowball Challenge raffle ticket into a USD10,300 passport to poker royalty.
That passport leads straight to the European Poker Tour (EPT) Paris Main Event starting Feb. 23—a EUR5,300 buy-in arena where legends brood, chips fly, and mistakes get punished fast.
The Gold Pass also covers accommodations and opens doors to select side events, because when it rains in poker, sometimes it pours.
This wasn’t blind luck in a hoodie.
Orbigo has been quietly sharpening his game at Metro Poker Club and PokerStars Live Manila, stacking small but telling wins in No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha. No flash, no bravado—just solid reads, patience, and an allergy to bad decisions.
He can still choose to unleash his Gold Pass at EPT Monte Carlo in May or at another EPT stop yet to be announced. Paris, though, feels poetic. From late-night Manila tables to the City of Light, all on one unlikely run.
Poker is sport’s most honest liar. It sells luck but pays preparation. Orbigo’s win is proof that when opportunity shows up wearing raffle-ticket clothes, the prepared don’t laugh—they shuffle up and deal.
