When the World Series of Poker Main Event started hitting mainstream popularity in 2003, the television broadcasts were built on two kinds of players – the seasoned professionals, and the amateurs getting to live out their dreams right alongside them.
And as much as fans at home liked shouting at their TVs, imagining how they would’ve played a hand better, the underdog story of Chris Moneymaker is what helped build the foundation for poker as it is today.
Few players could stake a stronger claim to underdog status with less than 300 players remaining on Day 5 of the 2024 WSOP Main Event than Apple Landerman. The 50-year-old who calls Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii home has been all over the world. He’s spent time living and working in Austin, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, and Costa Rica, chasing a variety of different pursuits and passions. Tournament poker is simply the latest stop on that journey, and in his first-ever WSOP Main Event he’s managed to build a considerable stack to this point in the tournament.
Beyond poker, change has been a constant for most of Landman’s life. But one year ago, long before he entered the brightest spotlight poker has to offer, Landerman was living the most drastic shift of his well-traveled life – the Maui fires, which claimed more than 100 lives and destroyed more than 2,200 buildings, including Landerman’s home, in the devastation.
“You know, you lose everything you owned for 30 years, but the thing about it is all your stuff doesn’t mean a fucking thing when you lose friends and people in that community,” said Landerman.
In the immediate aftermath Landerman, who was a firefighter in Austin for eight years, volunteered in the efforts to try to save as much as could be saved on the island of Maui.
“I was helping water after the fires with the other guys,” said Landerman. “We were watering the trees afterward. Kind of the first thing about rebuilding the town was keeping what survived alive.”
Over the last few months, Landerman has spent a lot of time traveling, including a long stretch in Costa Rica. That’s where he picked up poker, a game that he’d largely seen on TV and online, and he dove in head-first. He credits the vlogs of Daniel Negreanu and Brad Owen for helping to rapidly improve his game.
“Poker is a fun game,” said Landerman. “I’m so intrigued by it. I love it. It’s so fascinating, and truly I hope one day I get to thank Daniel Negreanu for truly getting my ass here. I mean, he’s given me confidence just through listening to him. The knowledge he has on that YouTube channel is amazing.”
Landerman’s next stop was Austin to visit a friend, and with an abundance of excitement and confidence the pair hatched a plan to get Landerman into the WSOP Main Event.
“I was on an extended vacation hanging out with my buddy in Austin, and we decided that I would put up half the [WSOP Main Event buy-in] and he’d put up half, and we just did it. Well, if you’re gonna do that, [invest in me], I’m gonna respect that and come play, try some tournaments and see if I’m even worthy. And so then I came to Vegas.”
Landerman ended up in Vegas in late April and started firing tournaments – the first live events he’d ever played in his life. He rattled off 10 final tables and two victories in nightly events at South Point and Wynn Las Vegas across late April and early May, and that convinced him that he was indeed ready to try his hand at playing the WSOP Main Event.
He returned to Maui briefly to lock a few things up, and then dove headfirst back into tournaments over the last few weeks. Landerman got his first career WSOP cash in the Seniors Championship, fired a few more South Point tournaments, and then joined the WSOP Main Event field on Day 1C Friday.
Six days later, Landerman had locked up some significant pay jumps as he built his stack to over 3 million. He ended up landing a seat on the main “mothership” stage in front of all the TV cameras. He struck an image of a seasoned veteran, wearing sunglasses and a hat – a hat that carried significant meaning.
It’s the one he wore as part of the championship roster of the Maui Adult Baseball League’s ‘Upcountry Dirtbags,’ for whom Landerman is a pitcher. It helped form part of his lucky outfit, a reflection of his lifelong love of baseball and a healthy dose of superstition that comes with playing the game for that long
“I’m rocking that good vibes,” said Landerman. “With the hat, the championship hat, and I’ve been in the same clothes for five fucking days, because one of the baseball little things is you don’t want to change your dirty uniform when you’re on a hot streak.”
Through all of his adventures and trying times, Landerman maintained an overwhelmingly positive outlook that helped sustain him for such a long stretch in the WSOP Main Event.
“I’ve got so much support, it’s so rad,” said Landerman. “So many people back from Maui, from Austin, Texas, from Tahoe, from Costa Rica, South Carolina. I’m playing for so many more people than just me. I’m playing for my buddy that spotted me. I want to make my mom proud. Even if I go in and lose the next hand, I’m fucking happy.”
If narratives won out over the way poker tends to deliver bad luck and bad news, Landerman would be a standout candidate to become WSOP Main Event champion and take home the $10 million first-place prize. Unfortunately, Landerman’s luck in this tournament would quickly run out during an all-too-brief TV table appearance as he lost all of his chips over the course of two tough-luck hands against Kristen Foxen.
Landerman’s been through a lot over the last year, but he lived every second of the WSOP Main Event experience with joy, taking several chances to chat up Jeff Platt and soak everything in as he walked around the tournament between hands.
The $50,000 cash for his 245th place finish is far and away his best tournament result to date, and ideally, this won’t be the last time we see Landerman on such a stage. In his exit interview, Landerman toasted his friends back home as he lifted up a celebratory beer and reflected on a tournament well fought and a moment he’ll never forget.
“It’s an amazing experience,” Landerman told Jeff Platt. “I’d suggest this to everyone that’s sitting on the couch just like I was last year, and the years before. It’s the most thrilling, unbelievable poker experience of all time. Unbelievable to get to go down in a big ball of flames on TV in front of all my Maui friends. Aloha.”