After 70 hours of poker in six days, it came down to the this:A king and a three, off-suit. Those were the cards dealt to Bismarck man Mitch Schock at the World Series of Poker main event in Las Vegas last week. Winning this hand would keep him in contention for the $12 million grand prize and a guaranteed payout of at least $494,000. A loss, and his run would be over.

As the dealer prepared to turn over the next three cards, Schock decided he would bet every one of his remaining $320,000 worth of chips if one of the cards was another king. Up came a nine, a queen and sure enough a king. Schock went all in, and one by one the other players folded. Except the last one. Both Schock and his one remaining opponent turned over their cards Schock's pair of kings and a three lost to the other guy's pair of kings and a jack.

"It was a bittersweet moment," Schock said.

Bitter because if he'd just stayed alive for a few more minutes, or if he'd just had a slightly better hand, he would have been on to the next round. Sweet because 29th place is still worth $329,000.

"I could have played safe and limped up the pay scale, but that's not what I'm about … Iwas after the whole enchilada," Schock said. "I'm a very competitive person, and I don't like losing. Twenty-ninth isn't winning."

But Schock says that after the windfall sunk in for a couple days, he didn't feel too bad about 29th. It's not enough to retire on, but it sure will take the pressure off.

"Now, whether I win or lose, the kids will go to college," he said.

Schock, his wife Uly, and their four kids live in a nice, but unremarkable, house in an average Bismarck neighborhood, and they drive modest cars. Though it's tempting to splurge, Schock said he won't. Poker is his full-time job, and for every big win there are going to be some losses, too.

"It's a tough game,"he says. "It'll break your heart over and over, then bam, here you are."

Schock and several family members spent some of the money celebrating for four days in Las Vegas. He'll spend $4,000 on a new-to-him car, and they'll get new tires on Uly's car. The rest, they'll invest or save.

Schock predates the poker fad. He's been playing the game for 12 years and living off of it for the last eight. He likes to say he was poker before poker was cool. Since it became cool, poker tournements have changed a lot, he said. A few years ago, a couple hundred players would pay the $10,000 fee to enter the World Series of Poker. Now, thousands do, and the jackpots have skyrocketed. It's a good time to be an experienced player, Schock says, because a lot of the people that pony up the cash to compete in big tournements aren't nearly as good as they think they are.

"It's grown exponentially," he said. "There's a lot more easy money out there."

Of course there's some luck involved in the game, he says. Sometimes you get a good hand, sometimes a bad one. But with hundreds of hands over the course of a tournement, the luck balances out and skill becomes important, he says. Everybody knows you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em, but that's easier said than done. Schock credits a knack for math and keen powers of observation with his success. He can tell at a glance how likely his cards are to win, and he picks up on opponents' habits and playing styles.

"I don't remember names, but I'll remember how you play poker," he said.

For example, Schock noticed one player out of hundreds at the tournement talking a lot during a big hand, which that player went on to win. Ten hours later, Schock happened to have another big bet on the line with the same guy. This time, the player stayed quiet. Schock took the difference in behavior to mean a difference in cards, and correctly guessed that his opponent was bluffing.

The skill set that served Schock well in Las Vegas has other applications, said Uly Schock, though Mitch Schock denies using his poker face at home.

"Oh yeah, I think so," she said, turning to her husband. "You know how to put on a face to get your way."

It's not always easy being married to a professional gambler, Uly Schock said. She doesn't know what the family income will be from year to year, and she has seen plenty of tournaments that didn't end so well. But even the good times can be tough.

"They always show the players' wives on TV looking nervous I always thought that would be so awful,"she said. "Then they did it to me … and it was terrible."

Mitch Schock said he didn't see anybody else at the tournement who had more hometown support than he did.

"That was cool; that was really neat,"he said. "To have local support, that made me proud to be from here."

(Reach reporter Zachary Franz at 250-8261 or zach.franz@;bismarcktribune.com.)