When it comes to recording, Steve Albini is no slouch. Over the years, the recording engineer, producer (a term he dislikes), studio owner and outspoken critic of the music industry has been behind the desk for albums like Nirvana’s In Utero, the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa and literally thousands more, usually at his Chicago facility, Electrical Audio Studio. All of that comes in addition to his own extensive musical work, leading noted punk and post-hardcore bands like Big Black and Shellac.
Now he can add a rather different addition to his list of accomplishments: On June 14, he won the 2018 World Series of Poker $1,500 Seven Card Stud event, marking his first WSOP gold bracelet.
With the win, he beat 309 other entrants in the field to take home $105,629, outplaying multi-bracelet winners of years past Chris Ferguson and Jeff Lisandro in the process. The win came on the heels of a just-completed Shellac tour of Europe.
While having been a poker enthusiast since the 1990s, Albini was decidedly modest about the win, as he told wsop.com, “I am ecstatic that a player as mediocre as me can outlast all of these better players and end up with a bracelet. There’s still hope for everybody!”
He added that his event was held concurrently with the WSOP’s Seniors Event and $50K Poker Players Championship, taking out key players that might have otherwise played in his own event: “The field for the stud tournament, I think, was kind of historically weak, which allowed a sucker like me to make it to the final table.”
