The World Poker Tour circuit can be dizzying to cover with players coming from all over the world. It’s easy to keep chatting with the same circle of players that travel, but that’s where local floor supervisors come into play. When asked, “Who’s the local player in the field?” today, fingers kept pointing to Dustin Melanson.
“I am flattered, I honestly am,” Melanson said. “I just come to each session and try to put my best foot forward. I try to craft my skills and for those guys to say something like that means the world to me – it really does.”
He is seated in Day 1C of the $3,500 World Poker Tour Playground Championship looking for his first major championship. He's just a few months removed from his first piece of poker hardware and is hungry for more.
Long distance local
Melanson is a part-time player from Toronto – about a six-hour commute – and is a Playground regular. “I spend a couple of weeks out here at a time when there’s a series in town. My wife lives here also, so I split my time between here and Toronto.”
Melanson’s Hendon Mob profile doesn’t knock your socks off, but he’s accumulated a half million in earnings with a single six-figure score, a handful of five-figure scores, and over 30 cashes at Playground Poker.
His biggest score came just a few months ago when he won the WSOP Circuit Main Event here. “I guess you could call it home-field advantage,” he said. “We don’t have much of a home field in Toronto, but these guys here are all world-class.”
His recent uptick in tournament results is a product of him putting in the work. “Something did click for me recently – it was me getting more reps,” Melanson said. “Hopefully, I’m getting better. I’m a part-time player but I’ve been moving towards playing full-time over the last twelve months.”
Moving up and fighting the fight
“I love the mental challenges of poker – keeping your composure to go up against the best,” Melanson added. “I like challenging myself and having tough table draws that force me to play better.”
Melanson joked that his recent run good stopped as soon as he arrived for the series. “I did feel like I was in the zone before this series started,” he laughed. “This series hasn’t treated me well so far.”
“Sometimes when you’re running bad, you start compounding mistakes and then you’re not playing to the best of your ability,” he said. “That’s happened to me this week. But today is a new day, I’m short-stacked after getting clipped with top set of aces early on. Now I have to stick around and work it back.”
All photos courtesy of World Poker Tour/Enrique Malfavon/Alicia Skillman
