High-Stakes Pro Who Swapped Cards for Crops Back at WSOP

Before Michael Rocco won his first World Series of Poker bracelet two years ago, he’d already decided he was leaving poker behind.

When PokerNews caught up with the high-stakes player during the 2024 WSOP, the conversation wasn’t about solvers, Player of the Year races, or the growing list of near-misses that had come to define his career. Instead, Rocco revealed he was preparing to step away from the game to pursue regenerative farming.

And then a few hours later, he finally won the bracelet he’d spent years chasing.

For most players, finally reaching the top would have been the beginning of another chapter. For Rocco, it simply meant he got to leave exactly how he’d hoped.

PokerNews caught up with the now 36-year-old to see how life is on the farm, and whether the poker grind is something that he yearns to go back to.

The Life Poker Allowed Him to Build

Nowadays, the poker tables no longer dominate Rocco’s life. Instead, his days revolve around a farm, a young family and a routine that’s about as far removed from the tournament grind as it gets.

“I had a kid in October,” Rocco said. “Just been adjusting to that and living and enjoying life. It’s nice to be back at the World Series. It feels good.”

“I feel more fulfilled than I have ever before”

While Rocco is quick to credit both his girlfriend and her mother for making the transition easier, he admits becoming a dad has shifted his perspective in ways he never expected.

“The last maybe five or six years were very structured, very rigid, and I took life very seriously,” he said.

“Having the kid around kind of lightens the load a little bit. He makes me smile. He’s a very happy baby, so it just gives me something to be happy about on a daily basis.”

From High Rollers to Avocado Trees

Rocco now helps manage around 600 avocado trees, between 200 and 300 tropical fruit trees, a quarter-acre vegetable garden and roughly 30 bee colonies. Bananas, mangoes, papayas, peaches, cherries, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and asparagus all grow on the property.

Rather than conventional agriculture, the focus is regenerative farming, which means restoring land that had previously been farmed with synthetic chemicals. In Rocco’s instance, the farm he’s working had been farmed with those man-made concoctions for around four decades.

“Having a deeper relationship to living systems is what inspires me”

His operation follows Korean natural farming principles, producing natural fertilizers by fermenting plants before spraying nutrient-rich extracts back across the land.

“We practice regenerative farming, so we’re looking to build the biology in our soil and restore the health of the land we work on.”

“What we’re doing is going in and trying to fix that up.”

But not every addition has been a success.

“There are five goats,” Rocco laughed. “They’re very annoying. I wouldn’t recommend them.”

More Than Just Farming

The avocados are already sold wholesale, while much of the remaining produce will eventually make its way to local farmers’ markets once the younger fruit trees mature.

But making money from the land was never really the objective.

For Rocco, farming has become another way of studying systems. Poker taught him to think in probabilities, patterns and long-term decisions. Today, that curiosity is directed elsewhere.

“It’s more about exploring the relationship between ecology and biology,” he said. “Having a deeper relationship to living systems is what inspires me the most about farming.”

After spending much of his working life inside casinos, he says there’s a satisfaction in physical work that poker could never provide.

“I’ve done a lot of crazy stuff in my life. I’ve had a lot of crazy highs, a lot of crazy lows,” he said.

“I don’t really do any drugs anymore or anything like that, but the feeling that you get after a hard day of work outside is very fulfilling.

“I feel more fulfilled than I have ever before.”

Poker Was Never the End Goal

Listening to Rocco talk, it’s hard not to feel that poker was always a means to an end. He admitted he’d been thinking about this life for years before he ever bought the farm.

“I had this idea of wanting to do this years ago,” he said. “I definitely used poker as a stepping stone to get into the position to do it.”

“I’ve been in so many big spots with big chip leads, and I feel like I haven’t really performed that well”

The game gave him financial freedom, but more importantly, it gave him options.

“Poker taught me that you can be free if you choose to be.”

For Rocco, real freedom is having access to food, water, power, shelter and community without depending entirely on someone else.

“Money can give you access to those things now, but you’re still going through other people to get them,” he said. “It gives me a deeper sense of freedom to have access to those things myself.”

Coming Back to Poker

As fulfilled as he is away from the tables, Rocco hasn’t completely closed the door on poker.

He returned to the WSOP this summer and quietly reminded everyone he can still compete as he navigated his way to Day 4 of the Main Event before finishing 790th for $22,500. The result suggests not much has changed, but Rocco would disagree.

“It’s tough integrating poker,” he said. “My relationship with poker is a lot different now and how I view it. A lot of times I feel as if I don’t want to play because I don’t want to play not at my peak.”

“I still enjoy poker and I love to play,” he said. “The Main Event was really a fun experience because it’s a little different than just like a high roller event or a small-field tournament with a lot of regs, so there’s a lot of different variables going on.”

Even after another deep run in poker’s world championship, he’s still measuring himself against his own expectations. Reflecting on his Day 4 exit, Rocco admitted what irked him wasn’t busting the tournament; it was feeling as though he hadn’t played to the standard he knows he’s capable of.

“I really didn’t perform very well. That feeling of not performing well was very bothersome. I just felt like I let myself down a little bit, but that’s just how poker is.”

Looking Back on the Bracelet

Ask most players about the defining moment of their career and they’ll talk about the celebration, the rail, or finally proving they belonged. But Rocco barely mentioned any of that, and instead focused on the feeling of relief.

“I had set out to really try to bring my best performance to that summer [2024], and I feel like I did a pretty good job of doing that, even though, of course, I made tons of mistakes along the way. To win that tournament at the end was super sweet. I was lucky enough to have my efforts pay off.”

The victory capped one of the strongest summers of his career. He reached six final tables, found himself in contention for Player of the Year, but repeatedly came up short. There was the painful third-place finish in the $25,000 Six-Handed event, another deep run here, and another close call there.

“Throughout my career, I’ve been in so many big spots with big chip leads, and I feel like I haven’t really performed that well,” he said. “This tournament particularly, I was short the whole time, so it was kind of just a lot of easy decisions.”

He also remembers sharing the summer with one of his closest friends in poker.

“I was rooming with Viktor Blom at the time too, and he had a very good summer as well. We were kind of just going deep in everything together and bouncing ideas off each other. He’s a great friend.”

A Perfect Ending

Rocco still loves the game. He still enjoys competing and he isn’t ruling out another full World Series one day, either.

“If I do show up for a full series,” he said, “I’ll be prepared and I’ll be ready to play.”

Until then, he’s content balancing the occasional tournament with a very different life back home.

“It’s nice to be here, see friends and play cards a little bit,” he said. “We’ll see what the future brings.”

Rocco walked away on his own terms, something few poker players ever get the chance to do. Poker gave him the freedom to build the life he’d always envisioned. Now, he’s simply enjoying living it.

Calum has been a part of the PokerNews team since September 2021 after working in the UK energy sector. He played his first hand of poker in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the game.

Calum has written for various poker outlets but found his home at PokerNews, where he has contributed to various articles and live updates, providing insights and reporting on major poker events, including the World Series of Poker (WSOP).