Slovakian Dag Palovic is a full-time poker player, impresario, and author. The Bratislava resident is the President of the Slovak Poker Sport Federation and one of the main organizers of World Poker Tour (WPT) stops in his hometown of Bratislava.
Palovic, also known as “Lucky D,” started playing poker relatively recently – in 2007 – yet he made it to the final days of the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, for which he ponied up his own $10,000 buy in. He ultimately bowed out in 37th place and picked up $206,000.
Palovic has co-authored a book with 1983 WSOP Main Event champ Tom McEvoy; we suspect it is in his native Slovak because we have not been able to find out more about this periodical.
Palovic is a member of MENSA International, which means he is certified as a holder of a very high IQ since MENSA only accepts people who score in the 98th percentile (the top 2%) on standard intelligence tests. To further this point, Palovic speaks an impressive array of six languages: Slovak, Czech, English, French, German, and Russian.
WSOP reporters and bloggers who have been covering the 2010 WSOP Main Event have noted that Palovic likes to organize his chips in stacks of five, making for a broad arrangement in front of him at the table.
Before going deep in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, Palovic won the Red Sea Poker Cup in 2010 and the 2010 Evian Poker Open, making nearly €100,000 from both prizes combined. His total poker winnings to date are over $700,000, helped in part by his mammoth bankroll boost in the $10,000 buy-in tournament in Las Vegas. Palovic went busto from Day 6 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, earning $206,000 for his 37th place finish.
Even without taking into account his 2010 WSOP Main Event cash, Palovic is the highest earning poker player in Slovakia and possibly in the entire Central Eastern Europe.