Poker player and entrepreneur Roger Sippl dies

Poker player and “serial entrepreneur” Roger Sippl appeared several times on PokerGO's High Stakes Poker program. Sippl died at the age of 71, 52 years after doctors gave him two years to live.

Andrew Robl, a close friend of Sippl, shared the news on X. Robl described his friend as “a loving husband, father, founder and, above all, a lover of poker.” Robl said that he never heard a bad word about Sippl at the table and that he was always a kind person.

Sippl was born on February 22, 1955, in Wassau, Wisconsin. While studying at Berkeley, he beat Hodgkin's disease. After university, he married, had three children and founded many successful companies. One of them, Informix Corporation, was sold to IBM in 2005. The Wall Street Journal described him as a serial entrepreneur because of his numerous business ventures.

Phil Hellmuth shared that when Sippl was 19, doctors told him he would not live to see 21. Sippl sat at the High Stakes Poker table four times during the show's 2023 season. According to The Hendon Mob data, his live tournament earnings total $3.8 million. His biggest score came in the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, where he finished second and won $1,344,420.

Hellmuth said that for the last 20 years, he has described Sippl as “a colorful character” and “a fearless businessman” in private home games. Around the time Sippl died, Jeremy Kaufman, another person who took part in Hellmuth's games, had also died last month.