Nick 'Nicky P' Palma is in Prague chasing the first live World Series of Poker bracelet of his career, a goal that sits on top of a life shaped by repeated loss long before he ever sat at a final table. Palma, who won an online WSOP bracelet in October, is trying to turn that momentum into something he has never had in person.
Born Nicholas David Palma on Oct. 10, 1989, he spent the first 18 months of his life with his biological mother before being taken in by his godmother when she could no longer care for him. That home did not last forever. His godmother died when he was seven, and Palma went back to live with his biological mother, then spent the next year and a half essentially on his own. “If I didn’t wake up, get dressed and get myself to school, I wouldn't go to school. It was all on me,” he said.
By the time he was about eight, his uncle had become the first father figure he ever knew. Palma said that same pattern of loss kept repeating. “Basically, I lost every single person that was close to me every couple years,” he said. His mother died on the day of his fifth grade graduation. “She just happened to be one of the better people I’ve ever known in my life,” Palma said.
He stayed with his uncle until he was 13 years old, then moved in with his friend Andrew’s family. Andrew’s father, Jeff, coached their baseball team, and over time the arrangement became permanent in all the ways that mattered. Andrew became his brother. Andrew’s mother, Rose Marie, became his mother. Jeff became his father. Palma now says that winning prize money is not the point so much as what it would represent after everything that came before it. He is playing in Prague with one clear target: a first live WSOP bracelet, and a chance to make the next chapter of his life look nothing like the last one.
