'High Stakes Poker' Record-Holder Sam Kiki Announces Harvard Campus Event
Sam “Señor Tilt” Kiki will host a two-day lecture and poker event with the Harvard College Poker Club on April 24–25.
Published April 17 2026, 7:30 p.m. ET
In the last 30 days, Sam “Señor Tilt” Kiki has shattered two all-time records on High Stakes Poker, publicly challenged Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet to a $500,000 poker match, and outpaced Binance founder CZ in a pushup contest. Now he's heading to Cambridge, Massachusetts to teach college students how to play cards.
On Thursday, April 17, Kiki dropped an Instagram video announcing a two-day on-campus lecture and poker game with the Harvard College Poker Club on April 24-25. But before getting to the event itself, he circled back to the last time he heard from the Ivy League school. "I'm really pumped to hear from you guys, actually," he says in the clip, "because the last correspondence I got from Harvard University was March 31st, 2009."
Kiki then pulls up the correspondence in question and reads it aloud. The email informed him that Harvard's admissions committee could not offer him a spot but had placed him on a waiting list due to his "outstanding achievements and promise."
Seventeen years later, the waitlist finally comes full circle. "My dad and I have been checking the mail for 17 years," he says. "It's happening, pops. We're going to Harvard."
Reactions poured in almost instantly, with fans calling him “the GOAT” and flooding the comments with fire, heart, and clapping emojis.
For the uninitiated, Kiki is the founder and CEO of MonkeyTilt, an entertainment and betting company that has raised $51 million from investors including Pantera Capital and PokerGO. Before that, the Amherst grad held executive roles at both MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment.
On the poker side of things, Kiki — known professionally as “Señor Tilt” — now holds two all-time High Stakes Poker marks simultaneously, the most ever won across a full season and the largest single-day win in the show's 16-season history. He's taken down pots against Alan Keating, Andrew Robl, and Kevin Hart, with PokerGO CEO Brent Hanks calling him “the most dangerous recreational player on the planet.”
Needless to say, when it comes to poker, the Las Vegas native knows a thing or two. The poker club's signup page is live now.