Will McNabb is all in. From playing poker simply for fun to playing to compete and win, he’s fully invested in complementing a full-time career in business with his social pastime.
McNabb earned a BS in accounting with a concentration in finance from the Mitch Daniels School of Business in 2020, joining PwC as a private tax associate upon graduation. After two years with the “Big 4” accounting firm, he made the transition to Austin, TX-based Maxwell Locke & Ritter LLP, working remotely from Indianapolis as a tax accountant.
“My primary role is helping review and prepare companies’ tax returns, but I help a lot with recruitment and interviewing job candidates, too,” he says. “I’m also using my skills in Excel, Tableau, and other data platforms to help the IT team automate our processes, which is a big trend in accounting.”
McNabb was in the Academy of Finance at Hamilton Southeastern High School, which provided him and other top students access to a business-focused curriculum. As a senior, he took an accounting class at Anderson University and discovered a strong interest in the discipline. “That’s when I decided to pursue it as a college major,” McNabb. “My dad was also a CPA, so I’d grown up around it.”
Although his aunt Joan Gardner works at the Daniels School as a faculty assistant, becoming a Boilermaker wasn’t a given for McNabb. “I started looking at business schools and narrowed it down to Purdue and Michigan State,” he says. “A lot of people I know sold me on Purdue, and I fell in love with campus. I haven’t looked back since.”
During his time at Purdue, McNabb was active in Greek life as a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity, which he served in several leadership roles. He was also a member of the Accounting Association and participated in the Purdue University Dance Marathon to raise funds for Riley Hospital for Children.
Throughout high school and college, McNabb also worked as a locker room assistant for Pacers Sports and Entertainment. “I started as a ball boy and worked my way up to helping the equipment manager,” he says. “I’m a huge basketball fan, so it was really cool to get to know NBA players on a personal level.”
McNabb's interest in poker was sparked by his older brother. “It was through him that I was first introduced to the game,” he says. “I would hop on our family computer and play with fake money on pokerstars.net just for fun. It also introduced me to the rules of the game.”
But McNabb put the game aside for several years while focusing on academics. “I didn’t play for a long time, but when Covid hit during my final year at Purdue, I picked it up again and began playing with friends,” he says. “After a few losing sessions, I started studying poker strategies online to improve my game.”
After the pandemic subsided, McNabb took his pastime public and began competing in local tournaments. “Once I started playing in person, I realized how much I loved it,” he says. “It’s a great way to meet new people, socialize, and keep myself competitive.”
He quickly discovered it was also a way to make some extra cash. “A friend and I took a road trip to Cincinnati to play in a tournament at the Hard Rock Casino, and we made it to the final table,” McNabb says. “He came in third, and I placed sixth. That was the first time I actually won money.”
Encouraged by his success, McNabb set the goal of competing in the World Series of Poker, the most prestigious poker tournament in the world. There was one problem, however. “The buy-in was $10,000, so I had to either win a qualifying tournament or come up with the money myself,” he says. “Fortunately, I won a qualifier at the American Legion in Speedway and made it to Las Vegas.”
Facing a record-setting number of participants, McNabb’s hope was simply to make it through the first day of competition. “You’re playing from noon to midnight, so it's a long day and a lot of poker to survive,” he says. “And you’re facing some of the best players in the world, people who devote their entire lives to poker. I went in with the simple expectation to do my best, have fun, and enjoy the experience.”
Exceeding his goal, McNabb actually made it to the third day of the competition, coming in at 2,900 out of 10,100 competitors and just shy of being “in the money.” “That’s my next goal,” he says. “I don’t expect to win, but it would be great to go further in the tournament and take home some prize money.”
In the meantime, McNabb will continue to balance his burgeoning poker career with his day job. “I really enjoy poker because it’s based in math and draws on a lot of the same skills I use in accounting,” he says. “You also have to keep everything organized and learn to recognize certain tendencies in people. In many ways, that’s what I do every day.”
