9/11 cop wins cool $1M in poker challenge

Mike Kosowski was dealt a bad hand on 9/11 – but now the former NYPD detective has come up all aces.

Kosowski, a 53-year-old amateur card-player, won $1 million on the FOX poker game show PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge after beating one of the world’s top pros in a head-to-head game.

“It’s unbelievable,” he told The Post. “We’re still on an emotional high every day. Every day I wonder, ‘Am I living a dream.’”

Kosowski said he was able to live out a real life David vs. Goliath story and beat pro Daniel Negreanu by using a combination of good cards and the ability to read people, which he learned on the police force.

Chad Rachman/N.Y.Post

ray mickshaw/PokerStars.net

HE KNOWS HOW TO HOLD 'EM -- Hero 9/11 cop Mike Kosowski hugs his daughter, Rachel, after winning $1 million.

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“I said this guy’s a pro, if he gets a chance to read me he’s going to pick me off,” he said. “So, being a detective sergeant, I knew I couldn’t let that happen.

“Playing against a pro is difficult,” he added. “Because you know he knows the game inside and out. You can’t take as many risks as you would against some guy in Atlantic City.”

Kosowski was a first responder at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, who was helping evacuate survivors when the South Tower collapsed. He was knocked 10 feet in the air and suffered burns and injuries to his neck and back.

The Staten Island man retired from the force in 2004 – and out of boredom started taking up poker.

“With my injury I was getting lethargic, out of shape,” he said. “My wife noticed this.”

He said his wife, Francis, looked for something to help occupy his time, and she noticed him watching Negreanu on television playing on the PokerStars show.

“She said ‘What do you have to do to become [a player] like that I said I need a miracle,’” he said. “But I said, one day I’m going to play him face-to-face and I’m going to beat him.”

Little did he know that he would get his chance just months later, when he entered a 16,000-person on-line tournament on the PokerStars website – and came in 4th place.

That high finish entitled him to submit a video to the show’s producers explaining why he would make a good TV contestant. He eventually asked to be an alternate and flown with his wife to Los Angeles, where the show was taped.

It was the weekend of their Anniversary.

“We said it was the weekend of our anniversary and we’ll have the party when we came back,” he said.

He would be a very good party indeed. As Kosowski wound up getting to play – and winning two consecutive 4-person qualifier games.

Then he got to face Negreanu – and he came prepared. He said that he had already read the pro’s book, and he had watched Negreanu on television and figured out his tell.

“The only read I picked up on him was . . . you knew he didn’t have the best hand because he puts his hand behind the back of his head.”

Kosowski said he couldn’t talk about his winning hand. People will just have to watch the show when his winning game airs on FOX Dec. 27 at 5 p.m.

Kosowski, who will pay off his mortgage and donate some money to charity, was modest about his win, saying: “I just got lucky, you know, and I just played my game.”