There aren’t too many poker players that come out of ‘nowhere’ and win their way into contention in the Card Player Player of the Year race. The top of the POY leaderboard has largely been constituted by a familiar list of the top tournament stars, arranged in varying order depending on which high rollers have recently fared the best.
This year, however, there have been a few new faces who have fought their way alongside the high-stakes elite to climb to the top of the standings. Among them is 26-year-old Jesse Lonis from Little Falls, New York. Prior to 2021, Lonis had just over $116,000 in earnings from 27 cashes. His average buy-in across those scores was a little over $530.
So far in 2021, Lonis has cashed for $615,549. He has made 39 in-the-money finishes this year, with eight POY-qualified final tables, including a fifth-place finish in the World Poker Tour Lucky Hearts Poker Open main event for $223,895 and a runner-up finish in the World Series of Poker Covid-19 Relief Charity $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event for $30,086. He also took down a $1,600 buy-in pot-limit Omaha with 248 entries at the Venetian DeepStack Championship Poker Series for $81,485.
As a result of his success so far this year, Lonis now sits in 25th place in the 2021 Player of the Year standings. We caught up with Lonis at the Rio during the WSOP to discuss his breakout year, how he got into the game, and more.
Card Player: Can you talk a little bit about when you first discovered poker?
Jesse Lonis: My earliest memory [of the game] was actually watching my grandmother play online on Full Tilt Poker when I was 10 or 11 years old. She would let me watch, and then she’d go use the bathroom and let me take over for her and play. And that’s how I first started playing. My uncle, he would play all the time too. And then by the time I was 14, I was playing little tournaments with them. That’s how I first fell in love with it. I […]
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