Jesse Lonis is one of the latest players to join David Tuchman for a drive in the 888rideChevy Tahoe. Tuchman chatted with Lonis about his poker success, his hard start in life, and what it's like moving to Vegas for the first time.
Lonis's Hendon Mobstarts in 2019 with small, scattershot scores in three-figure buy-in events. Just five years later, Lonis is the number one player in the GPI rankings, has made 33 finishes in the money at the WSOP (including one bracelet), and earned over $10 million in live cashes. At this year's WSOP alone, he made two final tables, including a second-place finish in the $50k High Roller.
Consequently, Tuchman was interested in finding out what engine drove Lonis's career with such astonishing acceleration.
Lonis attributes his success to his adaptability. He feels what sets him apart is "being able to feel what is going on in the moment" and "being able to play against super pros and being able to play against uncles and aunts. Being able to exploit what they are thinking and use it against them. I think a lot of the top pros are relying on charts and certain positions and not really playing the person as much as they are their hands."
Early on in his poker career, Lonis learned to play by watching top players on live streams, trying to "take a piece of all their games" and developing a style of his own from these fragments.
He doesn't study too hard anymore. However, when he does, he focuses on his own hand histories, targeting leaks in his game. His current biggest leak? "Probably being too aggressive in the early levels," he says. "I don't have the patience to sit there and grind and grind.
As his success in cash games grew, he considered moving to Vegas but held off, instead moving to Oregon.
"I didn't want to take my sixty grand and move right to Vegas," he explained. "I had a feeling that could be gone really quick. [...] I thought it would be smarter to go somewhere where I could fly to Vegas, fly to L.A. because I figured I could always make money playing cash games." He would go to L.A. for "four to five days and play forty-, fifty-hour sessions."
All that changed on a chance trip to the Borgata with a friend. He explains how he entered a $400 tournament and was blown away.
"It was my first time seeing like a field of five thousand people in one room," he tells Tuchman. "Walking in that room, hearing the chips, it was electric. I knew I was where I needed to be for poker."
Another key turning point in the road from Jesse Lonis the grinder to Jesse Lonis the crusher was the 2021 World Poker Tour Lucky Hearts Poker Open $3,500 Main Event in Hollywood, Florida.
"I was down to about $8,000 to my name when I went to Florida," Lonis begins. "I bricked the beginning of the series, lost half my money and was down to, like, $4k. At that point in your poker career, you're on your own unless you know somebody."
Although he satellited into the main event, the stakes soon rose for him when life intervened.
"On the first day of the tournament, I got a call from my wife, girlfriend at the time, telling me 'Hey, babe. I'm pregnant.' My heart dropped. I'm sitting there like a lost soul with $4,000 dollars to my name in this tournament thinking, 'All right, time to lock in and not lose.'"
"I remember getting pocket kings and flatting them preflop because I was like, this guy could have aces and I'm not going broke here. I played the most Daniel Negreanu small ball style ever."
He played tight and scared — but it worked. Lonis came fifth, earning $223,895 and getting the bankroll he needed to "fire what I wanted."
Tuchman seemed impressed by Lonis's commitment to the game and tried to tease out where that inner drive came from.
"Even when I was a poor kid, I always told myself I would be a millionaire in my twenties," Lonis said. "My addiction was money."
Lonis's father worked on oil rigs until he got into some "legal trouble." At this point, Lonis was shipped off to New York to live with his grandmother.
"Her favorite thing to do was to gamble. Early vacations for me were going to Atlantic City and walking the boardwalk while my grandma and grandpa would play slots and poker. I'd just be a kid running around the casino."
"She would play poker — pretty sure it was Full Tilt Poker back then. She'd play really small 5c/10c, but she'd take a lot of bathroom breaks and I'd take over for her and just grind. She'd come back from the bathroom and she'd always have more chips than she left with."
From those humble beginnings, he started playing against friends as a teenager. He switched his focus to sports in high school, but poker eventually came back in a big way. Though, as he puts it, it didn't have to be poker.
"Growing up poor. Not being able to get what I want. I was hungry, just too hungry not to succeed. If it wasn't poker, I would have figured it out in a different business. Whatever I did, I was gonna be the best at it."
The full interview is almost an hour long, and Lonis and Tuchman discuss many more topics in depth. They delve into Lonis's childhood and consider what he wants to do next.
You can watch the full interview here.
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