y Summer: World Series, Future Goals, and more... by Justin Bonomo

How do I sum up my past, present, and future in one article? This is the first of my monthly columns for Bluff Magazine, so let’s start with an intro about my past and who I am.

I started playing poker when I was 17. I had a lot of success playing online poker. I was known as one of the most successful high stakes sit-n-go players and also did well in cash games (both Limit and No Limit), in addition to scoring two online tournament wins for over $100,000 each. Although I dabbled in all forms of poker, I was a tournament specialist.

I had my first taste of success in live tournaments at the 2005 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas, where I finished 30th in that World Poker Tour event. That was in January, and I decided I would not be returning to school for a second semester because I wanted to play the European Poker Tour. My online success afforded me that huge cushion. At the EPT in Deauville, I became the first teenager ever to make a televised final table. Ever since then, I have had “the fever.”

Now that I’m 21, I play live tournaments almost exclusively, traveling across the world wherever the World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker take me. Of the 13 WPT events I have played, I have cashed in four, including 7th and 11th place finishes (bubbles suck).

After years of watching on the sidelines due to being underage, I recently played my first World Series of Poker, which was a bag of mixed blessings. I got 4th in the $2,000 No Limit, which paid $156,000, but I must say I was extremely disappointed with that. I went into the final table with more than twice as many chips as the guy in second place, and was cruising along until I ran K-K into A-A. The pot contained over 70% of all the chips in play for the entire tournament, despite 4 players still being left.

I was also cruising along with over a million chips on Day 3 of the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E event, but ran super cold to finish 18th place; 16th would have paid $90,000, but I got nothing. What a brutal bubble.

I cashed in the $5,000 6-handed NL, but lost a super big pot with A-K vs. A-K all in preflop. I also “cashed” in the second $1,000 rebuy NL, although I don’t know if it counts as cashing if you spend double what you cashed on rebuys.

The Main Event was equally cruel. I busted out before the dinner break on Day 1, despite doubling up to 40,000 chips early on. There were four separate wicked suckouts that I couldn’t have done a thing about.

Despite the depressing tone I’m writing with, the WSOP actually went really well for me. I made a lot of money (both on my own play, and from the people I staked – I <3 William Jensen and Ray Henson). I got a ton of good press thanks to Bluff and WorldSeriesofPoker.com. They did a live internet simulcast of my final table, brought me on as a commentator for another final table, and featured me on their WSOP Live show a few times. I also finally got some ESPN time in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event and even walked away from the WSOP with a great sponsorship deal from Bodog.net. As if all that weren’t good enough, I even met my current girlfriend, who was absolutely wonderful at the WSOP.

So yeah… basically life is good. And that pretty much covers the past and present, so let’s talk about the future.

Right now there is a massive hump that I am trying to get over. I have seven tournament cashes for over $75,000, including five that were over $100,000 – but I have never cashed for more than $200,000. Despite what my results would imply, my late game is probably the strongest part of my tournament game. Every tournament I get deep in has some bad beat story about how I get all in with the nuts for a huge pot and lose or run kings into aces against the only guy at the table who can make a significant dent in my stack. So I do have the reputation of consistently getting deep in major tournaments, but I don’t want that. I want to be the guy who actually wins tournaments.

Fortunately, there are a lot of tournaments coming up. My schedule is going to be pretty busy. I haven’t made definite travel plans yet, but here is what I’m looking at so far for the rest of the year:

> August: WPT Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in LA (Yay for Hometown WPTs!)

> September: WSOP Europe in London and then WPT Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City

> October: WPT Spanish Championship in Barcelona and WPT North American Poker Championship in Niagara Falls

So in the next five months, I will be playing six WPTs as well as having three more shots at a World Series of Poker bracelet.

In next month’s column, I will write about the Legends of Poker. Nothing would make me happier than being able to tell you about a win in my own city. Wish me luck!