Look Out - Jonathan Jaffee

“How did I first get into poker? Well, I got kicked out of the house when I was 15, and was on the streets and needed to make a living,” said Jonathan Jaffee with a grin when he was asked how he got into the game. But all kidding aside, Jaffee went on a nice run during the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, cashing three times, including a 133rd-place finish in the 1,560-player $10,000 main event, a third-place finish in the $5,000 heads-up event, and a win in the $2,000 “Battleship” main event. Those cashes took his career tournament earnings to $1,435,771.

When he responded seriously about how he got into the game, it was from much more familiar pathways. “Just like everyone else, I saw the Moneymaker boom happen on TV, and then jumped into home games. I went to college for one semester and had a bad Internet connection, so I got out of there and got my own place,” said Jaffee.

He began his rise in poker with limit hold’em games. He started out playing $1-$2, moved up to $2-$4, $3-$6, and $5-$10, and then jumped to $30-$60 — “For the hell of it,” said Jaffee. Then, he turned to no-limit heads-up sit-and-gos online for $100 and $200, and his poker career took off while playing under the screen name “Iftarii.” In September 2009, he won a $25,000 heads-up no-limit hold’em event in the World Championship of Online Poker, for a $315,000 payday.

While he was building a reputation online, he was scoring big live cashes, as well. He finished as the runner-up in the World Poker Tour World Poker Finals in 2008, and was awarded $670,635. Earlier that year, he made an appearance in the final four of the World Series of Poker $10,000 heads-up no-limit hold’em event, and finished third, for $108,288.

Jaffee said that it was a mixed bag when it came to learning the game online and live. “Live, you learn different stuff; it’s kind of a flashback in years, where you get to see some different psychological things. Online, of course, you get more hands and more in-depth learning.” He also said that no matter what venue you choose to play the game, the main thing is to maintain a good head on your shoulders and put poker in its proper perspective. “I would say that whether you’re running bad or running good, stay on an even keel. In the end, it’s just a game, and over-thinking things is definitely a big problem, because poker should be just an aspect of life as opposed to dominating your life.”

He takes his own advice by playing basketball, boxing, and playing tennis and table tennis when he isn’t at the poker table. Boxing is his most recent interest, and he found that it is very much related to heads-up poker. “I like the one-on-one aspect of boxing. You counterpunch in order to get a chance to look around for weaknesses. There is a lot of adjusting in it, just as there is in any high-stakes heads-up game. You can come in with a game plan, but you have to be prepared to change it up based on your opponent and what he’s constantly adjusting to, if he’s a good boxer, as well,” said Jaffee.

He doesn’t have a set plan for poker moving forward, other than the fact that he wants to keep playing. “I just want to be playing it for the rest of my life in some capacity. I don’t have any yearly goals or a set plan for how much I want to play. Whether it’s 50 days, 100 days, or whatever, I just want it to be in my life when I’m 40,” he said.

And when he was asked about what advice he would give to up-and-coming players, his sense of humor reared its head once again. “Stay in school,” he said with a laugh, and he returned to his seat in the tournament. ♠