High-Stakes Pro Jesse Martin Makes Big Breakthrough At WSOP

Poker pro Jesse Martin has been one of the most consistent winners in the game for years, but thanks to a bracelet in the $10,000 buy-in deuce-to-seven draw lowball event this summer at the World Series of Poker, he finally got the widespread attention that he deserves.

Martin had a great WSOP, cashing six times (in six different game variants) for a total of $309,498.

Martin, 33, considers himself an “east coast person, but a west coast poker player.” He has spent time in numerous parts of the country, following big live games and, when online poker was more widespreadl, honing his craft in the biggest games on the Internet.

Martin went to Syracuse University and graduated in 2002, but never wanted to do much with his education. Poker was just too lucrative and interesting for him.

Part of Martin’s rise can be attributed to just good timing. He was at a perfect age to take the shot as a professional grinder when the game was booming. Thanks to televised poker, which included extensive coverage of poker rock star Gus Hansen, the improbable Chris Moneymaker victory, and the movie Rounders, there was a mounting interest in the game that was just ready to erupt.

Martin was swept into the current and has never looked back, accumulating millions along the way.

The Start Of A Poker Career

Martin’s friends were playing sit-and-gos in their attic, and eventually invited him to one of the home games. It was a $10 buy-in with the typical drinking and joking around.
“I barely knew the rules, but I got heads-up and lost,” Martin remembered.

The experienced piqued his interest and he made his way to a book store to pick up a poker book. It was Hold’em Poker: For Advanced Players.

Along the way, Martin met the children of poker pro Al Krux, and he started playing bigger games with that group of friends. They were still miniscule by his standards today — buy-ins of about $50.

He then started going to Turning Stone, a tribal casino in New York state, with friends when was 20. He played mostly limit hold’em and started crushing the games right away.

“I just played a lot of poker my senior year,” Martin said. “My friends had a nice place and a nice table. They were pretty good players, and I just kind of learned that way. By the time I graduated, I never got a job. I probably had built up $5,000 or $6,000 from playing at Turning Stone, and then I decided to live in Boston and commute to Foxwoods to play $15-$30 and $20-$40 limit hold’em.”

Martin said that he played just how the books taught him to play — tight and aggressive. He kept winning, even taking some shots in Atlantic City. Part of his early success can be attributed to him keeping meticulous track of his sessions. He beat $20-$40 limit hold’em for about $35 per hour, he said.

After a year of the Foxwoods scene, Martin decided to move to San Diego to grind at Ocean’s Eleven and then occasionally at the Commerce, which has one of the largest poker rooms in the world.

Around this time, online poker started to boom and became literally the place to make serious money. Martin gravitated to the Internet and settled in as an online pro for a number of years.

“For a very long time I was a limit hold’em player, which is kind of what you wanted to be, because that was the best game to make money in; it was the most popular game. I four-tabled $15-$30 limit hold’em on PartyPoker, and it was a gold mine. The games were just unbelievable. If you didn’t have a game where someone was limping in under-the-gun with J-3 suited you would just switch tables. It was that good. So, I did that for awhile and ran it up pretty fast. All of a sudden, I was like ‘wow.’ At first, poker was a way to pay my bills and go on Phish tour, and that was it. At the time, I was thinking I could maybe make six-figures a year, but nothing super extravagant. But I had $70,000 on PartyPoker before I knew it, and then dealt with a few swings, but for the most part it was pretty steady for years.”

After a year in San Diego, Martin decided to move back east, this time to New York City. He spent the next six years of his life there. He said this period contained the “formative years” of his poker career.

“I learned all the different games and switched to no-limit because those games were good,” Martin said. “I kind of just did everything online for the most part, except for heads-up nosebleed no-limit. I played all the stakes.”

Despite living in New York, where some of the juiciest underground poker games supposedly run, Martin never ventured into them. He said he was “pretty scared” to take shots in them.

“Part of it was that I wasn’t’ good enough networking with other poker players,” he admitted. “I come off as a straight-laced, studious poker player. I am not the perfect candidate for some crazy home game. I can put on an act and make it look like I am playing loose, but at first glance, I am not…so I never was really one to seek out these types of games. I was also very happy online.”

Despite All The Success, Still A Humble Grinder

Martin has been very cognizant of when he has fallen behind in some aspects of the game. He said that he was pretty much passed by, for a while, in limit hold’em theory but became aware of what were now his leaks and then plugged them accordingly. Poker is always evolving, and he has been able to respond.

He hasn’t only done extremely well in cash games. Like most players, he has used his cash game winnings to take shots in tournaments, which can provide massive scores and give grinders like Martin the ammunition to move up in stakes and play comfortably at a new level. That’s what happened to him after he won a Bellagio tournament in 2007 for $289,740. He beat out Scott Clements heads-up.

“I also won $400,000 in a super-tough PokerStars $10,000 SCOOP main event that I probably shouldn’t have even played,” Martin said. That score was in April of 2009.

That score online put him in a really comfortable spot as well.

“I feel like that helped me really learn mixed games,” Martin said of his then bloated web bankroll.

“There was some quote — it might have been from Chip Reese — that said something like you should be able to play the best game running in any poker room if you are a professional player. You shouldn’t just walk to a limit hold’em table, for example, determined to only play that game. You should always survey the poker room. If you see everyone is gambling at badugi and triple draw, meanwhile there are eight solid pros sitting at the limit hold’em game; it would be foolish to sit in the tougher game. If this is what you choose to do for a living, and what you want to work hard at, you need to be able to play whatever is available. This applies to online as well. If you see the guy who was making the limit hold’em games run the previous week is now gambling it up at pot-limit Omaha, you need to be able to play that.”

Martin is all about adaptability, whether its within the game itself, or even just choosing when, where and who to play against. There are many variables to consider when embarking on a session.

There are plenty of other reasons why he prefers mixed games over the big-bet games. It’s far less stressful to grind at a table where all your money can’t be lost at once, which is not only nice for poker pros but also for the amateurs. Those players feel like they are getting more entertainment out of their buy-in, which is important to keep the poker economy healthy. Martin said he is cognizant of this.

The World Series Of Poker Bracelet

While many people look at the summer schedule of tournaments and see a mountain of work, Martin views it all as a nice break from the cash games. He loves competing against the best in this format.

“I don’t play many tournaments,” Martin said. “I think I played three events in between the 2012 World Series of Poker and the 2013 World Series of Poker.”

Martin said he didn’t think about the money once en route to capturing the deuce-to-seven title for $253,524. He did swap some pieces with friends for fun.

“The WSOP is really about the competition and testing yourself against the best players in the world, especially for a whole summer,” Martin said. “I don’t think I am the best poker player in the world, and I never will think that, but I’d like to think that I am of the caliber of some of the best players. The WSOP is where you can test that without all the politics of the cash game world.”

As for being too recognizable in poker after his win, Martin isn’t too worried.
“In the high-stakes mixed games, it’s actually better the more bracelets you have. That’s who they want in the games. If they are playing deuce-to-seven no-limit single draw, and I walked in there today, they would make an open seat. Not necessarily because they think I am a fish, but because I just won all the money in this game, and it’s kind of their money and they want it back in the games.”

He also pointed out that the “edge in poker” isn’t too noticeable in the short run, and that some people just want to say they had beaten the best, even if it was just in a single session or a single hand. This might be in Martin’s future if he keeps winning bracelets and becomes a poker household name.

“I could go to the Commerce and lose for five days straight, after I just happened to get lucky in a tournament,” Martin said to put everything in perspective. Poker is streaky.

When a high-stakes cash game pro busts a tournament, which is by far the most common outcome, there’s a tendency to feel the urge to jump into a cash game to take the mind off of the elimination. According to Martin, this feeling is what sometimes drives the action in these games.

“If I play all day in a tournament and get knocked out on the bubble or something, and I walk in…a lot of times I do this, and I try not to but everyone does…the Bellagio, and I ask if the $400-$800 game is running,” Martin said. “On that day, I become the fish at the table. The high-stakes mixed game community is interesting because everyone thinks they have an edge in some way. No one really knows the answer, but everyone enjoys playing and likes to gamble.”

Having Strong Skills To Avoid Tilt

Martin said that his “biggest strength” throughout his poker career has been an ability to not ruminate about past hands and not let what just happened affect his future bottom line.

“I try not to overextend myself and not to tilt; that’s what I always told myself,” Martin said. “It doesn’t matter how good you are. You can be the best player in the world, but if you tilt 25 percent of the time and don’t game select, you most likely are going to be broke. That’s how fine the line is between being a successful player and not being a successful player. I try very hard not to complain at the table, and that’s kind of for other people, but also for me, because if you start complaining it perpetuates.”

However, Martin doesn’t step away from the table when things are going awry. He contains the ability to remain composed and weather the storm. After all, his opponent just got his money and taking a break from the game does make one miss out on opportunities to win it back.

“If it’s still a good game, I am not going to leave because I am losing,” Martin said.
He acknowledges that every poker player on the planet tilts a little bit after some situations, but the best in the world contain the tilt and don’t let it pollute the following hand.

The “get unstuck” mentality is one specific example of this problem, and Martin said he specifically tries to not think about his losses in a specific session. A poker career is essentially one long session, and Martin is in it for the long haul. He just loves the game.

Making Plans for the Future

Over time, Martin has gradually separated his poker bankroll from his real-life funds. However, he said that if he would ever lose his bankroll he definitely would not stop playing. In other words, he would get back into the games one way or another. He would consider divesting if he had to.

Of course, that likely won’t happen to Martin given his incredible money management and ability to control his emotions at the poker table.

“My money used to be all together until I had a few big tournament wins, and then once I started making investments it technically separated out,” he said. “But in some sense, I look at it as all the same. I try very hard to keep my risk of ruin at zero, so I am not planning on losing all of my money. I am not going to sit in a game where I could lose my entire bankroll, no matter how great it is.”

Martin has a cousin who used to work with a big hedge fund, so he takes advice from him.
“Everyone had a pretty tough time with the stock market a while back, but I’ve come out of it alive for sure. Things are good, and I trust him. I have stocks and real estate. I have been approached numerous times about business, and most of the time they sounded like really good ideas, but I haven’t gotten involved with them on the advice of my parents and cousin. I have just tried to stay conservative and grind out the investments that I know are coming from a good source. I know Doyle Brunson has talked about how if he didn’t make all these crazy investments throughout the years, he would have even more money than he does now.”

Though, Martin said he will buy pieces of friends, and he has been lucky with those types of deals.

Eventually, Martin could see himself slowing down with all the poker play. He said it would coincide with having a family. Though, he lives a pretty grounded life as it is right now.

“For now, I look forward to keep earning money and playing poker. I don’t see myself slowing down too soon, but eventually,” he said. He added that sometimes he lets his mind wander and contemplate whether he will ever be a Brunson-like poker figure, playing at the WSOP in his old age.

“I don’t know. I guess we will see,” Martin said. “The World Series of Poker is grueling, which is why I got emotional after my win. It’s all this work for just one goal.” ♠