When I Was A Donk With Faraz Jaka

In this series, Card Player asks top pros to rewind back to their humble beginnings and provide insights regarding the mistakes, leaks, and deficiencies that they had to overcome in order to improve their games.

Faraz Jaka broke out on the poker tournament scene back in 2009, when he won more than $1.7 million and finished eighth in the Card Player Player of the Year race. His biggest score came in the summer, when he took second in the WPT Bellagio Cup V for $774,870.

Since his start, the San Jose, California-native has banked more than $5.4 million in live tournament earnings and another $4.1 million online. He most recently made two final tables in the 2017 World Series of Poker, cashing for nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

Here, Jaka talks about the trouble he used to have holding onto his winnings.

I had really poor bankroll management skills when I was in college at the University of Illinois. I remember coming home from the bars one day and just jumped into a $25-$50 no-limit game online. I had about $10,000 to my name at the time, and bought it for half of that and I ran it up to $30,000.

After that, I ended up playing the whole week and won about $180,000. I was playing anyone heads-up that wanted to play at whatever stakes, and I just kept winning. I had never had more than $10,000 before, so it was a completely new experience to me.

That’s basically how I got my start playing poker, but it didn’t last long. I was obviously in way over my head and playing games that I wasn’t ready for. Somewhere in the middle of losing it all back, I think I was down to $40,000, I jumped into a $100-$200 no-limit game against this guy and got coolered so bad.

I’d say it took me nine months to lose it all, start to finish. Not only had I lost my initial $10,000, but I was also stuck to some friends who had loaned me money. I was 19, and I knew that I had blown a big opportunity.

For three months I tried to build it back up, the same way I had won it the first time. Mentally, I was a mess. I ended up taking some time off school to kind of reset. Then I switched to tournaments, started studying poker, learning about bankroll management, and pretty soon I was on my way back.

It was really, really hard to grind $5 sit-n-go’s when I had been playing people at the highest stakes online, but somehow I managed to do it. Most people would quit, my parents told me to quit, but I guess I was crazy enough to try it again. And I haven’t really looked back since. ♠