John Bunch Talks Mixed Games, Pawn Stars, And Poker Tech

As a key executive at the Zappos online shoe and clothing retailer for more than a decade, challenges were the norm for John Bunch. In later years with the company, Bunch was charged with leading Zappos to become more adaptable to the changing marketplace and technology – and less of a traditionally hierarchical organization with fewer top-down mandates.

This role may seem a perfect fit for someone who spends so much time at the poker tables, always ready to shift, react, and adapt depending on the cards dealt.

“When people hear technology, they usually think of the nerdy programmer stereotype,” he says. “But to really succeed in technology, you need a combination of domain knowledge and people skills. I think poker is similar in that way.”

That may be especially true for players adept at mixed games. Bunch, 42, enjoys the challenge that comes with learning so many different games and now, after leaving the company behind, hosts a regular mixed game on the Las Vegas Strip.

His love of games beyond hold’em may be similar to why he loves leading tech companies – problem solving, making strategic maneuvers, learning on the fly, and making key decisions along the way.

“You’re always running into new, different, interesting decision points,” he says. “When I moved out here in 2005, I focused on no-limit cash games and tournaments. And I still play no-limit hold’em tournaments here and there, but probably around 2008 or so I kind of found and started becoming way more interested in mixed games. And ever since then, I’ve been a bit more heavy on the mixed games.”

The tech leader spoke with Card Player about his life in poker, the tech business, a poker app he’s developing, and more.

Originally from Tallahassee, Florida, Bunch was always drawn to technology, games, and sports. He enjoyed pool and other games like laser tag as well as strategy card and board games. In high school, he also participated in math competitions, finishing second place at the national level, and always had a competitive drive in everything he participated in.

“When I was in high school I got invited to a home game,” he says. “I went, won $150, and I was hooked from then on.”

It seemed only natural that someone with a competitive spirit and keen intellect would give the game a shot. That has included playing full time for a living at various times throughout the years.

“That was the time of the online poker boom, so I played at PartyPoker back in the day,” he says. “I deposited $55 online and kind of ran it up from there. I’ve never looked back. I played online in college and then some home games in Atlanta. I went out and taught computer science in high school for a year in Gainesville, Florida, but I was making more money playing poker online than I was teaching high school, so I figured I should probably give this a try.”

Bunch attended Georgia Tech in Atlanta, earning a bachelor’s degree. Grad school seemed like a good idea, but poker was also beckoning. Perhaps he could do both? He added a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in 2007.

“I moved out here to kind of play poker, but I figured I would go ahead and work on a degree while I did that, so UNLV wasn’t kind of by mistake,” he says.

Graduation meant Bunch was ready to head off into a career in the tech industry – but that wasn’t quite how things worked out. After receiving a job offer, he quickly found that he didn’t like the company he was with and left after just a couple months. Poker proved to be a nice fallback option and he found more success at the table for a few years.

“I’d just done well in some Venetian tournaments,” he says. “I’d won player of the series and my parents didn’t want me to quit my job because I had just bought a house. But I was doing well enough that I set aside some money for the house. I played poker by itself until 2009 and I kind of just decided that I didn’t want to do poker by itself forever. Some of my friends from grad school were working at Zappos, which is an online e-commerce company that had moved out to Vegas.”

The poker world is full of players who have transitioned from the world of technology – and vice versa – but few may have reached the heights of John Bunch. After landing the job at Zappos in 2009 as a software developer, he quickly rose through the ranks to become technical adviser to the company’s founder, the late Tony Hsieh, working on projects to fulfill his vision for the company.

“It was an amazing opportunity that kind of started a journey of me being really close with him and working with him for a number of years on various projects,” he says.

One of the biggest was a complete transformation of downtown Las Vegas. That included a $350 million investment from Zappos after the company moved from Henderson to the former Las Vegas City Hall downtown in 2013. Bunch was heavily involved with the project and helped reshape the face of that part of Sin City.

For his work, LinkedIn named him as one of the “10 Professionals Under 35 Who Are Changing Recruiting and HR” and Bunch was also published by the Harvard Business Review for his expertise on organizational design.

Bunch eventually became head of product and was responsible for technology, internal operations, recruiting, retention, team performance, and much more before leaving the company in 2020 after almost 11 years. He went on to work as head of product for Tawkify, an online dating service. He then left that company in November and has since focused more on family and his favorite hobby – poker.

“I’ve always kind of done both,” he says of his passions for technology and poker. “When I was at Zappos, I was playing regularly. I would play a decent schedule at the WSOP every year. So I’ve always kind of done both. When there’s opportunity in the poker world, I focus a bit more on that. When there’s a good opportunity in the tech world, I focus more on that.”

“Right now, the tech scene is contracting quite a bit. There’s still a lot of work out there, but it’s definitely a bit of famine right now. Due to that, I’m focusing a bit more on poker. I’ve got some ideas for startup businesses in the tech area potentially later this year I may launch into, but right now I’m focused on poker.”

When Bunch says he’s focused on poker, he really means it. Now with more time on his hands, he can regularly be found in the Bellagio as the organizer of a high-stakes mixed game. The $100-$200 action often features a handful of recognizable names, which only grows with the series in town this summer.

“It’s a mix that’s dependent on who is playing and what they like to play,” he says. “For example, some people like a bit more big bet games, like PLO and Big O and 2-7 Single Draw, games like that. And so if we’ve got folks who are playing that like a little bit more of that, we play a little bit more of that. While other people like more limit games, like 2-7 Dramaha or the traditional ones like Omaha eight-or-better or Triple Draw. But that’s been going strong. We play pretty much every day.”

Bunch says the game can be very lively, and that’s part of the goal – keeping the action fun and player-focused. Mixed games offer much more than traditional no-limit hold’em, he says, keeping the action fresh.

And while poker may be taking up more of his time, Bunch is still tinkering with some tech ideas that could link both worlds. As a regular mixed game player, he’s designing an app to bring players together depending on their game preferences. The goal is to bring people to the tables based on the games they want to play and other specifics. The Bellagio action has been a nice testing ground as he bounces ideas off fellow mixed game players.

“One of the things that I wanted to do is really solve this problem of finding games, because different people like playing different games,” he says. “In the mixed game world, there are a ton of different games. Some people enjoy one game over another. So that’s one kind of one vector. Another vector is people like playing with certain people. Some people get along really well, other people don’t get along at all. And then there’s the stakes conversation. Some people like higher stakes, some like middle stakes, some people like lower stakes.”

“One of the things we’re trying to do is create a system that uses technology in real time, organizing games around what people like to play and who they’d like to play with. I have a vision of leveraging that technology for other games.”

The game is going strong, but Bunch won’t completely ignore tournaments. While he’s found the winner’s circle plenty, including a Heartland Poker Tour main event, he still has his eyes on a coveted WSOP bracelet. He’s knocked on the door several times,including fourth-place finishes in limit hold’em in 2021 and the eight-game mix last year, along with deep runs in the Big O and Stud events this summer.

“There’s no feeling like running deep in a poker tournament,” Bunch said. ♠

Poker And Pawn Stars

In 2014, John Bunch made an appearance at a famous Las Vegas location that many have seen on television – the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, home to the popular Pawn Stars show. Bunch brought in an extremely rare 1922 Peace silver dollar, with shop owner Rick Harrison referring to it as one of the “holy grails of American coins.”

He said there were only about a dozen of the coins believed to be in existence. Bunch had won it in a poker game and originally asked for $20,000. However, Harrison told him it may be worth a lot more, and wanted to make sure the coin wasn’t a fake. One of the show’s experts was brought in to take a look. After some examination, the expert determined that the coin was indeed real and Bunch and Harrison eventually settled on a price of $80,000.

“It was really laid back,” Bunch recalls. “We just chatted and relaxed for 20 minutes until the film crew was ready for us. We shot it all in two takes, and then we were done. I do get recognized a lot from that episode – probably about once a week somebody brings it up.”