Final Table Takedown: Justin Arnwine Captures Victory #143 at the Potomac Poker Open

The movie High Roller about Stu Ungar grabbed the attention of Justin Arnwine so much that he went on eBay and ordered DVDs of every WSOP main event up to that point, from 1973-2004.

Arnwine started playing cash online on the celebrity Bravo poker website for play money, before moving to real money games. There were also Maryland home games, which started at 50c-$1 and slowly crept up to $2-$5 before he turned 21 and could legally play in casinos.

Early in his career, Arwine mostly played at the Tropicana in Atlantic City. He would take the greyhound from Maryland to the coastal New Jersey city and play until Sunday, only taking breaks to eat or use the restroom. By 2012, he was going to Charlestown to play mostly 30-40-hour sessions. When Maryland Live! opened in 2013 closer to home, he began playing there.

Back then, the highest-tier poker room points tracker was a black card, and the only way to get it through poker was to play for 5,000 hours. Arnwine had more than enough points to earn his status from 2012 through 2016. Once, a supervisor checked Arnwine’s play history and discovered he averaged 91 hours per week at the poker table.

There was also one week in February 2014 where he played 121 straight hours. In July 2015, Arnwine brought into a $2-$5 game for $200 and played 35 hours straight, cashing out for $13,500.

But then in 2019, Arnwine won his first poker tournament and officially caught the bug. Since that day in August, he has racked up an astonishing 143 wins in daily and nightly tournaments in the region. In fact, he had 37 wins in 2024 alone.

Most recently, Arnwine took down the $500 buy-in Potomac Winter Poker Open, banking $23,365. He now has nearly $1.1 million in cashes, all coming from buy-ins of $2,500 or less.

Craig Tapscott: What inspired your transition from cash to multi-table tournaments?

Justin Arnwine: In March 2017, I was crossing the street and got hit by a car. I walked on a cane for a lot of the year after that, and when I tried to return to cash games, I no longer had the stamina to put in those long multi-day sessions.

I thought I would have to quit poker, and actually came close to joining the Navy. Soon after, I was watching the PartyPoker main event when Isildur beat out a field of 927 entries and won $1,048,153. The announcers were saying how special the victory was because he hardly ever plays live, especially tournaments with “grueling 10-hour days.”

That’s when the light bulb went off. I thought to myself, “grueling 10-hour days. That’s nothing.” I looked at myself as incapable because I was maxing out at 20 hours trying to win $3,000 in cash games. And here was Viktor Blom winning a million dollars playing 10 hours per day. That’s when I made the switch.

CT: What kind of work/study did you put into your game for MTTs?

JA: Everything before 2018 was all trial-and-error learning. By then, I had already played over 10,000 hours of cash at all buy-in levels. When it came to tournaments, however, I would guess I had played less than 200 hours live total.

I started watching Evan Jarvis’ training [videos] on YouTube. Then I rewatched every EPT livestream from Liv Boeree’s main event win in 2010 to Maria Lampropulos’s win in 2018.

With this information, I went to Vegas in 2018 to play in the $1,100 Little One for One Drop event. I got destroyed. Then, after that, Daniel Negreanu released his masterclass, and I used that to plug a few leaks.

The real breakthrough came in 2019 when Carnegie Mellon University released the results of their Pluribus experiment. I must’ve watched every YouTube video ever made on Pluribus. There was also Alvin Teaches Poker, and Nino Poker.

When Phil Ivey’s masterclass came out, I probably watched that over 150 times from start to finish. When the casinos were shut down during the pandemic, I played online on Global Poker under the screen name ‘Mothagrizzle.’

CT: What do you think your biggest leak was along the way, and how did you learn to plug it?

JA: It’s funny now because so many know me as the king of the rebuy. The first 2 years I played tournaments, I was terrible at pacing out the early levels. I often returned from break under 10 big blinds with registration closed.

I would only be in for one buy-in, but I rarely did better than a min-cash. I didn’t finally get over my fear of rebuying until I watched a video by Nathan Blackrain, where he unapologetically lays in on nits who play tight in the early levels because they overvalue their tournament life.

I felt personally attacked for all eight minutes of that video, but I forced myself to listen to it thrice daily on my drive up to MGM to play the 11:15 morning tournament. I learned a lot from Blackrain. Finally, by the end of registration, I had a 3x starting stack or was rebuying.

CT: What is the most common leak you come across in your opponents at the buy-in levels in which you primarily compete?

JA: Overvaluing participation trophies in tournaments. Low-stakes players literally brag about making it through registration without rebuying. Mid-stakes players celebrate making the money, and high-stakes players are obsessed with not ‘committing ICM suicide’ and trying to ladder up.

If you watch Michael Addamo play carefully, he either makes it to the final nine as top three in chips, or he doesn’t make the final table at all.

CT: Have you ever met Addamo?

JA: No. But my wife Caitlyn met Addamo when he won the $100,000 high roller at the WSOP for his fourth bracelet. He actually gave her some free coaching. When we got back to Maryland, she played 92 tournaments back-to-back-to-back, not multi-tabling but literally playing until one tournament ended, then signing up for whatever was next available.

Whenever she would run deep, I would have her hook her laptop up to the TV, and I would just sit there quietly and watch her. Then I’d go and rewatch Addamo.

Eventually, I adopted a hybrid mindset. I’d be lying if I said my mindset is ‘completely screw ICM’ like Caitlyn’s, but I try my hardest not to pass up on opportunities to win if they present themselves. I also try not to fall victim to the thinking of that I’ll find a better spot later.

Tournament: $500 Potomac Poker Open
Stacks: Justin Arnwine – 625,000 (52 BB) Villain – 610,000 (50 BB)
Blinds: 6,000-12,000 with a 12,000 big blind ante
Players At Table: 9
Players Remaining: 18

Action folds to the Villain in the small blind who raised to 35,000. Arnwine called holding A Q.

Flop: A Q 9

Villain bet 20,000, and Arnwine raised to 218,000.

CT: That was a huge raise. What was the reason you chose that sizing?

JA: This is the most critical aspect of this hand, my raise on the flop. It was blind on blind. Given my reputation, I believe the Villain thought the only hands they were losing to were Q-9 and possibly A-9 offsuit, which they were blocking.

I don’t think they thought I would ever not three-bet holding A-Q, 9-9, Q-Q, A-A, or A-9 suited, and that’s why I raised so much, to represent a draw.

CT: Did you have any reads on the Villain up to this point?

JA: No, not at all. However, I did believe he knew who I was and probably knew my reputation for being aggressive.

Villain tanked and moved all in. Arnwine called, and Villain revealed A K.

Turn: 4

River: 6

Arnwine won the pot of 1,235,000.

Stacks: Justin Arnwine – 2,950,000 (98 BB) Villain – 2,100,000 (70 BB)
Blinds: 15,000-30,000 with a 30,000 big blind ante
Players Remaining: 9

Villain raised from UTG to 70,000. Arnwine called in the big blind holding A Q.

Flop: A 8 2

Arnwine checked, and Villain bet 55,000. Arnwine called.

Turn: K

Arnwine checked. Villain bet 90,000, and Arnwine called.

CT: Share with our readers your thought process in the hand. Did you ever think of raising? What stopped you?

JA: I never thought about raising. This is a trick I picked up from Pluribus when you’re out of position with top pair. [The bot] takes the hand down to the river.

If the robot decides the top pair is good on the river, it will put in a 5x pot check-raise and compensate for all the value it missed by not raising the flop or turn.

So even if I had turned a queen, I wouldn’t raise that hand out of position until the river.

River: 7

Arnwine checked, and Villain bet 210,000. Arnwine called. Villain turned over A K and won the pot of 895,000.

JA: The Villain seemed very proud of themselves when they raked in the pot. I showed A-Q to let them know how much value they missed out on.

Even though I lost this hand, it felt like a win. If I had played the same way I did in the first hand I shared, I would’ve lost over a million chips.

The vital part of this hand was that I didn’t raise any street and lost the minimum against the only stack at the table that could’ve hurt me.

Follow Arnwine on Twitter/X @ArnwineJustin. ♠

*Photos by World Poker Tour