Tournament Trail Q and A -- Jonathan LittleLittle Talks About His Recent WPT Win at Foxwoods |
|
Jonathan Little has $4 million in tournament earnings, and he’s only 23 years old. In his short career, he has made 14 final tables, and in 2007 finished third in Card Player’s Player of the Year race.
The young gun from Pensacola, Florida, started his career in college and built up a sizeable bankroll by dominating online sit-and-gos. His live career got off the ground when he cashed four times at the 2006 WSOP. He parlayed that success to his first World Poker Tour final table and a fifth-place finish at the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Four months later, Little took home nearly $1.1 million for his victory at the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown. He had a near-miss at the Gulf Coast Poker Championship a few months later, but more than made up for it with a second-place finish in the WPT North American Poker Championship. To top it all off, he recently won his second WPT title at the Foxwoods World Poker Finals for an additional $1.2 million.
Card Player spoke to Little to talk about his recent win and the current landscape of tournament poker.
Julio Rodriguez: During one of the breaks, we passed in the hallway and I told you how much this tournament felt like the 2007 North American Poker Championship in Niagara Falls, Canada, where you finished second.
Jonathan Little: It was just like it. When we got three-handed, there were two good pros and an amateur, Charlie Marchese, who played pretty well. That was the exact same situation in Niagara when Scott Clements and I picked on David Cloutier until we got heads up. Of course, here I was actually able to win the heads-up match, making this a little different, at least for me.
JR: If things had gone the other way, how would you have handled another runner-up finish?
JL: I would have been all right with it. It definitely wouldn’t have been fun, but we played for so long that he could just as easily have won. It could have been over three hours earlier had a few cards fell my way. Basically, my goal was just to give myself as many opportunities as possible to win.
JR: You are known for being an excellent sit-and-go player. With the blinds and antes as high as they were, did you basically hit a point where you were on autopilot?
JL: I made a fold earlier in the heads-up match that I normally wouldn’t have made had it been a sit-and-go. I held pocket fours, and he pushed for about 25 big blinds. I didn’t think he was playing very aggressively heads up, so I decided to fold and wait. Had I been playing an aggressive player, I would have definitely called and taken the shot at busting him right there. So, while I do know those push-fold situations back and front, they don’t always apply to live tournaments.
JR: This is your fourth or fifth WPT final table, depending on if you count the seventh-place finish at the Gulf Coast Poker Championships, and you’ve only been playing live for a few years. What is it about these tournaments that suits your game?
JL: I’m admittedly much better at deep-stacked tournaments. I didn’t have a great WSOP simply because the structure didn’t allow it. At the WPT tournaments, you don’t have to get any cards or do anything special to stick around for two days. You have the option to nit it up if you want.
JR: So, is Jonathan Little going on record and admitting that he nits it up?
JL: Jonathan Little nits it up when he has to. Of course, he also lag-tards it up when it’s necessary, as well.
JR: You shared the same name with your heads-up opponent, Jonathan Jaffe. How did it feel to be addressed as “Mr. Little” every hand you played?
JL: It was really weird. I got tired of hearing the name Jonathan over and over, so I told the tournament director that he could call us by our last names. Of course, I didn’t expect them to add the “Mr.” part, and it got old after awhile. Technically I’m an adult, but I don’t think I’m ready to be addressed so formally. My dad is “Mr. Little,” not me.
JR: You were slumping a bit during the summer, but last month you made three final tables at the Festa al Lago series. Is your game coming back around?
JL: It’s always been there. It was just a matter of running good. I did well online, taking seventh at the $10,000 event during the PokerStars WCOOP.
JR: You seemed to be sitting next to the chip leader, no matter who it was, for most of the tournament.
JL: I had some pretty bad table draws throughout the tournament, but for the final table I actually had the best possible seat. I had the two most aggressive guys on my right and the tight-aggressive guys on my left.
JR: The economy is down and players are feeling the crunch more than ever. Is it possible to beat the “travel rake?”
JL: The travel rake is huge. The cost of hotels and travel means that sometimes I’m spending $3,000 just to play a $10,000 tournament. That’s 30 percent on top of the traditional 10 percent the casino charges. It definitely makes it tougher to come out to Foxwoods or Borgata. That’s why you don’t see me going to Europe that often.
Copyright © 2001-2024
CardPlayer.com. All rights reserved.
