Jamie Ross out of Jersey City, New Jersey plays under the handle finally on all New Jersey regulated online poker sites. Ross has over $20,000 in tracked online cashes, but his biggest highlights since the launch of online poker in New Jersey was winning seats into live events such as the Borgata Winter Open and WSOP Circuit Main Events.

Visit PocketFives’ New Jersey poker community for the latest news and discussion from New Jersey players.

PocketFives: What got you started playing online poker?

Jamie Ross: I was a freshman at Boston University in 2003, a few months after Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event.

PocketFives: Is there any meaning behind your screen name?

Jamie Ross: Before the days of the UIGEA, my screen name on Empire Poker was “finale”. I’m a classical musician and I suppose the finale was most often my favorite movement or section of a piece (loud, fast, and exciting). I suppose that popped into my head, along with the fact that we’re finally able to play legal online poker in the US.

PocketFives: What are your favorite New Jersey online poker sites to play and why?

Jamie Ross: I put the most volume in on PartyPoker since they have the most action. I also prefer their tournament schedule and structures. 888 is also a great site to play for low- and mid-stakes tournaments, especially when I’m feeling a little goofy. They have a feature where you can throw eggs and stuff at people and I find the way people react to be pretty entertaining.

Pocketfives: It has been over six months since online poker has been regulated in New Jersey. What is your overall impression so far?

Jamie Ross: I’m thrilled with the way things are going, but it’s not easy to find many players who feel the same. I think one of the biggest mistakes the sites made was to come out of the gate with some extremely lucrative promotions for the first several months as well as offering tournaments with guarantees that had no hope of being met. They made it very difficult to be a losing player.

The honeymoon seems to be ending now and many players are acting as if they were entitled to all the free money that was given away and that the sites are criminals by cutting back. I think the way many New Jersey players are reacting to cutbacks in tournament schedules with overlays and promotions will ultimately stunt the growth of online poker in the US. I hope many of them will eventually realize the amount of value that was handed to all of us and be thankful for it instead of angry it has been reduced.

I’d imagine close to 50% of online MTT players in New Jersey were profitable over the last six months. If you subtract all of the overlays, freerolls, and other promotions, that number would be closer to 20% (in 2013, only 13% of PokerStars players were profitable in MTTs). That leaves a pretty big gap that will have to be filled and I think things might get ugly.

PocketFives: Is there anything different about the way you approach online poker now compared to before Black Friday?

Jamie Ross: Absolutely. I regret the lack of effort I put into my game before Black Friday. I was going to school full-time and didn’t take poker (or anything) very seriously. I had some moderate success playing mid-stakes online tournaments and live cash games, but I certainly wasn’t beating any cash games online.

Since poker has returned to New Jersey, I’ve put a ton of work into my six-max cash game away from the tables. After subscribing to one of the best training sites, I purchased tracking software, actually learned how to use the software, and spent many hours a week discussing concepts and strategy with friends.

Currently, I am quickly approaching 200,000 hands at Six-Max 50NL-200NL for 2014, for the most part only playing four or six tables at a time. What’s most exciting is that I finally feel like I’ve reached the point where I can start shifting some of my focus from plugging leaks to increasing volume by adding more tables without it affecting my BB/100 too much. I have also played almost 2,000 MTTs, which has allowed me to skip all of the micro-limit stakes for cash.

PocketFives: Since the launch of regulated online poker in New Jersey, what has been your most memorable cash or win?

Jamie Ross: I wish I could say it was one of the major weekly tournaments, but I haven’t been able to win one of those yet. I did win a $5,000 Borgata Winter Open Main Event package in January on PartyPoker. There were only about 30 players, but it was winner-take-all, which makes things pretty exciting toward the end, especially during a swingy heads-up match. I also won a WSOP Circuit Main Event seat the month before.

For me, winning a big seat is always more exciting than winning the value of the seat in cash because bankroll management goes out the window. You get to take a huge shot at a high six- or even seven-figure payday. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it past Day 2 in either, but they were still great experiences and I expect to have many more in the future.

PocketFives: Are you playing in the WSOPin Las Vegas this year?

Jamie Ross: I’m still working out the details, but should be heading to Vegas the last week of June. I plan to play the Six-Max 10-Game event as well as plenty of Main Event satellites and cash games. In the meantime, I’ll be playing most of the events at the Borgata Summer Open and then taking a trip to Niagara Falls with my family.

Want the latest poker headlines and interviews? Follow PocketFives on Twitterand Like PocketFives on Facebook. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.