This week, the PocketFives.com Podcast sponsored by Carbon Poker welcomes longtime community member Jonathan Wein. The New Yorker recently took third in the PokerStars Sunday Million for $132,000, his second trip to the $215 tournament’s final table in 10 weeks. Upon hearing his list of scores, Wein told the PocketFives.com Podcast, “It’s kind of weird hearing those huge six-figure scores. A couple of years ago, I never would have thought I’d have those types of results. To hear them in an intro is kind of neat.”
Wein described how his game has changed, as his two recent runs in the Sunday Million were worth a combined $260,000. Wein commented, “I think it has to be a combination of the people I speak to now and just having a bit more confidence in my game. When I first started playing in the high-stakes tournaments, I had some results, but I don’t think I was that comfortable sitting with superstars. When you’re sitting with JohnnyBax (pictured at left), it rattles you because he’s a legend. I don’t think I was comfortable playing pots with people who were known.” Now, Wein is the hunted, as he sits at #1 on OPR for PokerStars.Wein owns a Masters in Special Education from SUNY Geneseo and explained the importance of poker players receiving their degrees: “Every young poker player should have it to fall back on in case poker doesn’t go well. It’s really hard when you’re young and you have these huge scores and then you’re going to class and taking Psychology 101. I changed my undergraduate focus super late, so I found the first degree I could that would take my college credits. I needed to go to graduate school to have something worthwhile.”
On the same day as his January run in the Sunday Million, Wein won the PokerStars $100 rebuy for another $34,000. How has his family taken to his recent charge up the online poker ladder, you ask? Wein noted, “My mom has always been really supportive. She just wanted me to be happy, so she’s really been supportive. There has never been an issue where she’s pressed me to do anything I didn’t want to do, so I have to give her credit for that.” Wein has eclipsed $200,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the Online Poker Rankings in January.
Wein registered for an account on PocketFives.com in May 2005. The community has grown leaps and bounds ever since, as his registration occurred during the site’s third month in operation. Wein explained how the online poker world has been turned upside down ever since: “If you look at Poker Discussion in 2005 compared to 2010, the average topic was probably written by someone that was a lot more well known in the poker world. In 2010, it’s different, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a lot more content in Poker Discussion now, but there’s more you have to search through.” As I write this, there have been 11 new posts in the last 20 minutes in the central forum.Check out the rest of this week’s PocketFives.com Podcast featuring poker superstar Jonathan Wein.
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