Jesse Lonis Interview: I Lost All My Money a Hundred Times

— All right, guys. Welcome back. Table One Podcast. Co-host Justin Young, other co-host Art Fireman, and a very special guest today: Jesse Lonis.

Hello!

— How are things going?

I played a little bit on Phenom, a little cash, and then they had a circuit ring on WSOP last night, which I played, and the whole time I was just hating myself. I busted two bullets in about 14 minutes and I was just at the bar—cuz that's what I do when I play online poker, I just one-table at the bar. And I was like, "Man, I ran bad." Then, after about 20 minutes of thinking about it, I was like, "I didn't run bad at all. I played like an idiot."

— I have to know where Dangerous 22 comes from.

Honestly, my friend—I remember I was making it and I was like, "What would be a good name for me?" And he's like, "You should just call it 'Dangerous' because, you know, you never know what you're going to do." So I was like, "You know what? It's good." And then 22 is my favorite number.

— Just in case you hadn't, we typically take our viewership back to when you were a tiny gorilla and see how you got into this stupid world of gambling that we all are addicted to. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing. Where did you grow up?

So I grew up in upstate New York, near Syracuse and Utica, New York; right in between Syracuse and Albany for people that don't really know. Not many people know; they hear "New York" and they think New York City only. So there's a whole another 90% of the state.

— And so you're a St. Bonaventure fan, a Buffalo Bills fan?

No, none of that. Bills would be my second favorite football team. I actually got very lucky. My grandparents raised me, and my grandfather was a die-hard Raiders fan. So when I was like four years old, I was a Raiders fan, and only like one or two other people in the whole state that I knew were Raiders fans. And it aligned nicely because when I moved to Vegas, the Raiders moved the same year. So it was kind of like destiny run-good.
But, yeah, so I grew up in upstate New York. My grandparents raised me. I was born in Alaska, actually, and my dad got in some legal troubles there. So when I was like 3 years old, I got shipped back to New York to live with my grandparents, which was probably the best thing that could have happened because he was a wild man at that time.

— He was Dangerous 21.

Yeah, he was Dangerous 1. Yeah, for sure.
He had an alcohol problem. So he was in Alaska, he was a roughneck is what they call them. He worked on oil rigs, logging, he worked in the sea. He did all those things that you see on Deadliest Catch. He did all those things—the toughest jobs—is what he did. When those guys do work, they do that, and the other part of their life is pretty much drinking.
And so after he got drunk one time, he decided to drive his truck back to the house and ran through a house. Drinking. And luckily no one got hurt. Then he got out of the truck and locked his four-wheel tires in. Back then you had to lock in the four-wheel drive.
Yeah. So he had a Dodge Ram. He locked in his things, got back in his truck, and drove home like nothing happened.
The Alaska State Troopers came and he was drunk, trying to resist arrest. It took like seven cops to arrest him. And yeah, that was like his third or fourth DUI. So that one put him away for some time. So that's when I got shipped away to my grandparents.

— Were these your mother’s parents?

It was my dad's parents that ended up taking me in. And like I said, that was probably the best thing that could have happened for me.

— What was your childhood like?

That was a blessing. I got spoiled, you know how grandparents do. I grew up in the country, so I grew up riding four-wheelers, playing football, playing sports, and all that was great. And my grandmother—she was on the internet before most people. So that's where my poker journey began; my grandma was playing like Full Tilt Poker.

— Under what nickname?

Granny 1944 or something. But no, she sold items on eBay, too.
She was a hustler. And her favorite thing to do was play poker. So she would sell her items and then she'd have the poker up, and I would be the little kid running in the background just watching. Eventually I started playing; I just got in the game and learned it pretty quick. So she would take breaks and I would take over on the computer. It could have been play money, it could have been two-cent/five-cent, I don't even know, but from 9 years old or 10 years old, I was already seeing hands and putting in a little bit of volume.

— Did your grandfather also like to gamble?

My grandpa... he was just a hardworking, tough guy. He didn't sit home much at all. He was kind of gone in the days, and he was pretty much doing side jobs for other people. He would be the guy that would just work for free all the time. Like, if he saw something that needed to be done, he would just do it and do it for free.
Exactly. He was just... and then he'd go and work on his buddy's farm down the road, so he would take me there and I was doing farm work from a young age with him, too. So, he was kind of the opposite of my grandma. He didn't care about technology at all. Didn't even like to look at it. He liked watching Raiders football games, and that was it. Drinking Miller High Life, Raiders football games, and work was his life.

— Did he gamble at all or?

So yeah, actually, our family trips when I was a kid were trips to Atlantic City. It was like a five-hour drive and I still remember those car rides; it was amazing times. But we would load up the van at 6:00 in the morning. We'd be in Atlantic City by 11:00 a.m. and both of them would be at the slots and us kids would be in the hotel room jumping on the bed.
Then at night, my grandpa would always bring a bucket of quarters because back then it was all quarters.
So when we're a kid, he would come up with that bucket of quarters and you're in heaven, you know? You're sitting there thinking you're the Monopoly Man, rich as hell.
He dumps them out and he's like, "Find anything 1964 or earlier. Bring it to me."

— When you were in school, did you plan on going to college or did you already know then that you would act?

Honestly, when I got in high school, poker wasn't even a thought. It was... I would play still random tournaments on vacation. Like if family or friends were doing anything together, I would play. And I would always do well.
It seemed like anytime I played, I would win. Like my uncle would have little tournaments with his friends. And I remember it was like a $50 buy-in. He bought me into it.

— Holy $50.

Yeah, exactly. Back then it was big.
And all his friends were mad because I beat them. He kept the money and gave me like 50 bucks back, and they were like, "No, this ain't fair." I still remember that. And yeah, so it wasn't really—that was the only poker experience. Other than that, I was full on. I thought I was going to the NBA, you know? Like any kid playing sports, I was like, "Either NFL or NBA." I was good at football and basketball.

— What positions for football?

I was defensive end and tight end. And basketball, I played pretty much any position.
I could play four positions to one, pretty much. And the older I got, I started playing against bigger guys. I would play shooting guard and the one, but when you're where I'm from, I was like a four because I was bigger than most people. So, mostly sports was pretty much what I thought I was going to do. But once that competitive thing died down, I had to fill it with something, and poker came back in.

— I read some stories about your childhood where you were getting into fights on the basketball court to kind of harden that chip on your shoulder.

I mean, any fights usually were after high school. I moved to New York City right after high school. After I realized I probably wasn't going to get a D1 scholarship for basketball, I was like, "I don't have the money to pay for myself." So, I was like, "I'm going to go straight to work."
I went to New York City and started working construction right away. While I was there working construction, I played basketball. I lived in the Bronx. Where I was living was in an okay neighborhood, but you still heard gunshots every night that were probably a couple miles away.

But where I played basketball, the most competitive games were in the worst neighborhoods. I still remember it. It's pretty crazy, like out of a movie, but going to the courts, it would be like 40 people there and the sidelines would be a bunch of Jamaicans and gang members. There were a lot of guns and stuff on the sideline, but the basketball was a different level. It turned me into a way better basketball player, too, because I was used to white-boy basketball in upstate New York.
This brought the best out of me and once I played that for a while, I was like, "I need to go back to college and play because I'm ready to dominate." That's what brought me back to upstate New York to play college basketball.

— And where'd you go? I assume you got a full ride, D2, D3 or something?

It was D3. It was a junior college school called Herkimer County. Every year they are top five in the nation usually; they travel and for D3 it's the best school. They get all the New York City kids that don't have the grades to make it to D1, and that's where they go first before going to D1 programs after.
So, it was really competitive and really good. Even from my first scrimmage with the team, I just remember the coach was up top watching. I was like, "All right, I got to show out." And I just dominated everybody. I felt like I was a level ahead, and it was from playing all those games. I was definitely ready, but that was short-lived, too.

— Well, what happened?

Yeah. So, four months into college, I got mixed up with a wrong situation and ended up getting jumped in this small campus. These kids tried robbing me for money I had on me and weed at the time. I got jumped by four or five dudes in this small, little dorm.
Then a week later, I caught two of them on the campus and ended up fighting two of them. It was all on video and stuff. It was pretty bad. The gorilla went gorilla mode and slammed one kid's head off the concrete. The other kid started... whatever. And this was all on camera.

— Do you have a copy of the video?

Well, here's a funny story about that. The dean of my college—it’s like 20 minutes from where I grew up—actually wrestled with my father when they were young. They went to different schools, but they always wrestled at the same meets in the same weight class. And the bar my dad would go to in the town over, the dean of that school would go to, too.
So, like a month after all this happened and I got kicked out, he's like, "Hey, Mike"—that's my dad's name—he's like, "Hey, Mike. I'm sorry about having to kick your son out of college, but if you saw the footage, you would understand. We had to do it." And he goes, "I mean, he's not going to be in college longer, but on the bright side, your son is one hell of a fighter. There's probably always a career he could find in that if he can't make it anywhere else."
It was just funny because my dad came home and he's like, "Yeah, so I talked to the dean. He told me this." And I was like, "Well, you know, stuff happens."
Everything happens for a reason, but this was a blessing, too. When I was in college, I was playing poker at Turning Stone Resort Casino and I was skipping classes to play more poker. Now it gave me the opportunity to try to focus on poker only, which was a disaster. I lost all my money like a hundred times and would go broke and get jobs and work for two weeks. I'd get that first two-week check, boom, right back up to Turning Stone. I would run it up, lose it all, boom, get another job.

— I noticed your first Hendon Mob cash was like a $20 tournament in 2020.

So, funny story about that, too—I don't think that was me. Or if it was, I was on a lot of drugs and a lot of alcohol and I'm from that area. But I don't remember playing at Casino Niagara in my whole life, and that's where it says it's from. I know that casino—my grandmother, again, they gambled so they traveled there sometimes.
I went there when I was a kid, but unless I was at some party at Syracuse University and on... which could have happened because I used to go to Syracuse and party a lot... and I could have got really messed up one night and completely blanked out. Maybe Xanax or something, who knows? But it had to be something strong, and I may have cashed a tournament there because it's on my Hendon, but I don't remember that one.
Other than that one—because if you look, it's that one and then I don't play a tournament for whatever—I don't remember playing that tournament. So I guess that is my first cash. I don't remember.

— Great first cash! How old are you for the fans?

September 30th, I'll be 30.

— Nice. So you had three, four, or five years of just running it up and running it down until you... I'm trying to do the math.

From when I started again after college until I was like 22 or 23, I played a lot of No Limit. Then, after a year and a half of playing No Limit, there was always a 20/40 Limit Texas Hold'em game that they would play every day, and then on Fridays they'd play $50/$100 Limit.
Yeah, for that time, for sure. I would always see these guys playing all the time and I was like, "Dang," there were always so many chips on the table. I would play 2/5 and 1/2, but the guys I was playing $2/$5 with in upstate New York... it's the worst No Limit games ever because it's a very poor area and people care so much about their money. So if you're playing $2/$5 No Limit there and you get it in for more than $200, you're running into Queens-plus.

— It's 2002 poker.

Yeah. And if you've seen my game, it's not going to do well short-stacked because I'm in there with like 7-5 off trying to crack these guys and it's just not working because we're not deep enough.
I went back to No Limit because I was like, "These games look way better." They were getting New York City traffic because it was only two hours away. That was the closest casino to the city at that point. So, the games were just unbelievable. Now I'm playing and people are putting in $1,000 with like off compared to the guys that were only playing Kings. Now these were my type of people.
Exactly. Now I'm like, "Okay." And like I said, I was playing limit, so I got my ranges a little better, knowing when I'm supposed to open from where. I started dominating those games. That's kind of where my bankroll built up. Then eventually I built up like $60,000–$70,000 from playing cash games.
My Dominican friend Gilberto, who was a really good tournament player at the time... anytime they had like a $400 or $600 buy-in, I still didn't play tournaments at this time, but I would go and play cash games and sweat them and stuff. This guy got first.
His Hendon Mob actually at the time was insane because it would be a $600 tournament and he'd get first for $35k; a $400 tournament, first for $28k. I started going with him and I'd go to the cage after, and he's cashing out every time and getting like $35k. This was a lot of money, and I'm like, "Dude, what the heck? Like, how do you win all of them?"
He's like, "Bro, you've got to start playing."
He spoke broken English, so I could understand it, but it was like half Dominican, half... it was like broken whatever, but I understood him perfectly. Then he took me to Atlantic City because they had a big tournament series there. It was my first time traveling for a tournament. They had a $400, one of their big-field events. It had like $350k up top or something. This was my first time seeing the tournament scene. I remember walking into the room and it's the first time you hear all the chips and it sounds like rain. I just remember... it was like heroin getting in my arm. I'm just like, "Wow, this is like heaven."
I put my 400 in. I got to play that tournament and it started with a jungle. Before I knew it, there were like 200 people left and I'm doing great in chips. I still remember the bad beat from that tournament. I'll always remember: I had suited and I'm one of the chip leaders. The only guy that covered me at the table—we're both doing really well—and I open. I end up having a board. I remember I bet like 2x pot because I was scared; I just wanted him to fold. Dude calls me with . I'll never forget. It was like , two hearts. He's like, "Well, I know you're ahead, but I've got two overs and a flush draw." He calls it off, some old man. Boom. Hits the flush.
The river came and I was like, "Oh." I got like 180th place or something. But in my head, I was like, "Dang, I almost won." If you hold there, it's all over. Exactly. My whole head... I'm thinking it's over. That was just enough to be like, "I'm going to do this. Tournaments are what I want to do."

— Then you started cashing a few. I mean, there was a lot. But I'm looking at the dates and this is like February 2020 and I'm like, "Uh-oh, COVID's coming." How did that affect your grind? Because you're building momentum and then all of a sudden everything shuts down.

Again, I think any negatives that have happened in my life, I try to make them positive. I think it's important to have that glass half full. So when COVID happened, you're right. I literally just started getting my foot in the door and started playing tournaments. I went to a series and I dominated; I played like six tournaments and felt like four of them I made top-three final tables with over 200 people in each. So I felt like I had something.
Then, boom, COVID happened and we were all locked in the house. But this was actually a time for me to master tournaments. I just started playing online and I would play like 12 to 14 tables of ACR. The highest buy-ins I would play were like $55, and then I would play as low as $5 buy-ins and just have multiple screens and just perfect the game. I would always have Triton and PokerGO on an iPad right next to it. So I would play my online poker and I would be watching all the best.
At the time, it was like Michael Addamo was crushing everybody. So I was like, "This is how I'm going to master my game, after this guy." I'm going to watch what he does and see. Then I saw he's this max-aggression player, which was good. That's what I like to do anyway. So I kind of just started playing my game but with a little more aggression.
Then right after, the first tournament back was at Hard Rock in Florida. I think it was the first series. That's when obviously the magic happened for me. I had like $6,000 to my name and I went down there, played a bunch of prelims for 400 and 600. I remember I had like 1,400 bucks left and I was like, "Well, I've got to go home with something because I'm going to need... I've got to eat and I'm going to have to be late on my rent and I'll pay it next month, whatever." I already thought about this. But there was one more $400 satellite and I was like, "Got to give it a shot."
I got in that 400 and satellited into the $3,500 Main Event. Then while I was in that tournament, that's when I got a call from my wife saying, "Hey, I'm pregnant."

— Jesus.

I was supposed to have twins. She calls me and says, "Jesse, we're having twins." And I'm like, "Oh shit. Here we go." But again, something in my brain took over and clicked, and I just completely locked in to a different level than I've ever been locked in. We ended up doing really well in that tournament. I got fifth for a quarter-million.
That one was just crazy because I remember my father, too; when there were like 70 people left, he was following the updates and stuff and knew I was in it. The day before, with 70 people left, he got a plane ticket from New York and flew down. He said, "I knew you were going to make the final table."
He just knew it. So that was a really cool moment and it felt good.

Have you been playing your game a lot right now?

— Now it's a little bit slow. We were running... I think we took two or three days off during the summer, but we were running every day. I would say maybe a quarter of the days we were running two games. So it was stressful but good.

I want to come play one of these nights.

— I think you get a seat anyway, but we have a constant rule: if you score for six figures, you have 24 hours and you have a seat in our game no matter what. No questions asked. But for you, that's like Tuesday.

I almost won that last night playing $25/$50 PLO online. I was grinding last night. I was just playing that circuit ring and I had $25/$50 PLO up.

— Was that on WSOP as well?

Yeah. I think the game built around me. Dangerous sat down. No, there was one guy... this is what always happens with online cash games. So it's $25/$50; I see the lobby and there's one guy sitting down at $25/$50. Then he was sitting at $50/$100, but it was like five-card or six-card. I only like four-card; I don't do the others anymore.
So I play at $25/$50. As soon as I sit down, not even 20 seconds later—no, not the full table—just a guy sits right to my left. I'm always like, "This doesn't feel right." So I'm playing with these guys for a little bit. It was a $5k cap buy-in. I'm down like $12k right off the bat. So, I'm in for $17,000 now. Now the game is starting to fill up slowly. It's like people were watching, seeing me punt off. Then an hour later, now I've got all the money on the table and I'm beating everybody up now.
It was just funny, though, because I swear those lobbies every time... I'll sit down, then it's like a whole thing. I just don't get it.

— They never sit to the right of the guy who was already sitting there.

No, but you would think they would. I don't know. They think they would know my name and it's not like I'm a fish, you know what I mean? But I guess they just think I'm just going to give all the action.

— You've been on social media. You're promoting some stuff now. What are we working on?

Yeah, so I got signed by the poker royalty, Brian Balsbaugh. You guys know him.

— Yeah, I DM'd him and tried to get him on the podcast. He said, "I've only done one and it's because Daniel Negreanu forced me to." Yeah, he's not big on putting himself out there. He just helps his players.

So, he's a great guy. Obviously, I got very fortunate to get in with him. He's the agent for all the best guys in poker, kind of. So, I got very fortunate there. But I just wanted to try to get my content and social media followings up because I'm trying to get a sponsorship with one of the bigger brands.
That's a key thing nowadays. They want you to have eyes and numbers because you're promoting their business. So, I'm not a huge fan of doing it all, but the more I'm doing it, the more I like it because I'm getting a lot of feedback from people saying, "Oh, I love this stuff. You're teaching me a lot."
It's cool to do that. But, some of it can be really corny.

— As long as you're still true to yourself.

Well, that's what I said when I started doing it. The guy that I had work for me, the manager, I said, "I don't want my everyday life to change, really. I want to do what I'm doing." I said I'll do some videos and stuff, but I'm not going to be the guy that's going to be filming the bad beat.
I can't do that. I'm not going to film my hands. If I've got a guy all in, I can't do it. I'm sorry. You know, God bless Rampage and all those guys and I love them, but I just can't be that guy.

— Luckily, a lot of your tournaments are on TV anyway, so you can just have a guy clip it out.

And that's what's nice; most of my content is just videos of... luckily PokerGO and Triton spend hundreds of thousands on production. So, I'm getting very high-quality video clips for nothing, which is nice.
Which is... you know, they've done enough promoting and using my name to make money, so I think it's pretty fair if I use a couple clips of theirs.

— I'm sure you've already planned your next four trips.

There are a lot of things coming up. I don't ever plan more than like a week ahead. That's just how I am. But I know the series that are coming up that I'm going to play, most likely. I'm still not sure. They have the Cyprus series that came out—it's a bunch of high rollers there. I think Rob Yong is the one running it. They have buy-ins from $10k to $100k. They have an invitational thing there; it's kind of like a Triton-type thing that they're trying to do.
That's the same time as the Florida series, so I haven't decided if I'm going to play Florida or go there. I'd rather go there for the buy-ins, but the travel kills me.

— Do you bring the family along on these European trips? I know you've got three little girls, right?

Yeah, three girls. My youngest was kind of too young. We just got her passport in, actually. After Barcelona is Jeju, and I'm taking them this time to Jeju for the Triton series because there's an amusement park there and a water park on property. It's kind of a spot where you get bored if you don't have family there because there's only so much you can do as an adult on Jeju Island. So I'll be taking the whole family for that one.
For the Bahamas, I've taken them there for the last two years, so I'll take them again in the winter for the Bahamas. Pretty much this year I plan on... right now I'm still number one ranked for the GPI and Player of the Year. I really want to... last year, the last week of the thing, David Coleman passed me from a score that they found from like three months prior.

— It sounds like you do think more than a week ahead.

Yeah. I've thought about this for a while, that I really want to try to win the Player of the Year.

— Seriously, this was a lot of fun. I think we've had a string of ones I've been really excited about doing, and I'm happy to continue it. This has been great. Thank you.

Thanks, guys.