With lifetime winnings of over $4 million and two World Poker Tour championships, Victory Poker pro Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little should be no stranger to any poker player.
Similar to many of today’s younger players, FieryJustice was introduced to online poker through playing Magic: The Gathering. The moment FieryJustice turned 18 he began playing online poker. He started on the lowest stakes available of Limit Hold’Em and worked his bankroll up to $20,000. This was done alongside attending college and working a day job. After two years of grinding and growing his bankroll he decided to quit his job working at Pensacola Aviation – where he was fuelling airplanes – and drop out of college to start playing professionally. He worked his way up to $30/$60 which at the time was the highest limit game available then he decided to shift focus from Limit cash to Single Table Tournaments, otherwise known as Sit n Gos.
It was the shift to SnGs that made his bankroll explode. FieryJustice signed up with popular poker forum TwoPlusTwo and started asking questions and making friends. Once he started playing Sit & Gos he was playing $200 buy-in games, allowing himself a 100 buy-in rule, and at the early stages all his play was at Party Poker. Fortunately for FieryJustice he was playing before the online poker boom so things like training sites were barely heard of, leaving him with pretty soft competition. Anybody that was playing online poker around 2004 and before will tell you the games were much softer and easier than they are these days. For a good player to grind a 10% ROI back then wasn’t too hard whereas now days it’s unheard of.
Because rakeback wasn’t big back then FieryJustice had to rely on volume to make good money. Once he learned how to continuously beat the games, he soon went from single-tabling to playing 16 games at once, which gave him profits of around $10,000 per month.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for FieryJustice: at one stage he had a 30 buy-in downswing at the $200 games, which is when he not only took a step down in games but he invested in a analytical program for SnG players called SnG Power Tools. This purchase, combined with some coaching, helped FieryJustice find his game again.
When Party Poker closed to the US market and most players merged over to PokerStars, FieryJustice moved away from SnGs and started playing big buy-in Multi Table Tournaments (MTTs.) While FieryJustice aspired to play tournaments professionally; given his experience as one of the best SnG players in the world the transition wasn’t too difficult. His first year wasn’t that profitable, but he met Tom Dwan who backed him for a while as well as helping him with his game.
FieryJustice had his career’s biggest win in 2007, taking home over one million dollars at the WPT main event at the Mirage Casino. He outlasted famous players at the final table including Phil Ivey and Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken. Five months prior to this he had also made a final table and finished fifth for a little over $300,000 at a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure tournament. His next big score came at the WPT North American Poker Championship where he sat at the final table with players such as Barry Greenstein and Scott Clements. He ended 2nd for $715,000, but this achievement also earned him the title of the WPT Player of the Year, making him the youngest player to ever receive this award.
These days FieryJustice continues to play WPT and WSOP events and can be seen at PokerStars playing under the name of Jcardshark. He is also a head coach at popular training site “Float The Turn”.
“Focus” by Jonathan Little for Poker News Daily
The ability to pay attention may be the one thing that every poker player struggles with. It seems like in today’s culture, we have been raised to be able to multitask well. Because of this, it’s important to work on being able to pay attention to your poker games and nothing else.
I know numerous poker players that watch TV, play video games, and cook dinner while playing online poker. In a live casino, people constantly watch sports games and get into heated conversations with the other players at the table.
I suggest everyone try to play with nothing else going on. Just pay attention to the game and when you notice you’re not paying attention, quickly scold yourself and get your brain back in it. One simple thing you can do is at the start of every hand, take a chip from one stack and move it to another. This should give you something you “have” to do every hand. It’ll make sure you don’t lose focus between each hand.
You will find that once you start paying attention, your win rate will rise. You may also find that while playing online, you are able to play a few more tables, which will also increase your hourly rate. Just be sure that whatever you do, that you are trying your hardest to pay attention. Keep your focus and the money will pour in.
