This November poker online instructor Jason Senti will seek to show his students how to close out a tournament. Unfortunately, the educator will come into the final nine of the World Series of Poker Main Event with the least amount of chips. His stack of only 7.63 million will be just over 15 big blinds when the cameras start rolling. The small blind of 250,000 and big blind of 500,000 will be the looming obstacles for Senti at first as he seeks to turn mere survival instinct into a victory in the World’s biggest poker tournament. Rest assured Senti knows how to play poker with any stack size and will be gunning for first.
Unlike some of the November Niners Jason Senti has a home page. He’s atypical of the mix, but with a first name starting with J he was close to being very similar to 33% of the remaining players. If his parents had named him John instead of Jason he’d be like three other players at the final table; John Dolan, Jonathan Duhamel and John Racener.
Known online as PBJaxx, Senti started life in Grand Forks, ND. He didn’t travel too far to get his college degree staying in his home state of North Dakota. With a penchant for math he went into engineering and earned a B.S. in electrical engineering at the University of North Dakota. This would be where Norman Chad would say “I believe they are known as the Wrambling Wreck.” Side note: last year it was the Raging Cajuns and the year before it was the Demon Deacons. Talk aboout a joke wearing thin.
For those wondering the University of North Dakota is in the market for a nickname as they are retiring the old nickname of the Fighting Sioux. So oddly, for once they could actually end up being the Wrambling Wreck–though that is very unlikely. Being from the same hometown as UND Senti is probably aware how entrenched his college name is locally. However, even if the good folks of Grand Forks no longer have the Fighting Sioux to root for they do have Senti.
Senti’s career trajectory, like that of chipleader Jonathan Duhamel, and many poker players involved a big decision about life and his occupation. One day in 2007 Senti recognized he was making more money playing poker than he was at his 9 to 5 job. Senti started playing poker at night in 2005, in 2006 he moved from tournaments to cash games, and has been crushing it ever since. He left his job in electrical engineering and devoted himself full time to his new vocation. In 2009, he finished 21st in the World Championship of Heads-Up No Limit poker at the WSOP.
Senti could have been sitting on a bigger stack when he returned had he won a big pot with eventual bubble boy Brandon Steven. Though Senti watched his one time 4th biggest stack dwindle down during the day it was that critical hand that really changed his momentum. With 10 players left Senti almost busted Steven.
Steven got all his chips to the middle preflop when he looked down at the relatively big hand of Ace King straight. Senti felt compelled to call with unsuited King Ten and didn’t like it. He liked it even less when he saw how dominated he was. He would need a 10 or an unlikely straight or flush to catch up and it didn’t come. Steven and Senti stood up to watch the board come.
The flop of Queen, five, Eight didn’t do much or either. The turn punched Senti in the stomach and took all the drama out of the room as an Ace fell. The meaningless river card was a six. Steven had hope for a moment but ended up giving Senti’s chips to somebody else and still finished 10th.