In the second part of our series focusing on this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event November Nine, John Racener (one of three Florida natives) has proved he has more than just the look of a budding online superstar transitioning to live poker he has also has the game.   A guy with spiky hair like Racener stands out in a crowd, but at the same time he looks a bit like just another young online poker player. So it’s no surprise that he got his start when he’d play online poker usually under the name $JMONEY$. We can tell he likes dollar signs and money.

Raceener also goes by the screen names “$30k”, “POCKET FIVE”, and “5JMONEY5″. In case you are curious you hit shift + 4 to get the dollar sign, you hit 5+ shift and you get the percentage sign: %. Speaking of percentages, a lot of these players already have backers and are giving up a percentage of themselves just to play in this years Main Event, wonder if Racener is one of those too. We do know a few things about Racener. The first is that his poker strategy is second to nobody at the final table.

Racener, since becoming a live pro, has gone deep in several tournaments. In particular Atlantic City is his second home. Racener, not a New Jersey native, but perhaps a fan of the Jersey Shore hairstyle, is certainly a fan of Jersey Shore casinos. In December 2006, Racener made his mark on the live poker scene by finishing third in the World Series of Poker Circuit Championship good for a bankroll strengthening 100k. Things would get better for Racener as he bubbled the final table of the WPT’S (World Poker Tour) Borgota’s Winter Open pocketing 166k. That was just one moth after the third place finish.

Atlantic City is a playground for many East Coasters and for Racener it was a personal poker haven. The very next year, in 2007, Racener took down the World Series of Poker Circuit Championship ring and 379k to go with it.

While the November Nine won’t be played in New Jersey any time soon, and certainly not the November Racener remains one of the favorites. His healthy fourth place chip stack means he has space to operate and the Florida native (John Dolan and Michael Mizrachi the other two) isn’t going to back to down to anybody.

Racener had a decent World Series of Poker in 2009. He had four in the money finishes and one final table. He followed that up this year with an even more impressive performance. Racener had three cashes before the World Series Main Event even started. The 40k he pocketed was enough to stave off the buy-in creep that happens to any poker players bankroll, but coming back in November with a guarantee of over 800k should do wonders for Racener’s long term poker success.

Racener had the potential to be the biggest stack if certain hands had just gone a little bit different. Most players in any poker tournament can make that claim but as Racener’s bad luck bit him at just the tail end of the last day, he’d have a little more credibility that an early exiter.

Running Ace King into pocket rockets can hurt your stack especially if you get it all in preflop. Filippo Candio, whose name rolls off your tongue like a professional wrestlers, shove on Racener. This was after Racener opened, he raised, and Racener reraised. The best starting hand finished that way and despite a king on the flop Racener could only watch helplessly as the turn and river bounced dry.

Still even with the hit, fourth in chips is nothing to sneeze at.  Racener experience despite his youth, which is a parallel contrast to his quiet demeanor despite his loud hairdo, means he’ll be one to watch for in November and what you see with Racener is not quite what you’ll always get.