Who the ____ is Jonny Vincent?

My name is Jonny Vincent and I play poker. That’s me in the pic above, playing poker in Philippines - it looks like I’m concentrating really hard, but what I’m really thinking is: “I can’t believe I’m about to lose this title after having an 8:1 chip lead HU”. (after winning an allin with 22 vs some crappy hand like AA)

I’ve never really been into diaries or journals after friends found this stupid diary I kept when I was like 14 or 15, but a couple of friends of mine have recently started blogs, and I liked what they were writing about, so I thought I’d have a go. I’m often bored most of the time when not playing and find myself posting nonsense on poker forums like www.pokercrack.com and I am the world’s 2nd greatest fan of The Wiz on NeverWinPoker. I like to write, and if I’m particularly drunk, I can occasionally write ok. We’ll see. I hope to one day be half as good as The Wiz.

I think it’d also be kinda cool to one day look back and see what I was writing about when I was 25 (current age at time of starting ghey blog) and see how deluded my ideas about poker and life were back then (now), and cringe. Cringing is good. Like getting dumped, it builds character.

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I was born in Vulture St, Brisbane in 1981. My parents were hippies and before I was a year old, they’d packed me up and headed overseas. I spent the first 13 years of my life living in places like India, Thailand, Kenya, Mauritius Is., etc. We got back to Australia when I was 13 and, the next year, I had my first year of real school, which turned out to be Year 10 at Miami High on the Gold Coast, QLD.

I decided I wanted to be a Navy pilot after seeing Top Gun when I was 16, and got pretty close. After a million tests and interviews over the last year of high school, I managed to convince the people that matter that I was smarter than I really was, and I joined the Royal Australian Navy as a junior officer after high school. But when they put me in some light aircraft (CT-4’s and CAP-10 aerobatic trainer), it turned out I wasn’t really all that smart. I almost crashed a CT-4 doing circuts when I put the flaps down too late, and we came in fast and bumpy. I also got airsick on every flight which was probably for the best, because the Navy makes you sign a 15-year contract before they spend a couple million on training you to fly choppers. And, had I signed that contract, I would really hate myself right now.

I decided I would go to the Australian Defence Force Academy (a tri-service equivalent of West Point, USNA and Air Force Academy) anyway, as I had nothing better to do when I was 17. ADFA was pretty awesome, and three years flew by, during which time I procrastinated my way to a Politics degree in between really fun military stuff like 4am runs up cursed mountains in the Canberra winter and trying to convince ANU girls at Mooseheads that I was very hot right now. Whilst at ADFA, I gave up on my plans to be a pilot, and decided instead to try out Air Force Intelligence, which I thought could eventually get me into some kind of Bourne Identity shit. Yeah, I was a little wrong about that. Most of RAAF Intelligence is pretty technical, and that’s not really me. I also wasn’t much of an officer - I was definitely more scared of my troops than they were of me - so I resigned after a year. They didn’t fight too much letting me go, which probably says something about what they thought of my future potential in the Air Force. “I want to resign!” “Oh no, don’t do that.” “But I want to.” “Ok, sign here please - bye!”

I’d been playing low limit poker by this stage for a year or so, but was still a losing player, so I did a few jobs (blackjack dealer at Jupiters Casino, working the bar at Melbas on Cavill) to kill time whilst I tried desperately tried to understand the sick game that is Limit Hold’em. I finally worked out I could beat 1/2 Limit HE and earn around $30/hour chasing bonuses around the various online sites - so I became a “bonus whore”. After a couple years of bonus whoring poker sites and online casinos, I finally had a crack at 5/10 and 10/20 Limit HE and did ok for awhile until I lost around 15,000 in a month at the start of 2006 and realised I wasn’t as good a Limit player as I thought I was. Actually, I realised I pretty much sucked at Limit.

I hadn’t played much NL at that time but I realised that short-stacking, or buying in with only the minimum amount on a NL table, could be very profitable. I perfected my little short-stacking strategy and hit 5/10nl where I won about $40,000 in a couple of months. I then won a seat to the WSOP Main Event 2006, when I came 2nd in a satellite and the winner couldn’t go. My poker kinda rocketed from there.

I decided to go on a little poker trip around the world leading up to WSOP 06 with some friends, Nick and Jethro. We went to Moscow and St. Petersberg in Russia, Tallin in Estonia, Vilnius in Lithuania for a couple months and then Las Vegas. Nick helped me out a little as I started playing some 2/4nl deep. After 20,000 hands or so, I hit 5/10nl and started very well, running at around 10bb/100 for my first 50,000 hands, which was a total joke sick upswing. I had no luck in Vegas, cashing only once for a tiny amount despite entering around 10 events. However, my friend Mark Vos won an event that year, winning around $700,000 or so.

I’ve now moved to Manila in Philippines where I plan to do a lot of work locked down in my apartment and that’s all I really have on the horizon at the moment.

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One Response to “Who the ____ is Jonny Vincent?”

1 Comment »

1. dude, i’m sure your opponents canNOT read your cards from your sunglasses reflection.

   Comment by nomad — March 24, 2008 @ 10:36 am

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