Jason Senti Reacts to Black Friday

I recently interviewed Jason Senti for the April issue of Ante Up Magazine.  We discussed how his life has changed since Black Friday.

Jason is best known for being a member of the 2010 November Nine.  He ended up finishing 7th, much to the dismay of his fellow Minnesotans.  After making the final table he began traveling to lots of final live tournaments and didn't play much online all the way through March 2011.

As of March, 2011 I hadn’t played nearly as much online since the world series because of all the traveling I’d been doing.  I wanted to get back to it.  I really missed playing lots of hands with regulars in deep stack [online] cash games,” said Senti.  He planned on grinding lots of online poker from March until the beginning of the 2011 WSOP where he planned to play about 30 tournaments.  He played 5-10 hours a day five days week for the month leading up to April 15^th.

“Then (Black Friday) hit and I didn’t know what to do,” said Senti.  With so much uncertainty in the future of a reliable poker income he decided to change his plans and only play a handful of tournaments and instead concentrate on playing the lucrative cash games that pop up during the WSOP.  He also has maintained his position as a pro for the online training site Blue Fire Poker, as well as taking on the role of being a poker ambassador for the Canterbury Park card room located in Shakopee, MN. 

Senti has also set up a second residence in Vancouver, British Columbia where he has spent several months playing online poker.  He is optimistic that poker will be regulated in the U.S. soon.  “If poker was reasonably regulated within the U.S., I would probably have to plan on playing far more poker than I [ever have] in the first couple of years following [regulation],” Senti said. 

For now he will continue to commute to Canada to play poker and hope for regulation in the U.S.  If regulation doesn’t come, he will eventually need to decide to move somewhere else to play professionally, or perhaps make a career change.  But for now he’s hopeful that online poker regulation is on the horizon. 

Let's hope that we can all get back to playing the great game of poker online as well as live.