Justin Bonomo Poker Strategy
The “High Roller reg” from the United States won recently the Super High Roller Bowl for $5,000,000 and became third on the All Time Money list. Not everything was going that excellent during his entire diverse career, though.
Cheater
But the fact is, they produce some of the best content in the poker-sphere. If you don’t know by now, check em out. Their newest show is ‘All Strategy’ with Daniel Negreanu, Justin Bonomo, and Scott Huff. Start at the bottom – Scott Huf – he’s entertaining and keeps things moving along. Justin Bonomo Wins Triton Poker London £100,000 Short Deck Main Event. Since 1988, CardPlayer has provided poker players with poker strategy, poker news.
Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo was banned on PartyPoker in 2006 after he won a tournament (with 6-digit score) entering it using six accounts at the same time. The winnings were, obviously, confiscated and it wasn’t the last time Bonomo get caught cheating. In the same year, PokerStars Manager announced on TwoPlusTwo that Justin was multi-accounting on their site as well.
Poker News & Discussion News, Views, and Gossip Poker Goals & Challenges Poker Beats, Brags, and Variance That's What She Said! Poker Legislation Twitch Online Poker Televised Poker General Poker Strategy Beginners Questions Books and Publications Poker Tells/Behavior Poker Theory Psychology. The biggest recorded win in live poker history goes to Antonio Esfandiari who won the inaugural 2012 Big One for One Drop event that saw him take home a whopping $18.35 million. The second biggest win saw American poker pro Justin Bonomo win $10 million in prize money that after winning the 2018 Big One for One Drop. Antonio Esfandiari.
His story became one of the most talked-about and heated dialogues to have ever taken place in the online poker community. There was a gigantic discussion on forum involving thousands of posts.
It didn’t stop him on a path to success. After few months break, he returned to the game, just after he turned 21. He was playing exclusively live slowly adding to his reputation of being a solid tournament player. In December, ZeeJustin qualified to four final tables on Five Diamond Poker Classic festival and he finished on “TV-bubble” (7th) in WPT tournament.
Soon, he became a player of Team Bodog. After his reputation started to grow, PokerStars decided to unban him in April 2009. His story became a hot topic on forums again, but the owners of major world’s poker room didn’t decide to change their decision.
High stakes adventure
ZeeJustin returned to playing on PokerStars. He was not only the tournament player, but high stakes cash games regular on Stars and FTP as well. He was playing at the highest stakes against the biggest stars such as Isildur1 or jungleman12.
One of his best friends is Isaac Haxton, who helped him hugely to improve his game and compete with the best in the world. In 2012 Justin said in the interview for HighStakesDB that Isaac was the toughest opponent he has ever faced, but he added that he was not objective in his opinion because Isaac is his friend. “Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky is the number two”, he said.
Moving outside of US
Haxton is the player with whom Bonomo moved to Malta after Black Friday. Justin had a lot of money frozen in FTP’s account. “If FTP repays, my net worth instantly doubles, so yes, I have quite a bit on there.” – he said.
Success in tournaments
At that time, he had a lot of cashes in WSOP, but he still had to wait for his first bracelet. In 2014, he topped a field of 1,587 in the $1,500 6-max NLHE event, earning his coveted piece of jewelry along with the $449,980 first-place prize.
His tournament career started a lot earlier though. In January 2005 he cashed PCA Main Event on 30th place. Month later he became the youngest player in the history that was featured on the TV table (being only 19) – he was 4th in the €2,000 EPT tournament in Deauville. One of the turning points in his poker adventure was winning €100,000 Super High Roller 8-Max on EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo in 2012 for $2,165,217. Besides this score and winning two editions of Super High Roller Bowl in 2018, he had two scores over $1 million: second place in $5,300 NLHE Championship Event during Hard Rock Poker Open Hollywood for $1,163,500 and recently second place in $100,000 Super High Roller at PCA 2018 for $1,077,800.
The beginnings
How it all started? Bonomo was highly ranked Magic the Gathering player and when he discovered poker, he was still underaged.
I started playing $0.50/$1 limit hold’em on Paradise Poker just like everyone else that played back in 2002. My first deposit was thanks to my EverQuest character that I sold via PayPal for $500.
He had tough moments in his career as almost every poker player.
I had a very big downswing in late 2009. My confidence was at a high after rising through the HUNL stakes super quickly. I was playing the best players in the world and ran over a million below all-in EV. It was humbling going from $10/$20 to $200/$400, and then at $50/$100 losing to some of the very same players that I had recently built my bankroll off of. I had become complacent with my game while theirs’ were evolving to beat mine. That was a huge mistake on my part compounded by the run bad.
In the beginning he was playing Limit Hold’em, online tournaments and SNGs, but soon he discovered that NLHE is his favourite variant of poker. He was trying other formats as well, for example $50k H.O.R.S.E events at the WSOP and 2-7 Triple Draw event where he was close to winning a bracelet, however his biggest scores come from NLHE games.
Unbelievable run
Justin Bonomo Poker Strategy
Recently, after taking down Super High Roller Bowl he won two other High Rollers (both with $25k buy-in) in Aria casino! He informed poker community about it on Twitter.
Ok so you might not believe this, but I just won the Aria $25k high roller again. I don’t know what’s happening anymore.
— Justin Bonomo (@JustinBonomo) June 4, 2018Here is the list of his High Roller biggest scores this year:
The future
32-year-old Justin Bonomo has been known in the poker community for many years. After his 17-year adventure with poker, he starts finally to become a super-star. He said nothing changed drastically in his game recently; he just started to win all-ins he couldn’t win before. Besides this, after cheating scandal, he started showing his lighter sides, being active in donating to charities. We are very curious how his future is going to look like and how much strength he is going to show in 2018 and especially in World Series of Poker. Will he capture his second bracelet?
Though he has only been a part of the live tournament scene for a few years now, Christoph Vogelsang has quickly established himself as one of the very top players in the world.
After initially making a name for himself online as a cash game crusher under the moniker 'Tight-Man1,' the German transitioned to live tournaments and has racked up more than $14 million in cashes in just five years. His biggest win, for $6 million, came this summer when he took down the $300,000 ARIA Super High Roller Bowl.
Vogelsang played a number of memorable hands in that epic event. Among them was a huge pot against Justin Bonomo that eliminated the American and secured Vogelsang's position as one of the top stacks remaining and a favorite to win the event. Another came in the very last hand of the tournament, one in which the German clashed with Jake Schindler in a spot that saw Vogelsang put to a tough river decision.
On break from playing in a high roller event at PokerStars Championship Barcelona, Vogelsang agreed to go over those two hands and talk a little about his thought process in each one — a rare glimpse into the strategic mind of one of poker's true superstars.
PokerNews: Let's start with the hand against Justin Bonomo. You come in limping with from the small blind. Is that standard for you with a solid hand like this against a tough opponent who has position? Do you have a dynamic with Bonomo that affects it?
Vogelsang: I think we were 30 big blinds deep, is that right?
Yeah, that looks like the case. He started with about 1.6 million at 50,000 big blinds.
Nowadays, there's a lot of software out there that tells you what to do with which stack sizes and frequencies. Most of the time, you just have to limp because you get such a good price. You want to be limping most of your hands and you have to have a balanced range which will have somewhat strong hands and weak hands.
Bonomo responds by putting in a pretty big raise to 175,000 holding . What do you think his range is here after making a sizable raise like that?
I think the raise size will be the same regardless of the strength of his hand. He'll have all of his strong hands and he'll have some of medium weak-ish stuff with a low-to-medium frequency. I know that he can have complete garbage as he did in this hand. With king-ten, I have a pretty easy decision — always call.
On the flop, you check-call a pretty small bet of 100,000 into 400,000. Was the sizing a factor at all there, or are you usually calling in most cases knowing he can be wide?
I have king-high and two overcards. King-ten seems like a hand I would want to check-call there every single time.
Nothing happens on the turn, as you pick up a gutshot and check, and Bonomo checks behind. You get there when the hits, bringing in the backdoor straight. You checked again. Are you not tempted to bet here when he checks the turn, indicating he might be trying to get to showdown?
On the river, I think he's probably going to bet if he hits the queen or if he ever slow plays a big hand, as he did there. I can bet or I can check-raise, I don't mind too much [either way]. I think in terms of bluffs, if I have a bluff there, it's something like maybe, where I can block his king-ten suited.
He overbets the river for 700,000 into a pot of 600,000, leaving about 600,000 more behind. I see a lot of players these days just call with some very strong hands when faced with big bets in these river spots. I guess they figure not many worse hands will continue if they jam. Is that something that entered your mind here, or were you pretty confident in shoving for value?
I think it's kind of clear that I have to shove there with a straight. It was 40 or 50 percent pot more, and a straight is probably in the top five percent of hands I get to the river with. Maybe even better. There's no question at all you have to shove the river with king-ten. I think the hand actually plays itself in my spot. I always have to shove the river — it's not close.
Bonomo struggled with the river decision, but with his trip deuces ultimately called the rest of his stack off after using a couple of time extensions, resulting in a seventh-place elimination.
Vogelsang continued on with his newly acquired chips and made it to heads up against chip leader Jake Schindler. That's where we'll pick up next week, as Vogelsang shares with us his thought process during the hand that won him the tournament.
Justin Bonomo Poker Strategy Against
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tournament strategyno-limit hold’emsmall blindpositionbet sizingstack sizesvalue bettingChristoph VogelsangJustin BonomoSuper High Roller BowlRelated Tournaments
Super High Roller BowlRelated Players
Justin BonomoChristoph Vogelsang