Jamie Shaevel’s Cash-Game Run Reaches the WSOP Final Table
The Commerce regular has barely played tournaments outside the Main Event, but now returns with a huge stack and at least $1 million locked up.
Jamie Shaevel, a cash-game regular at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, is heading into the WSOP Main Event final table with a life-changing score already locked up. PokerNews said he will return with 56 million chips, the third-largest stack among the final nine, and at least $1 million guaranteed.
That is a big turn for a player who says almost all of his poker is cash. In a Poker.org interview, Shaevel said his schedule is not built for tournaments because he has “a couple of kids,” and that he is normally found at Commerce almost exclusively.
He has also kept his tournament volume tiny. PokerNews said the Main Event is basically the only tournament he plays all year, and Shaevel said the event suits him better because it is deeper and slower than most tournaments.
The poker habit goes back a long way. Shaevel said he watched poker since high school, played poker nights with high school friends, and made most of his friends in college through the game. He studied economics at Northeastern University, thought finance was in his future, did an internship, and said he eventually told his parents he would try poker for a year and see what happened.
The rail around him has grown along with the run. Shaevel said he has been hearing from friends ranging from people he talks to every week to people he has not spoken to in 30 years, and that his wife and dad stood on the rail for 12 hours on each of the last two days. Poker.org also noted that this was not the first time friends had shown up in matching shirts for him.
This year has felt different from the stressful runs he has had before. Shaevel said earlier deep Main Event trips always came with the sense that one mistake or one big hand could end everything, but this time he felt very at peace and said he would not care if he busted.
That calm has been a contrast to his earlier feature-table experiences. Shaevel said he had played the Main Event feature table about three times, all long ago, and remembers busting every time. He also said one earlier group of friends came out wearing shirts for him, and he was out about an hour into it.
The current run has already had a few sharp swings. Shaevel got new life after a double-up with a full house against Evagoras Evagorou, then knocked out Tolga Karakaya in 11th place when his jacks held up against ace-ten.
Before the final table was set, Shaevel was 14th of 21 with 17.1 million chips and still in reach of the $10 million first prize. At that point, Malcolm Trayner had the Day 7 lead with 63.2 million, while Shaun Deeb had 31.3 million, Hossein Ensan had 29.7 million and Todd Brunson had 7.8 million.
Shaevel has cashed eight times in the Main Event, and his best previous finish was 100th place in 2011 for $54,851. The final table returns on Aug. 3.
