Congratulations were in order for Jess Vierling. She accomplished something most poker players would be ecstatic about – she turned a $500 satellite into a $5K buy-in for PokerGO’s opening event of the 2024 Poker Masters, she battled and proved herself against a distinct step up in competition, and finished as the runner-up – good for a $98K score, the third highest of her career.
But there’s a saying in poker: there’s only one person who’s happy at the end of a tournament. And Jess Vierling was not happy.
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“When that tournament was over…the last experience, the last feeling that I had was disappointment. Especially because I had such a big chip lead to start the heads-up with. It was bittersweet…,” she said. Even the acknowledgment of some of her well-known competition from the field didn’t seem to help this time. “I was like, I think it’ll take a few days for me to be happy about this.”
She says she’s not sure the happiness ever really set in. To some degree, that’s because of the incredible expectations that Vierling, 38, has set for herself in the game of poker. One in which she expects herself to “perform at my best, whatever my best is at the moment 100% of the time.”
The Las Vegas (by way of Germany) poker pro seems to be doing a good job of doing just that. The evidence: Vierling is in the midst of a career year, one in which she’s seen her poker community profile rise thanks in part to her resume-topping victory in the WSOP Circuit Commerce Casino Main Event for a career-high score of $328,000. Add to that a final table finish in a $2,200 side event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open and her PokerGO score and she’s soared to more than $1.2 million in lifetime tournament earnings.
But despite her Hendon Mob profile being littered with cashes in 2024, an upbeat Vierling acknowledges that her inner self-critic can be tough.
“What I can’t get over is if I mess up. People say you should try to be in control of the things you can and allow the rest to just happen. But am I not in control of my mind? Should I not always be 100% in control of my mind? My mind should be at its absolute A+, 100% game all the time. And if it’s not because I slip up, I’m tired, I’m tilted, I’m inattentive for a moment – then that is something I can self-loathe for.”
For Vierling, this is well thought out. It’s been a journey. Acknowledgment of her own “self-loathing” is just one part of her intense competitive drive. She notes there are many parts of her that she’s looking to serve in the game of poker and she’s refreshingly candid in sharing all of them. In a world where some form of emotional detachment, be it in results or with regards to money, can be used as a suit of armor against the roller-coaster-like swings of tournament poker, Vierling has leaned into the opposite – opening up her feelings, and her world, to those who support her.
“Yeah, I’ve heard I’m hard on myself. Objectively speaking, I probably am. But there’s a part of me that’s like…let people think you’re hard on yourself.”
Vierling believes that pushing herself in poker is a “badge of honor” and that no one will ever be harder on her than she is herself. She also recognizes that it’s not always healthy to hold herself to impossibly high standards and it’s something she continues to figure out for herself. However, it’s also her insurance that as long as she’s in the game of poker, she’s going to strive to achieve.
“That’s one part. And the other part is, well, I’m getting all this love. I’m getting the love that my inner child is craving, the respect it wants by being good at what I’m doing. Me, as a person, I interpret respect as love. So we just have to keep getting better. We have to always be great because we always want to be loved.”
Perhaps she wants to be loved in part because she’s fallen in love with the game of poker. It’s been four years since she moved from Seattle to Las Vegas to pursue her poker dream. Four years of studying, grinding, and climbing the ranks.
“‘I’m doing this because I love the game. I think it’s the most beautiful thing ever. It’s a representation of light. All my issues, everybody’s mental issues, challenges, strengths, they all come out in the game,” she said. “It’s a beautiful universe in itself. I have always loved cards and now I really, really love poker because you are never done studying. It’s infinite what you can know. It’s mystical. It increases spiritual awareness, it increases psychological awareness and it brings together people of all kinds.”
In Vierling’s view, poker is more than a means to an end. Far more than money, in fact. “I really don’t think about money at all,” she says.
“I want to belong to the community. That’s my number one goal. I have a craving for my tribe and it would be amazing if it was the high-stakes community…or any ranked community. But, yeah, I just want to play my best game and I want to be successful and I want to be loved and respected for my game.”
Vierling has succeeded so far by being an open book. She can’t help and can’t hide the fact that she’s looking to be great. She wouldn’t want to. “I’ve always been a person that believes in authenticity. I think everybody is afraid of judgment. I’m afraid of judgment too. But my judgment is centered around performance and skill and knowledge and intelligence. When it comes to other stuff, like being emotional or having human drawbacks, I think that authenticity is great because I can be lazy.
She plays poker how she lives her life. Not looking to mask who she is or what she feels, on or away from the poker table. It’s clear that she’s spent a good deal of time working on her game and herself and now she’s reaping the rewards of both.
“I do not believe in lying or hiding or creating a different image of yourself because I believe that everybody has their tribe, everybody finds their people, but if you are not yourself, then the people that belong to you or belong with you or you belong with can’t find you,” she said. “And the people that do like you, they might not be false or pretentious or whatever, but those are not your people. Those people like you for the wrong reason, which is not good for you and not good for them.
“So being real is the way you find your path. I have haters. Oh yeah, for sure. But those people weren’t meant for me anyway, and I was not meant for them. So I think that by being real, it’s an easier way of living.”