Jonathan Tamayo has been in this position before. In the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, Tamayo played all the way to Day 8 of the tournament before his elimination in 21st place, good for $352,832 – to date still the biggest live cash of his career.
And after a strong start to Day 6 of the 2024 WSOP Main Event, Tamayo’s getting a second chance to chase poker immortality and the $10 million first-place prize.
In his second time around, Tamayo is clear that this has been a far bigger challenge than his first time in the deepest waters of this tournament.
“They’re way better now,” Tamayo said of the competition. “You can’t really mess around that much with no reason. Messing around is going to cost you a lot of money now.”
Over the course of his poker career Tamayo’s accumulated over $2.3 million in live tournament cashes in total, along with more than $1 million won in online tournaments. The online streets are where his game was forged, along with significant time spent playing at Turning Stone Casino in Upstate New York during his time attending Cornell University.
These days, most of Tamayo’s poker is played in local events near his current home in suburban Houston, and during summers playing the WSOP.
When it comes to this particular tournament, the WSOP Main Event, Tamayo has a resource to lean on that few remaining players in the field have. Tamayo’s roommate for this summer, as has been the case for a number of summers, is his good friend Joe McKeehen, the 2015 WSOP Main Event champion.
In fact, in his bio on X, Tamayo lists in his bio, “Defensive Coordinator of the 2015 Main Event Champion.”
“Oh, it helps, because he’s done it,” Tamayo says of his chance to pick McKeehen’s brain. “He knows how the tournament progresses. He knows how hands progress. He knows how people react, so the car rides are fun. We don’t sit down for two or three hours, but we have 20 or 30 minutes on those rides throughout the year. Even the random conversations help a lot.”
When he’s not playing poker, Tamayo’s found considerable success in some of the biggest daily fantasy sports contests in the world. Tamayo has made runs in big contests across most of the major sports, but hockey was where he enjoyed his most notable victory to date.
“I won the Fantasy Hockey Championship on DraftKings in March 2019, somehow tied it so I get my name on a big shiny trophy. They also gave us a wrestling belt and it’s back home – it was heavy. I got to walk down the streets of Washington D.C. with that. I never won one of the $1 million [prizes] – second twice, but can’t complain. It’s just as much of a grind as poker.”
If there’s one thing Tamayo’s proven himself capable thus far in the 2024 WSOP Main Event, it’s grinding. After playing on a short stack through the bubble and long stretches of the tournament, Tamayo made a big move in bagging 5.43 million at the end of Day 5.
His move to one of the featured TV tables has been a lucrative one. After eliminating Ren Lin from the tournament just before the second break of the day, Tamayo’s stack surged to over 12 million. Considering there are only 11 tables left in the tournament, he’ll be spending a lot of time in the spotlight for as long as he’s in the tournament, and it’s an environment in which he seems abundantly comfortable.
“I like the TV tables. I get to be in my own bubble,” said Tamayo. “No distractions. I’m in my own world, and it’s like I’m playing online. It’s nice and quiet for me – people talk, but I’m not listening.”