How Chris Jennings used poker to transform his life
Chris Jennings is a poker player living his dream, if not the dream. He plays when he wants and drives a Zamboni to work...
Table of Contents
An interview with Gold Pass winner Chris Jennings during NAPT Las Vegas. Living the dream in part thanks to poker, but not the dream you might expect…
The effort to learn everything he could about poker soon started paying off for Chris Jennings.
Nothing big at first but three figure wins grew to four figures. He won the Big $3.30. Then came second in the Big $27.50. These were landmark results for a new player slowly moving up in stakes.
“That’s the great thing about PokerStars, especially back in 2008,” he said. “There was a lot of opportunity to win into things that were ‘dreams come true’ for zero dollars. So, just being able to play for nothing at all, but learning the game, reading books, honing my skills, and then moving up into low stakes buy-ins and learning all the nuance to them and getting higher and Higher, kind of thing. Because at every level it’s so different.”
HOW TO FIT POKER INTO REAL LIFE
But as Chris’s passion for poker continued to grow, the real world brought him down to earth.
Working as a supervisor at a local arena, he found his job taking up more of his time. It left little time for anything else. Including poker.
“There was actually a time when myself and my friends were going on a poker trip. And I had to not go because work came up. It was getting in the way of my life and my happiness.”
Chris knew something had to change. It wasn’t that he hated where he worked, and he loved the people. But supervisor wasn’t for him.
After trying and failing to get his old job back he came up with a solution. It was ambitious as it was difficult. But it also ticked all the boxes Chris needed. It was challenging. It would push him to the limits of his ability. And, if it worked, would give him the freedom he desperately craved.
“I made it my goal to win a hundred thousand dollars in a single poker tournament and step down for my job,” he says.
COMMITTING TO A BIG GOAL, TOO BIG?
Chris set about telling people too. Including work colleagues. Declarations like this can backfire (and bring embarrassment and public failure with it), and Chris is hardly the first player to make such a plan. But sometimes they provide motivation to succeed.
Either way this was a big deal. Chris just needed was an event to win. So he switched on PokerStars. WCOOP was just around the corner.
“As far as the World Championship of Online Poker, that’s something I always wanted to play,” he said.
He started on the first Sunday of that year’s series, playing satellites to win seats his bankroll couldn’t reach.
“I played two events that day, and the third one was a Sunday million, special edition.”
These Special Edition events were big then and are still big. Tens of thousands of players, and millions of dollars at stake. A final table finish usually means a six figure pay day. But getting that far is not easy.
“I had never made a day two in anything,” says Chris, who found himself running deeper than he’d ever gone before. “I think we played 12 hours on the first day and then another eight hours on the next day.”
It’s a long stretch, played almost to exhaustion. But you only play that long when you’re deep. Very deep.
Of the 11,634 players who started, Chris would finish fourth. His prize money was $103,645.
“It was absolutely life changing for me in more ways than one,” says Chris.
THE MOMENT HE HAD TO ACT
“I went back into my boss’s office and I said, look I need just some time off, I said, ‘I just won 100 Grand. I shouldn’t feel like this.’ And that’s when he sent me into the manager’s office and to ask for this unpaid time off.”
This was a new manager. And while he couldn’t grant the request for unpaid leave, he was at least curious about the reasons.
“I explained to him, ‘I took this job, I really don’t like it. I’ve been trying to step down’. And right then and there in the office, he said, okay, no problem. You get your old job back.
WCOOP had been life-changing money. This was now a dream come true.
LIVING THE DREAM LIFESTYLE
Chris still has that same job he got back some 15 years ago now.
“I’ve been so happy ever since,” he says. “I’ve been able to play the amount of poker I want to play.”
In the winter he installs and paints the ice on the local rinks, even driving the Zamboni. In summer he does everything from garbage removal to maintenance.
We’re not talking glamourous work. But it’s a job that allows him to lead the life he wants.
“It’s a great Job and I spend lots of time in the winter waiving to little boys and girls and honking the horn for them when driving around on the Zamboni. When it comes to children I seem to be a fan favourite. Everybody loves the Zamboni driver!”
And while that WCOOP result was more than 15 years ago he’s still deeply passionate about the game.
“I discovered some great players in Ontario and reached out to them for some coaching. It had always been a dream of mine to be as good as I could possibly be. I love the game and learning about the game itself.”
That led Chris to Power Path, where he turned a bronze pass into a Gold Pass and a seat in the NAPT main event.
KEEPING POKER IN PERSPECTIVE
“I’ve had quite a bit of lifetime earnings, often making more than what I make in my job. And a lot of people ask, why don’t you do this for a living? And it’s like, cuz it’s stressful! I like to come and go as I please. You know what I mean. I love the stress of Poker. But it’s a totally different stress!”
So when Chris got his shift done at the weekend, he flew here to Las Vegas.
“It’s been wonderful to get some free time to be able to do that and be able to make those dreams come true.”
He still gets to drive a Zamboni and wave at kids. And who knows if that seven-figure score, beating all others, is far away.
Back to TopTable of Contents
Latest Articles
View Other Blogs
