Final Table Player Bio: Jesse Martin

Jesse Martin enters the final table of the WPT L.A. Poker Classic third in chips with a stack of 2,540,000. He challenged for the chip lead late on Day 4, and has been able to cruise along with one of the largest stacks in the tournament since that time. Martin has seven cashes in WPT events, but all of them were booked between Season IV and Season XI. His most recent WPT cash was his best, a ninth-place finish at the WPT Legends of Poker that was worth $40,400.

“When I was younger I played a lot more no-limit hold’em tournaments. I don’t travel for them anymore. I will play them in town, or I will play them at the World Series, but I just don’t travel for them anymore. I used to play between five and ten a year, but now I might play one a year, so I thought maybe I would never make a WPT final. It’s not necessarily my biggest poker goal, but it’s a cool thing to check off the list of things I’ve done in poker,” said Martin.

The Northboro, Massachusetts native now lives in Southern California and has a prolific poker tournament career with 74 cashes and nearly $2.4 million in career earnings. Martin’s biggest score was worth $594,570 when he took third place in the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship at the 2014 World Series of Poker.

When asked about his experience here at Commerce Casino, Martin thought the tournament schedule had a lot to do with his success this week. “It’s gone really well, I’ve just felt a lot of energy and focus throughout most of the tournament. I played cash games all month, and I just came in pretty fresh. I’ve been taking breaks, and I think the way it’s structured has really helped me. You only play eight or nine hours, which is a lot different than most tournaments, so I get to go home and sleep in my own bed, and hang out with my wife and kid. So it’s been like a nice refresh every morning,” said Martin.