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Jamie Staples is a Canadian poker player that gained success through both online and live poker. He runs a succesful twitch and youtube channel and has has some very nice 1st place finishes throughout his career with big money paydays. He was sponsored by pokerstars after becoming noticed for his online presence and his good form.
At the time of this edit 17/07/2019 he is live on twitch playing a number of tournaments online at partypoker such as 10k $109 buy in and $44 buy in.
https://www.twitch.tv/pokerstaples
He came to my town and so I took the opportunity to go meet him in person.
There was a big showing at the tavern, as many as 40-50 through the course of the 2 hrs.
I saw him move off the table into a more approachable position and by this time I was ready and quickly got into upfront lurker position. I had to wait nearly 5 minutes right there because it was hard to get a word in.
So that’s where the tension ended, I just told him hey I’ve got a website and I want to write an article and maybe take some pictures and he was just like “oh yeh sure that’s great, where do you wanna go to take the pictures?”. It shocked me how nice he was about it. I just replied “oh it’s ok I can just take some around here, I just wanted to introduce myself before I start pointing a camera at you”.
Through the course of the night I met him a few times more including sitting right opposite me on my table for about an hr. That was a lucky shot being as there were 7-8 tables.
I sent over some interview questions afterwards and here’s the result.. “Lets go!”
Interview with Jaime Staples in Cardiff bay August 2017
How did it progress from you starting to play poker and then getting sponsored by Pokerstars?
I had been playing poker for around 5 years before I went full time poker. The decision to do that synced up with Twitch Poker becoming mainstream and it worked out perfectly. Pokerstars noticed my stream and reached out to me about 5 months after it began.
Tell us about your stay in Cardiff and why you came here?
I lived in Cardiff for around a month. It was really a great place I enjoyed it. It was affordable for my brothers and I to rent a short term place but still different enough to be exciting, new, and interesting.
You mentioned about moving to the Virgin Islands shortly, what’s the plan?
Coming up on 9th September we have StreamBoat 2! We are going to be streaming on Bill Perkins boat with My brothers, Jeff gross, Kevin Martin, ad a crew of supporting characters. It should be a really fun time in a beautiful part of the world!
You also mentioned something about an idea for a bus where you travel in the bus and do your streams on it. Tell us some more about that..
That project is still developing so I don’t have much to say about it just yet. I just think a stream tour could be fun.
You have realised the dream of being both good at poker and being sponsored, allowing you to travel the world – which is amazing in itself, has the financial freedom given you interest in new things outside of poker?
The main difference is that I get to travel much more and also am free to play in a wider range of tournaments. I haven’t picked up new hobbies because of more financial freedom because I focus on my career in poker. Just being able to travel and run my streams from different places is great and keeps me busy.
What live tournaments (or online) are you looking forward to?
The Championship of Online Poker is on this September on PokerStars so I am really pumped for that. A ton of great value deep structured nice events. The next live event after Barcelona will likely be the PCA 2018 in the Bahamas. That’s a great event and I’m really exited to play there.
What was your favourite or biggest win so far and how did you react?
My biggest cash score was 5th place in the Sunday Warmup for 24kish. It was a surreal experience and a ton of fun. I also won the Big 109 twice in a month back when I was just starting streaming. They used to be quite big so both of those were wins for around 20K. I am itching for that extra digit on a win though. Working on it!
You must be real exited to be going to the Carribean now, any other plans to mention?
Streamboat 2 and then after that we are going to stay in the warm and head to a new location. To be announced soon 🙂 Thanks for taking the time Mat!
Get stuck in and play now potentially on the same table as Jaime, Tonka, Kevin Martin and Lex on Pokerstars
