Question Week: jontm

jontm

Fire away if still up!

Milo

So, other than the poker gig, what do you do for money, honey?

How do you get your kicks?

Tonychanman

what is your avatar? tattoo? origin?

jontm

For my 7-3:30 gig I have 2 hats; I am the Health and Safety Coordinator for a company that manufactures wellsite trailers for oil and gas mainly...and the plumbing and gas advisor. We have about 90 employees of the most common construction trades and usually 3-5 on my P/G crew. Been doing H&S for about 9 years, got my Journeyman and Red Seal in 2007.

For fun, used to fish a ton but since I moved to Alberta and got into all this, lot less of that as I like perch, pickerel and big pike; not so much a trout fisherman. I like to eat what I catch. Going places is what I enjoy and my family the same, although its mostly around the prairies and Vegas. Oh. Video games are another past time, at times.

jontm

Tonychanman;339742 wrotewhat is your avatar? tattoo? origin?

Yes, the avatar is a tattoo on my right forearm. I paid $400 after I won my first tourney for about $750. A $35 buy-in that was almost winner take all.

I was craving a tat and always wanted kids names, but wasn't sure how to do it.

The cards are KQ hearts on bottom, with wife and I's names. Pretty straight forward. The top 3 are my kids: (Ten) Tanika (Jack) Jonah (Ace) Adara.

Each has a different suit, club with flames around it for the wild teenager, diamond with two swords to symbolize shield, my son loves swords and also is some what of a trooper and the spade has two eagle feathers to symbolize my middle childs love for culture (they are métis)

Of course every asks why it isn't a royal flush and answer is simple

KQ are the hole cards and the flop was broadway, stone nuts but we still have the sign in the kitchen that says "we don't always have it all together but together we have it all." nobodies perfect and a royal is just not real.

Cerberus

Favourite video game growing up?

Favourite video game currently?

What game from back in the day would you love to see them update with new graphics etc?

How awesome are your two new co-hosts :)

jontm

The two co-hosts rock!

Growing up I really liked Ninja Gaiden, Phantasy Star, Super Hang On & Zelda

The last few games I bought for myself were Final Fantasy Series and Kingdom Hearts, but with having a 12 year old son, Marvel Games and COD are what we play mostly.

Few newer ones put that we will be playing at Christmas. We have XBoX 360, Wii and PS 2&3 but Playstation is main system.

Milo

How do you manage to fit all the "poker stuff" around your "day job"?

jontm

It's definetly a juggling act that consumes a lot of free time, let's just say weekends I don't have family plans are write offs. We live in a wireless world though, so on breaks and lunch I usually return emails or post. My work hours are also 7-3:30, so if I put a few hours in at night, not that long a day. After this event, will definetly be taking a hard look at which outlets are best to concentrate on and I have not been taking on anything new.

Just not enough hours, love it or not. My real job pays much better but certainly is missing the perks and excitement of poker media. This trip has already been epic on many levels, save that for a TR.

Milo

One last question on work v. play (work) . . . with your job being what it is, how did you fall into the whole writing/reporting thing in the first place?

jontm

It's kind off a funny story. As far as work goes, nothing in common with my trade, but on the Health & Safety side, I write a lot of policy, collect data etc, so some similarities and that's the bulk of my job now. Vague similarity but there is a balance between production and safety, kinda like risk and reward in poker; all this to say it fits my personality.

Getting back to poker, I was obsessed with playing back in 2007 -09 and somehow ended up playing SpadeClub on the side. It was a smaller community and we got to know each other and compete for the POY. They would give away a T-shirt and feature player blogs and for whatever reason it was "challenge accepted." I tried a few and finally got the prize but in the process was noticed by former FeltsStars pro Ken Callis. He liked a post about my first 5/10 FLO Hi Low sessision and asked me to post on his forum, DrCheckraise.com.

One thing led to another and I became a mod, then disaster struck and his daughter was in a serious car accident so I ended up admining for a few months and learned a bit.

At this time I really liked playing, but it sucked being on a US forum as nobody really cared about our events. I went to play a $550 in Regina and found the CPT. At this time it all seemed really big and exciting to me and I approached owner to help spread the word on any big events. He gave me his card and months went by, one day I get a call to work on the 2009 HU. I hit every pro on FB and come game day, 92 showed for the 5k. They hired me to help promote the HardRock, in exchange for some comps and buyins and I wanted a shot at writing a mag article. I started off slow with them at that with some "Facts from the Felt" Pieces and slowly got a little more rope.

We didnt do much after that, but then I got hired as the Social Media and Networking guy. We did a bunch of events and by this point, I had also started doing some Poker Pro stuff. I was pretty proud of most of COPC 2010, but some new staff and I had personality conflicts as well as some other issues I walked away from. Kept going with social media, started working steadily with Canada Poker and was hired by Playground a few months before their opening to launch FB and twitter. A few months after, they had enough feet on the ground, it only made sense to turn it all over.

From there, obviously one thing has lead to another and there is never a lack of projects. I do things with a lot of poker companies in the background that people don't see my name attached to, but I still have the personal satisfaction of knowing I helped it come together.

It's a lot of fun and in someways I feel I have been able to experience the pro life as an outsider looking in, but still have a taste. Wether you playing or working, still pretty cool.

compuease

jontm for mod!

Milo

If that's a question, the answer would be yes. Too bad the old fart with seniority refuses to retire. Jon, you ever run into that sort of thing with your IRL job?

Tonychanman

hobbies other than poker?

what do you drive?

what would you want to drive if money were no object?

biggest win online/live?

trigs

which poker celeb were you the most excited to meet?

jontm

Fishing or video games and I have a pact with with to start working out again in December. I used to be quite "buff" in my youth and able to bench double my weight. Sadly you can reverse that now...

Hyundai Entourage and Sante Fe are the vehicles I own now.

A nice BMW would be my pick if money was no object, realistically my mid life crisis car of choice is currently the Kia Optima. Really like the look, or a 600cc Ninja would do.

Live tourney I've won roughly 1k a few times, $500-$700 multiple more and 1.5k in a tourney Bad beat. Online I grind micros so a few final tables from $1-$4 but all under $100.

jontm

trigs;340318 wrotewhich poker celeb were you the most excited to meet?

Tough call. I was pretty stoked to meet Negreanu, Antonio and Hellmuth first times, but was probably grinning the most when I met Shannon Elizabeth.

Lindgren and Negreanu back when I loved playing the game prob have to be best answer.