“I make a point in life to try to do things that are either going to make me a lot of money, or make me a lot smarter, or make me a lot happier.”
Jonathan Little - poker player, coach, author, content creator and member of the PokerOrg Player Advisory Board - speaks with a wisdom grounded in clarity. Like all the best teachers, when he spells out the what, how and why of a situation, be that in poker or in life, it’s generally hard to find fault with his clear-thinking logic. Is he some kind of Buddha of the poker world? No, he tells David Tuchman in the latest episode of 888Ride; he just shows up and puts the work in.
Click above now to watch the full interview.
‘Poker has ruined my patience’
That ‘show up and get it done’ mentality comes naturally to the Florida-born New Yorker, who grew up with a love of games. As a young teenager Little would wake at 4am to play speed chess before school, but moved away from the game as he realized what it would take to get anywhere near the top of the chess world.
“I’m no good [at chess] any more, poker has ruined my patience… playing 16 tables online, clicking, making all sorts of decisions, many of which are not that consequential. Whenever you're playing chess, where I feel like every move is consequential, it's higher pressure. Chess causes me anxiety, because [I’m] never going to be good enough.”
It’s fair to say that not being 'good enough' is less of a problem for Little in the poker world. His 2024 started with two six-figure tournament wins in the PokerGO Cup, and has seen him take down another $200K+ win in the Poker Masters in September, a deep run in the WSOP Main Event, and much more. Though, as Little points out in his conversation with Tuchman, tracking his results is not always the easiest thing to do; it turns out there’s another Jonathan Little on the east coast, and their results often get mixed up. Handy hint: if it's an event with a buy-in under $1,500, it's probably the other guy.
Jonathan Little with his Poker Masters trophy.
‘I probably out-work most people’
As a long-time coach, Little understands the importance of study perhaps better than most. “A lot of poker players, especially mixed game players, are really good at figuring out new games on the fly. I’m not.” That self-knowledge has driven Little to take the logical route (a path he knows well) to improvement by making sure he puts in the time to study the things he needs to for success.
“I'm not the smartest person here and I'm not any sort of game genius or anything, but I can figure it out, and I'm just going to outwork you… I think I probably outwork most people, but it's because - to be fair - a lot of the work that I do is fun. That is what is enjoyable to me: putting in time and effort and getting good at something.”
The ride-along interview also takes a closer look at Little’s career, including:
- His route from being a Magic: The Gathering player to poker
- How he found satisfaction in previous jobs, including working at McDonalds and working nights at an airport, refueling planes
- The pitfalls of being an online personality, without necessarily being an extrovert
- How he ran up a $100K bankroll aged 19, playing Sit & Go tournaments, then had to build it back up again
- That one of the reasons he loves running a training site is having access to some of the best coaches for his own personal improvement
One story in particular brings home the reality of Little’s methodical approach. Having lost or spent the majority of his $100K bankroll aged 19, he resolved to run it back up starting at $10 stakes, making sure he won 100 buy-ins at each stake level before moving up.
Tuchman asks, was it hard to drop down so dramatically in stakes? “Not really,” says Little, “I was already thinking in terms of buy-ins, not dollars.”
Jonathan Little enjoys what he does.It’s the same reason Little is able to play micro-stakes poker online with a level of focus that belies the trivial profits he can make; playing well is not about the money, it’s about making the right decisions and winning the most big blinds you can. “When people play tiny-stakes poker, some of them just goof off and go nuts, and that just does not compute for me.”
Does it bother him when people accuse him of being robotic? “No,” says Little, “because I think I am generally robotic… being regimented is smart.”
While not everyone is able to adopt such an objective approach, it’s impossible to argue that it doesn’t work for Little, nor that his mindset is inconsistent. Whether it’s playing for micro-stakes, taking up a new hobby or setting a sleep schedule, Little comes at it from a practical angle.
How did he become one of the hardest working people in poker? The answer, of course, is rooted in logic.
“You’ve got to make good use of your time; at the end of the day it’s your most limited resource, and you're not going to get any more of it, so you’ve got to make good use of it.”
Check out the 888poker YouTube channel for more 888Ride interviews.
