Jamie Shaevel doesn't play tournament poker.
"Probably 99.9% of my poker has been cash."
It's always been cash, the Southern California pro told Craig Tapscott. Even though they were talking about the WSOP Main Event final table — the climax of the biggest poker tournament in the world, where Shaevel has a seat waiting for him in August. It was clear that Tapscott was talking to a cash game player.
"I've got a couple of kids, so my schedule is not built for tournaments."
Shaevel can normally be found at Commerce in Los Angeles — "Almost exclusively." If he plays one tournament a year, it's the WSOP Main Event, and if he plays two, it's near his home in LA.
"The last few years, it's become about just playing the Main Event."
It's a common theme. Players from around the world will travel to Las Vegas to play exactly one poker tournament a year, and it's the WSOP Main Event. They take their shot and return to their home game, or in Shaevel's case, their regular job at Commerce.
Jamie Shaevel picked the right tournament to play in 2026. The friends we make along the way
Shaevel has cashed in the Big One eight times, and his best finish before this year was a 100th-place run in 2011. This breakthrough to the final nine isn't even the first time he's had a run on the feature table, or the first time he's had friends join his rail. It's not even the first time they've made t-shirts.
"I think over the years I had played at the Main Event feature table maybe three times, and all three were a very long time ago, probably ranging from ten to fifteen plus years ago."
They're not exactly great memories.
"I distinctly remember none of those three times went well for me. I think I busted at the feature table every time. One year, I had friends come out, and they were wearing shirts for me. I busted about an hour into it, so it's nice that it's gone better this time for sure."
The results have been down and up, but friends are the constant for the 39-year-old, who has been watching poker since high school.
"We would have poker nights with some high school friends. And then I went to school back east in Boston, at Northeastern. Poker is how I made all my friends, really. It was so popular then, and I didn't know anybody when I got there. I just remember one of my first couple of nights there, I saw a kid carrying a chip set case to the common room in my dorm. That's really how I made most of my friends in college."
Jamie Shaevel Final Table Tale of the Tape
- Chips: 56,000,000 (3/9)
- Country: USA
- Career earnings: $451,177
Shaevel returns in August in the third spot on the leaderboard. 
'Totally a different feeling'
College was fine. Shaevel didn't love it. He studied economics, and thought that finance was in his future. "I did an internship, and I was just a paper pusher for some stockbrokers in an office back east." But then Shaevel graduated, and he didn't really know what to do.
"I played a lot of poker through college. I told my parents that I'm going to try to play some poker for a year. I'm making some money doing this, and then I'll figure it out in a year. And I've been doing that ever since."
Now, all of those connections are coming full circle. Shaevel is fielding calls from his entire past.
"I can't tell you how many friends I've had message me, ranging from guys I talk to every week to guys I haven't talked to in 30 years. And everything in between. Friends of friends of friends who told me they've been watching. It's just the coolest thing. That, for me, that's what it's all about."
The connection to friends and family is the best part for Shaevel, and maybe the secret to success.
"My wife and my dad just got in the car and drove out and stood there for the full twelve hours of each of the last two days. And anytime I just felt an ounce of fatigue, or I would lose a pot, I would just look over, and they would just be there staring at me with a fist pump. What a great feeling that is."
Jamie Shaevel day-by-day chip counts
- Day 2ABC - 144,000
- Day 3 - 311,000
- Day 4 - 955,000
- Day 5 - 1,900,000
- Day 6 - 15,525,000
- Day 7 - 17,100,000
- Day 8 - 56,000,000
This one feels different, too, and it has since the beginning. Over the years, Shaevel has always fired off a chip count update in a text to his family at the end of each level. This year, the tone is different.
"Whenever I've had a stack and made a run, I would always have this, like, ‘Yeah, I'm doing well, but you know one mistake or one big hand, and it can be over.' I was just always worried about what could go wrong.
"For whatever reason, this is the first year where every night, at the end of the night, I would talk to my wife or my parents, and I would just say that I'm very at peace. It feels like it's flowing this year. For some reason, I feel great. And like if I bust, I don't really care. Totally just a different feeling. I don't know why. I can't explain it."
