Just one week ago, Jonathan Tamayo won the 2024 World Series of Poker Main Event and $10,000,000 top prize for his efforts, but it didn't come without a fresh round of social media controversy.
For the week since Tamayo's victory, the poker world has weighed in after the new world champ consulted his friends and their laptop on the rail in the late stages of the tournament. While coaching from the rail is nothing new, the WSOP did put out warnings against the use of "any type of poker solver," and the optics of having experienced pros working together against a recreational player have been widely criticized in the court of public opinion.
The aftermath is just another adjustment for Tamayo, who has plenty to recalibrate in the wake of a life-changing win. He sat down with PokerOrg to talk about everything, from his friendship with Main Event champion Joe McKeehen, to the 'fold heard around the world,' and, of course, the laptop controversy.
Friends that win the Main together, stick together
"I'm getting better sleep now," Tamayo said from his home in Texas. "It was tough getting sleep from Day 5, Day 6 onward. We're a week out now so it's a little bit more normal."
'Normal' might be a stretch for Tamayo, who will forever enjoy worldwide recognition and a giant banner in the main room at the WSOP, but it's a lifelong dream fulfilled for a player who has been in the game for most of his adult life.
Tamayo's journey to the top took numerous twists and turns along the way, but it didn't start this summer. In 2009, Tamayo made a serious run at the final table before crashing out in 21st place for a cash of $352,000.
Six years later, when McKeehen won the title, Tamayo played a role in the supporting cast of characters that prepared McKeehen for his November Nine appearance, telling us, "Joe's was a lot easier than mine." Back then, the players who made the Main Event final table had months to prepare. "I know he did some stuff with Calvin Anderson. I got there a week before so a lot of the prep work was done."
Nowadays, players have a single day off before the final table showdown: "You kind of plug the big leaks and don't worry about the small ones. Whatever happens, happens. You're not going to fix everything in a day."
For most, having a Main Event winner in your corner for support might instill some form of confidence, misguided or otherwise. For Tamayo, it appears McKeehen's support wasn't brimming with positivity. As Tamayo tells it, "Joe always said, 'The Main is an impossible tournament to win.' You don't expect to win the Main. I just happened to accidentally win it. Joe's the same way I am; he's a process guy."
A fold heard 'round the world
On the bubble of the Main Event final table, Tamayo made a somewhat controversial preflop fold with pocket queens. It happened so fast that even the stream commentators, Nick Schulman and Ali Nejad nearly missed the moment.
In the ensuing day and a half before final table play began, the poker community dissected Tamayo's decision and questioned his thought process ad nauseam. Was it a mistake? Was he just trying to fold to make the final table?
The answer was, Tamayo told us, "Overestimating risk premium. I thought the spot was kings plus.
"It was an error in evaluating the situation. It wasn't great, but... whatever. I thought to myself, 'This spot is kings plus.' I looked at my hand, laughed at myself in my head. Then thought, 'Okay, bye.'"
After making the decision, Tamayo pitched his cards back toward the dealer to leave poker fans around the world scratching their heads.
Of course, a week removed, there isn't as much debate on the fold as there is on what came after it, with equal parts admiration for Tamayo's comeback to speculation on the help he had to get there.
The boil over
Since Tamayo's victory, the poker world has been awash with hot takes, emergency podcasts, and calls of varying intensity to enact rule changes and improve enforcement from the WSOP going forward.
Why, you ask? Well, during three-handed and heads-up play on the final table, Tamayo's railbirds/coaching squad, led by McKeehen and Dominik Nitsche, conferred with him multiple times between hands. Additionally, Nitsche appeared to consult a laptop-based solver program or chart to then advise Tamayo on his overall strategy and hand-to-hand decisions. To be clear, these conferences took place between hands only and no evidence of real-time assistance has come to light.
In truth, the crux of the issue appears to be the optics. The coaching team's usage of the laptop to confirm and relay optimal strategies, combined with the lack of such a presence on the rail of Tamayo's opponent, recreational player Jordan Griff, served to set a scene that implied an uneven playing field — that Griff, the amateur, was up against it, so to speak.
With two of the brightest minds in poker wielding a laptop on Tamayo's rail, it's not a difficult picture to paint.
Tamayo realized something was up almost straight away. "I didn't know everyone was talking about it until I was at dinner, and then when I looked at Twitter, I was like, 'what?'. Okay, whatever, I won the tournament, you know, they can all talk. It just kind of doesn't matter. We're at dinner, you know, I won. It felt like a 'what can I do about it now?' type of thing. I realized a long time ago that you can't please everybody."
As the narrative began to spread in the days following Tamayo's win, he recalls, "I was kind of just having fun watching it unfold on Twitter. Dom [Nitsche] went full fire on the entire internet. I was just a witness to it.
"I mean, that stuff wasn't under my control. My job was to play. Joe and Dom were giving me advice. I didn't tell them to bring anything. You know, whatever was on there was on there. My job was to play. You have to be pretty narrow-minded when you're playing. All the other external stuff is just wasted energy."
The aftermath has been the single biggest talking point in poker for a long time, and the debate is still going on, but Tamayo isn't taking it as a knock on his own performance. "I just needed to execute whatever strategy I decided to come up with and go from there. Laptops have been on the rail for years. It's an issue now, so we'll see."
As for what the WSOP does regarding these situations in the coming years, Tamayo isn't all that fazed. "Whatever they decide, I'll go with it. Too many times players tell operators what they want, operators listen, and all hell breaks loose because it wasn't a well-thought-out idea.
"So, I'll just shut up about it. I haven't thought about what needs to happen. People that run tournaments know a lot more about what's going on. I'll leave it to the operators."
A life more comfortable
Putting the controversy to one side, what's next for Tamayo? Previous champions have taken different routes, some ambassadorial, some more spewy. Tamayo isn't going to be doing the latter and doesn't see much future in the former.
"Can I retire at 38?" he mused. "I mean, I could, but I don’t like sitting around. I need to do something."
And that something will be poker, but the games won't change much. Tamayo is honest about his skillset, despite winning the tournament everyone wants to win.
"I still want to be in poker, but I know I’m not beating high rollers," Tamayo admitted. "There’s a Super High Roller stop in Vegas coming up. I know I’m not beating those, so that’s pointless. I don’t want to play just to torch the money. I’m not studied enough. I’m not beating a $100K One Drop. I’m not winning a $10K 6-Max."
What winning the Main Event does is make life more comfortable.
"I have enough money to live on if I do it smartly. It’s one of those things – that weird spot where my time is a lot more valuable now than it was two and a half weeks ago. If I want to pay for a couple of little conveniences, I don’t feel as guilty. Not needing to sweat the little stuff."
And finally, WSOP Paradise... Is he going to take a shot at becoming the Super Main Event champion, too? The answer here isn't the one we were expecting, but it is heartwarming.
"I’m a football referee during the fall months. The season starts in two and a half weeks for scrimmages. Depending on when my season ends, I may or may not make the WPT in December. I'm probably not going to change my life much. I just want to kind of get back to as much normal as I can."
It's easy to warm to Tamayo. The controversy might burn on, and poker rules might be changed going forward, but life for Tamayo will be much the same as it was before the Main Event. Just a little bit more comfortable, and with a banner marking his win forever in the halls of the WSOP.
