Hand Reviews — Jaimie Staples Ontario’s Poker Player

The Beginning of Poker Streaming

The poker world got first introduced to PokerStaples in 2011 when he was a guest on the Badugi All-Stars poker podcast, and started streaming poker in 2015, quickly building a following with his entertaining and informative poker stream. We featured him back then after we spoke with Jaime at the 2015 WSOP Main Event, labeling him as the future of poker. Jaime was one of the first into the poker streaming world, along with the likes of Jason Sommerville and the poker community logged into watch. 

While representing PokerStars, Jaime teamed up with his brother Matt – he also has another brother and one sister – and Big Brother Canada alum and Champion Kevin Martin to start one of the first poker stream houses – a pad in Montreal that became the centre of their poker productions, often broadcasting tournaments at the same time – and the odd time broadcasting the same tournaments and tables – and brought a new form of poker streaming to the market.

The Ultimate Sweat

Jaime battled with weight loss and a smoking addiction that he was always up front and honest about – it was documented in a series of vlogs that he started posting back in 2016 which eventually led to him being challenged by Bill Perkins to lose enough weight to be within one pound of his brother Matt within a year. Between the two – Jaime losing weight and Matt putting muscle on, they achieved the goal and won $150k in the process.

Jaime turned that experience into the Ultimate Sweat – the opportunity to award a Platinum Pass to his community and give someone a life changing opportunity to do something similar – better themselves. Contestants has to document it week to week and achieve their goal after several months. It was during this journey that Jaime was introduced to the eventual winner, Nikhil Segel, a recreational poker player from India who quit smoking, reduced his high blood sugar level and lost over 35 pounds to win the competition. He met Nikhil at the PSPC in 2019 and both left their mark on the tournaments and those that met them in The Bahamas.

Time to Join the Party

Jaime’s online poker career took a turn in 2019 after the PSPC when he left PokerStars and joined PartyPoker as an online ambassador – a role that he still holds today. Jaime made the jump to the rivals because he wanted to have a “better and more positive impact on the online poker community” and there’s no doubting that given his accomplishments over the years.

Having over 158,000 followers on Twitch is an accomplishment, one that Jaime doesn’t take for granted. His brand of providing online poker content is one that has always brought great poker minds together. So let’s dive into why Jaime is such a great presenter of the online game through some recent hand reviews!

Hand #1 – All That Bounty

We start off our hand review with an absolute crazy hand from Jaime in a Super $215 on Party. Jaime has Ace-Queen off-suit UTG, sitting with roughly 195k in chips with blinds at 1750 and 3500, and a 440-chip ante. He bumps it up to 7,350 – only to see MP three-bet him to 61,600 (leaving only 100 chips behind and sitting with a $50 bounty).

The cut-off comes over the top, four-betting to 200k and covering Jaime, barely. The small blind, sitting with only 2.5BB throws it in (they have a $75 bounty) and Jaime is now facing a decision for all of his chips – and potentially two bounties. He calls – and the blood bath ensues:

Jaime loses the main pot and the bigger bounty – but the side pot is Jaime’s taking it down with the Ace-Queen kicker and picking up his second bounty of the tournament. Make no mistake – PKO tournaments play very differently than a regular poker freezeout tournament when it comes to bounties up for grabs. Players will do crazy things all to recover part of their buy-in with marginal hands – as we saw in this example. One would never expect to see a player shove Ace-Nine off-suit against a three bet like this UNLESS there was money up for grabs if they hit. 

Jaime, being the experienced poker player that he is, knows that players will bet and call light when someone is at risk with a bounty, and making the call with Ace-Queen here works out more often than in a typical freezeout – and for Jaime, gives him a massive stack by winning the side pot!

Hand #2 – Time to Gamble?

Moving over to a $55 Mystery Bounty MTT, we find Jaime in yet another example of dealing with multiple shoves in front of him. With a 143k starting stack in the small blind, and blinds at 3500 and 7000 with a 900 ante, Jaime watches both the cut-off – with a 39k stack – and the button – with a 99k stack – open shove in front of him. 

He has the big blind covered – 96k stack – and a suited King-Seven starting back at him with the possibility of three mystery bounties on the table. In the money – but not by a large margin – he gambles by shoving. Unlucky for Jaime the big blind doesn’t join the party, as we see the result:

Jaime picks up two bounties, totaling $151 for the gamble that paid off. Recall what we said in the last hand review – once the bounties go on the table, the hand ranges widen significantly. We see that The Coadster clearly was attempting to isolate Klindrup and prevent Jaime and the big blind from jumping in, but if you are going to play these tournaments you have to know what bounties have been claimed. 

The bigger the bounties left on the table to win, the wider you can call to go after them. Against two hands, King-Seven isn’t a huge underdog here – he was 30% pre-flop – and with the possibility of winning two, being live matters in a hand like this. Jaime had two live cards, one hit and he’s cashing in big time. Mystery bounty tournaments are a gambler’s paradise – which can be extremely lucrative if you hit the top prize!

Hand #3 – Short Stack Ninja

With 4 left in the Big Sunday $25k guaranteed – and Matt Staples directly to Jaime’s left – he sees just 8 big blinds in front of him when in the big blind and a suited Ace-Two, facing a raise from the button and the massive chip leader. Jaime gambles with the hand, looking to build a comeback at the final table where 4^th place is taking home $1,791 but while pre-flop his dream looked dead, the flop had other ideas.

When you are such a massive, short stack at the final table with large amount of money up for grabs, you must be willing to take a shot when a hand presents itself. And while Jaime most likely knew he was behind – suited aces with weak kickers often find themselves dominated in these situations, the poker gods decided to let Jaime live another hand by dealing him the absolute dream flop and leaving Sven drawing to just two outs. Fortunately for Jaime, his pair of twos held, and he doubled up to fight another hand. Spoiler alert – Jamie goes out soon after with Ace-King for fourth, so all this did was provide false hope!

Jaime is a staple (see what we did there) of the online poker community and has been for so many years that if you watch poker online and don’t know who Jaime Staples is, you need to. He represents all that is good with poker – from a quality of content to an integrity standpoint and has gone through rough patches just like everyone else has. There is no doubt that we will continue to see Jaime do great work in the poker world for many years to come!