Aggressiveness: 7
Looseness: 7
Short-handed: 8
Limit: 8
No-limit: 5
Tournaments: 7
Side games: 7
Steam control: 5
Against weak players: 8
Against strong players: 7
Best game: Any form of seven-card stud
Weakness: Self control
John is an extremely likeable guy with a self-deprecating sense of humor. John’s A-game is on a par with anyone’s. Unfortunately, he has not only a B, C, and D-game, but even letters far down the alphabet. I hesitate to call him a bad steamer, because he actually is capable of managing very well. He just gets down on himself at times and that is the main reason he is not always at the top.
Amusing anecdote
A few years back, John laid me $19,000 to $5,000 against Tiger Woods in every tournament he played for the following two years. Tiger went on a tear, winning five of the next six tournaments he played in. I was up almost $100,000 and John was calling me every week begging for a settlement.
Each week, I turned him down. I was enjoying the bet, especially because it gave me a sweat every week Tiger played. Finally, he pleaded that as a friend I had to settle because the bet had made him unable to play poker. He said, “I’m sitting here in Atlantic City playing $75-$150 trying to grind out $5,000 to $10,000 a week and every time I look up at the TV, I’m losing another $19,000. We settled for a total of $200,000 and then Tiger cooled off. I might not have ended up winning anything.
Title: How You Remind Me
Artist: Nickelback
Year: 2000
Reason for this song choice
John frequently seems to be an honest man trying to find himself, which is a sentiment mentioned in the lyrics. He also had a past where he was “down to the bottom of every bottle.”