Player Update: ZeeJustin

It’s been an excellent year for Justin Bonomo.

In March his PokerStars account of ‘ZeeJustin’ was re-instated after a long and publicly drawn out 3 year absence for multi-accounting. Bonomo has written a long blog post about this on his own website and has taken a lot of flack about the decision by Stars to give him a second chance (though a Pocket Fives poll had over 60% support for letting him back).

But whatever you think of this previous antics, no-one can deny his skill for the game and he showed it once again in the WSOPC Caesars Event in Las Vegas last week. Bonomo fought through 186 other entrants to take down the $5,000 Event for $227,692, earning himself a seat in the WSOP Main Event in the process. Play when 3-handed must have been fascinating to watch, with Michael Mizrachi (2nd, $143,512) and Men ‘The Master’ Nguyen (3rd, $91,937) also going very deep. In his blog he tells an amusing story about slow-rolling the master slow-roller himself Nguyen at the final table:

“So it's the final table of the Circuit Event the other day and 6 or 7 players still remain. There are 20 minutes left in the level, and Matt Graham (Mattg1983) starts saying he's not going to make it 20 minutes. He had to pee really bad. The guy next to him says, "Me too". Matt responds, "No, you don't understand. I'm REALLY in pain. I'm not gonna make it 20 minutes".

A few minutes later it folds to my button and I look down at two aces. Men moves all-in from the small blind. As Grinder folds his big blind, I say to Matt G, "Go run to the bathroom. Quickly."

He looks at me confused. "Wait... really?"

"Yes, go to the bathroom right now. You have time."

I hem and haw for a bit, ask for a chip count, count out my stack, etc. After three minutes, Matt and the other dude come back from the bathroom. I know how bad he had to piss, so I tell him, "You owe me one."

Immediately after that, I say call. Men flips up KQ, and I flip up two aces. Men looks at me annoyed, and I say something stupid like, "Was just trying to be nice to my friend. He really had to pee." This is when I get karmad out and KQx comes on the flop. Yes, Men sucks out on me for a fourth time in the same tournament. !@*&$(*!@&#*(!@&#(*!@#

Congratulations to Bonomo – most agree that he has ‘done his time’ and will be a feared competitor in the high stakes PokerStars MTTs once again.