Apestyles or Jonathan Van Fleet has been a top online poker Pro for as long as I can remember, with lifetime cashes online of over $15,000,000 he’s been around for a while…
Co-Author of “Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time” a revolutionary Poker book series that was written with two other pros Rizen and PearlJammer that takes players through every hand played in a tournament from start to finish.
Jon got his start in Poker when he grinded his small bankroll up to over $70,000 by just “winning everything” since then he never really looked back and just kept playing and learning more about the game.
End of an Era
This talented Pro was crushing the games massively before black Friday, but when the USA was ripped away from online Poker on April 15, 2011, with the Department of Justice issuing an indictment against the three largest online poker websites in the country closing down their servers, all the top Pros had to make a choice over what they would do next.
Jon went from having a grounded lifestyle playing from home in the States to having to move to places like Costa Rica, England and the Czech Republic just to continue to play online.
Sinking into Depression
This is when the partying started Jon states that he was bouncing around drinking a lot and using a lot of drugs, but things got really out of hand when he moved to Mexico, where you can just walk into a pharmacy and get whatever you want.
Jon was taking Adderall to try and help him focus on playing but this amphetamine, when used incorrectly, will keep people awake for long periods. He remembers times where he would stay up for two days playing high stakes heads up sit n gos which isn’t his best game.
Losing millions and getting himself into millions of dollars of debt with his poker friends too, it all came to a head when his friends turned off the internet and take his computer away when he was playing.
Jon’s friends offered to give him the computer back on one condition, he told them what day it was…
Jon got the month wrong…
Wake Up Time
Looking back on it Jon knows that he shouldn’t have been playing people like Oliver Busquet heads up for $5,000 a pop, but that’s how Poker gets you sometimes. After this wake-up call, Jon left Mexico and made his way to rehab which was paid for by his friends and family.
After all of this work on himself, Jon realised he needed to have a base where he can be secure and not bounce around from place to place since now finding his new base in Canada where he can play online an is surrounded by other Poker player friends. He now also coaches for Max-Value.com and does videos and private coaching for players that want to improve their game.
Back on Top!
Since Jon has settled down and got more balance in his life his results have soared! He started off his comeback by winning a PartyPoker $1K for $153,000 but then the long-awaited score of a lifetime came when he played the PartyPoker $5K Millions event and managed to take down the top spot and bag himself $1,027,000!
These days he’s is even putting together live results, winning the WSOP Montreal High Roller event recently for C$110,000!
It’s great to see someone that has added so much value to the Poker world coming out on top and sharing their story of adversity, gambling can be a rough road even for successful players and I think the lesson that I’ve taken from this is that friends and family are very important as they can see you through tough times and put you back on track when you need help.
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