Jelinek goes online to secure thrill of live events

THE world of poker can be a lonely place. For the losers, there is often dejection, dismay and a bad-beat story that few want to hear.

But for the winners, too, poker can be a forlorn environment where solitude is part and parcel of it. Welcome to the life of Steve Jelinek.

Picture the scene. You have won the lottery, or perhaps you have landed the Scoop6. Maybe you have outwit and outbattled opponents from all over the world to win a huge cash prize in a high-profile competition.

Steve Jelinek: former IT worker now succeeding at poker

  PICTURE: Racing Post  

You receive scores of congratulatory phone calls, people pop round to say well done, and the local papers and regional television get in touch.

Yet for a poker player, hiding behind the anonymity of an on-screen alias, cross-eyed from staring at a monitor for hours, the moment of glory has probably arrived in the lonely early hours. No-one knows or cares who you are or how it feels.

Sheffield-born Jelinek, 38, knows this loneliness better than anyone. He has experienced it on numerous occasions.

“At the last count,” he says, “I had won my way into 15 European Poker Tour legs via online qualifiers.”

Jelinek has also qualified for the Irish Open three times, the Aussie Millions, the Ladbrokes Poker Million, the William Hill Grand Prix, a host of GUKPT events and four trips to Vegas for the World Series, to name but a few.

Number of European Poker Tour legs Jelinek has qualified for on the internet 

It is certainly an impressive cv, but the former IT manager, who turned his back on a 16-year career to take up poker, is realistic as well as modest.

“Since I have played full-time, I am net losing on the internet, but that is compensated by my winnings at live events,” he says. “I prefer playing in land-based tournaments as I can often ‘tilt’ on the internet, but I never do live.

“The internet should be just a means to an end – to qualify for big tournaments – but I play way too much other stuff for my own good. Internet poker has taken me to at least ten countries and I love travelling and the excitement of getting into big live events.”

It is refreshing to find such a pragmatist. Given the chance, most would have you believe they never lose. The flip side to Jelinek’s coin, of course, are his live winnings.

In less than six years, he has cashed in 60 tournaments globally and in recent months has suffered some agonising near misses.

He collected €25,000 for finishing 14th in the Dortmund EPT and €44,220 for coming eighth in Amsterdam’s Masterclassics of Poker. He was the highest-placed Englishman both times, but narrowly missed out on a substantial six-figure payday.

Clearly, Jelinek knows how to cash big. Two years ago, he just missed the winner’s rostrum when finishing sixth in the EPT Grand Final, netting him €305,270. But it is the lack of titles and trophies that has seen his live poker career mirror his online achievements. They have not been forgotten; it is as if they never existed.

While one-off big winners and high-profile under-achievers with sponsorship deals make magazine covers, Jelinek hasyet to be the subject of a feature story in any of the many dedicated publications.

Number of tournaments he has cashed in during the last six years

“Even with a good qualification record, tournament poker is fantastically tough to make a good living at if you get no assistance,” he says. “I am still living off my big win in Monte Carlo in 2007, but I’ve decided to have a blow-out and my girlfriend, Irina, and I are going to Kenya, Thailand and the Caribbean in the coming months.

“I don’t want the win to just have funded more poker. In 2010, if I have not had another big result, I will look to mix poker with IT consultancy work. I’d prefer not to have to do that as I love to play.”

Poker needs more level-headed people like Steve Jelinek. He is one of the good guys in an often cut-throat business and, for his sake and ours, let’s hope another big result and a trophy is on the horizon.