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DFP Interview with "jhub3000"
 by Noah "OhioRounder" Campbell on 9-13-2009
DFP: First off, thank you for agreeing to do an interview with DFP. I know our readers will enjoy getting to know a little bit more about you. Easy questions from;
Jared Hubbard: Not a problem
DFP: Can you give us a little bit more information about you? Name, age, hometown, family, and the screen names you play under online?
JH: I'm Jared Hubbard, and I'm 25 years old. I'm originally from Winona, MN and currently live in Farmington, MN. I recently got married to my lovely wife Paula and have two brothers, Jeff and Jason. Jeff also began playing poker for a living about a year ago after I helped teach him how to play SNGs. My parents are Glen and Paula (yeah yeah I've already heard the jokes) Hubbard.
I currently play under the names jhub3000 on PokerStars and Cake, and jhub30 on Full Tilt. I play one other site but choose to remain anonymous on there.
DFP: Anonymous huh? How mysterious. It's always interesting to see where people got there start in poker, because every story is different. How and when did you get your start? What limits did you start at, and when did you begin to work your way up?
JH: I tore my Achilles tendon in late 2004 playing basketball. I wanted to find something else to do because I didn't want to go out all the time with my friends on crutches. I started a play money account online. I obviously crushed that and then decided to deposit $50 and give real money a shot. I started at $1 & $2 SNGs and did pretty well. Then I began reading books and switched to low stakes NLHE and O8 cash for a while. I made some more money there but got sick of it and switched back to SNGs, this time starting at the $20 and $30 level. I absolutely destroyed from the get go. I switched to PokerStars in 2006 and decided to make poker my job while I was in college, realizing I could make a lot more doing that than any other job, and obviously enjoying it a lot more. I gradually added tables and moved up in stakes (I was very nitty with the last part) and eventually started playing turbos late in the year. I decided to take some time off of college and play professionally, beginning in 2007. I started the year playing $119 and lower (literally the highest limit 6 max SNGs on stars at the time). During the year I got people to email support about adding higher limits. By the end of the year I was playing as high as $1Ks. After speaking with advisers at my college I decided not to return. The rest is history.
DFP: One common theme among the younger pros is that everyone at one point or another seems to say something along of the lines of, "so I decided to quit school and make way more money playing poker". Classic. What limits do you current spend most of your time at?
Jh: My average stake is probably somewhere around $200. I play buy-ins ranging from $52 to $1K. However, the higher games just don't run that often and you have to table select to make sure that you're playing the most profitable games. Sometimes a $55 is more profitable than a $555. You just have to not let your ego get in the way.
DFP: Solid advice sir. What made you decide to focus more on SNGs rather than cash games or MTT's?
JH: SNGs are where I really started crushing so I just kind of went with it. MTTs don't really interest me. I hate that you can't really start and stop when you want and it literally takes years of playing them to build up a good sample.
DFP: What advice would give to someone who wants to specialize in SNGs, and where would you have them start?
JH: When you're starting out you should definitely study more than you play. Everyone just wants to play, play, play but you're not going to improve much that way. As far as where to start, it obviously depends on their bankroll but the $6.50s would be a good place to begin. By starting low and working your way up you'll see the differences between each buy-in and learn to adjust to different opponents better. That's one downside to making a big jump in stakes through staking. I've had players I staked at higher stakes where they made a big jump and I think it hurt them. Some of them didn't adjust to different players as well and would just get locked into the high stakes strategy, playing against medium and low stakes players the same when they were in smaller games. They got my coaching to make up for it though and I pointed this out when I saw it. I no longer do staking and coaching so please no begging emails. :) I get enough of them as it is. There's some good money in it, but it comes with a lot of headaches. I'm well off financially as it is so I'd rather not deal with those headaches anymore.
DFP: So what you are saying is that you want to stake me then, cuz that's what I got from those last few sentences. ;) Was there a breakthrough moment for you, where you realized you could do this for a living?
JH: In the summer of 2006 I played about 40 hours per week since college was out. I was 6 tabling $38 regular speed SNGs, making about $50/hr pre-rakeback, and was #1 on the sharkscope leaderboard for any game $16-$35 on the year (the leaderboards don't include the rake as part of the buy-in). At the point I was pretty sure that this was what I was going to end up doing for a living. Of course at the time I thought I was going to finish college first and didn't expect to move up in levels and see such a large hourly rate jump so fast.
DFP: Ha. College. Only suckers like me finished college before starting to play poker. The real ballers knew it was a waste. What have been the highlights of your poker career thus far? Sick brags are obviously encouraged here.
JH: In 2007 & 2008 I was #1 on the any game 5-6 seated leaderboard. In fact, last year I was #1 AND #2 on the leaderboard under my Cake and PokerStars accounts respectively. Being that dominant was pretty sick. I was also #3 in total single table SNG profit (5-10 man) in 2007 and #1 last year.
DFP: I guess when you occupy the #1 and #2 spot in anything, that probably makes you pretty okay at it. What was the first big thing you bought with poker money?
JH: In 2007 I bought a brand new Chrysler 300. Other than that I recently bought a house in October and an engagement ring around the same time.
DFP: Where do you see poker as a whole five years from now? What about online poker?
JH: I think poker as a whole will be even bigger than it is now. I also think online poker will be bigger, with licensed sites in the US, which would be huge for poker as a whole. It just doesn't make sense not to but our country has done dumber things so I wouldn't put it past them.
DFP: What are you current and future goals for poker?
JH: Lately I really haven't been playing a ton of hours & don't really have the motivation to. I've experienced deathly high stakes variance this year and would just like the year to be over for a fresh start. My main focus right now is just making sure I'm on my 'A' game for a big 2010. I guess my main poker goal is just to have a big 2010, but I've told myself I'm not going to make profit or leaderboard goals anymore so I won't get specific.
DFP: Last question: You are commissioned to write a screenplay for Rounders 2. What is your basic plot line?
JH: Since Rounders left off with Matt Damon headed to the WSOP I think you'd naturally have Rounders 2 be at the WSOP. I'd probably have him get down to 1 chip or so & make a crazy comeback for the win, because you have to have the main character win it right? I’d be sure to cast Hellmuth & Matusow since they're good TV.
DFP: I love it. I'll contact Mr. Jason Bourne himself to see if he's available to begin shooting at next year's WSOP. Thanks again for the interview Jared, and best of luck turning things around for 2009, and crushing 2010! |
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OhioRounder
