Congratulations are in order for Jason Koon, who was the only nominee to receive enough votes to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame this week.
Koon has been one of the very best players who constantly competes and wins playing the highest buy-in tournaments around the globe.
His $77 million-plus in career cashes puts him third on the all-time money list according to the Hendon Mob. He has 18 cashes worth $1 million or more.
Koon began playing poker in college after his roommate at Wesleyan taught him Hold ’em and he soon realized that the skill game could be used to pay down his collegiate debt.
Success didn’t come instantly for the former college athlete, but he soon molded himself into an online grinder before finding the finishing line in a live event in 2008. His first six-figure cash came in 2010 for a fourth-place finish in the World Poker Tour championship event at Festa Al Largo. It would take two more years before he bagged another one.
His first $1 million cash came in 2016, when he won the $5,250 championship event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open. He won his first $100,000 buy-in event for $1.6 million a year later, and ever since then, has been a respected regular on the high-stakes tournament circuit.
The 40 year-old high-stakes tournament and cash pro from West Virginia secured his spot by receiving 23 votes from the living members of the Poker Hall of Fame, exceeding the needed 22 votes.
Here’s how all the nominees faired:
Jason Koon: 23 votes
Scott Seiver: 19 votes
Isai Scheinberg: 17 votes
Shaun Deeb: 15 votes
Mike Matusow: 10 votes
Issac Haxton: 9 votes
Chris Moorman: 4 votes
Justin Bonomo: 3 votes
Each member of the Hall of Fame had four votes to assign to nominees. The changes were made in order to loosen a log-jam of players who turned 40 — the minimum age for induction — that has built up over the past few years. But it didn’t work out as the WSOP planned, as no one other than Koon met the threshold of a minimum of 22 votes.
In fact, not all the existing Hall of Fame members assigned all the available votes they that had, leaving 32 unassigned votes on the table. The way members vote remains a secret, although Phil Ivey reached out to Koon and told him he got all of his. If no player reached the 22 votes needed, the one with the highest total would be the inductee.
