Welcome to my blog!

Hello all,

My name is Jonathan Farrer and I am a 24 year-old full-time poker player from Longridge, near Preston in Lancashire. I guess I've started up this blog as all my mates seem to have one and I'm feeling left out and need somewhere to vent when I'm a little frustrated.

I've had a pretty storied life, and always been destined to do something ludicrous for a living. At 17 I left college to run my 25,000 visitor a day sports site which was generating $1000 a week revenue. Through that I got a job working at CBS (The US cable station) at the same age and worked there until I was 19, when I moved into print, working for Highbury House in London. Fast forward two years and a failed attempt at promoting thanks to some sabotage from some pseudo-gangster wannabes and I finally found myself in a respectable job as an account manager in Lancaster.

But it wasn't enough, the 22k a year wasn't giving me the life I wanted and journalism was just, well, crap. It just so happened I was living with a (male) model at the time and he received some info from his agent about an acting school in Manchester. I immediately seized the opportunity myself and signed up, quitting my job and moving back to Longridge to pursue the idea.

As side projects I ran a small web design business as that had been my sales field of expertise, and played poker as a hobby, due to the fact my old boss introduced me to it on Friday evenings after work when the lads would get together. A few months later I was broke (due to poker) and had nothing when something strange started to happen. I started winning. Nothing big, but I was turning profits of at least a few hundred a week thanks to some tuition from "KingHawko" and "Dubai" when they were both rich, long before the "Cristal Era".

(The acting I still continue to do and I have regular extra work on all the northwestern TV programmes whenever I want, it's my failsafe. I could probably go on to do much more in it but quite frankly, the pay is piss poor and doesn't matchup to poker one iota)

At the end of summer 2005 an old adversary of mine on the tables, Hans "HEFFERNAN" Vogl spotted me playing small stakes and wondered what I was doing. A few weeks later, he offered to stake me at proper levels of poker, along with his German friend Thomas (work it out ;-))

To cut the crap, I stopped working with Thomas in early 2006 and setup partnership with Hans and we have been flying ever since, the mid-high stakes sixpak players have probably played us 1000s of times. We have recently branched out into MTTs and cash and found similar success, and several kicks to the gonads.

In conclusion, I feel I have "made it" in poker in my own definition in the fact that I have a solid bankroll and probably more cash combined than my entire council estate, which granted, doesn't mean a great deal but things are going good. I've done my apprenticeship and I'm now sortof known and respected. I don't like to shout about the sums of money I earn but needless to say, it's taking off rather well. I have just started travelling to play live as well where I've also found some success, albeit limited currently. It's really more than I ever dreamed of, but without the fame and these days, I really wonder if fame is all it's cracked upto be.

Anyway, I'm really running out of things to say now so I'll wrap it up. Oh, I almost forgot..

The "JPK" for anyone interested has only recently come about. Basically my non-poker mates were messing about on MSN one day telling all the local girls they knew that my name was JPK, curious I asked them what it meant.. apparently it stood for "Jon The Poker King". Ooooooook, pretty stupid if you ask me but whatever floats your boat.

Fast forward a few months and I'm in Singapore to play the $5000 Betfair Asian Poker Tour and I wake up looking and feeling like shit. As I trawled through my suitcase I found my shades and one of my trusted bandanas and my black coat and headed down to the poker room incognito, or so I thought. I'm treated to glares from everyone, including a "what the fuck" 30 second glance from Gus Hansen and I'm thinking oh well, non-incognito it is. Two mates of mine Chuck and Hans approach me and start asking where the Black Pearl is, "Captain Jack".

And so became the "Pirate from Preston", then-adapted to Jon The Pirate King aka JPK. Sad but true.

This is my story. Enjoy the ride, it's certainly an experience!