Miami John Cernuto “Miami John“

Birthplace
Jersey City, NJ

Hometown
Las Vegas

Birthday
January 11

Total Winnings
$477,514

John Cernuto was born in Jersey City, NJ in 1944 and learned to play poker at the kitchen table with his family. While he enjoyed the game and played casually for years, he pursued other more traditional endeavors early in life. He graduated from Florida State University with a degree in finance, but his career really began as an air traffic controller. He enjoyed the job enough to make it a career, but in 1981, air traffic controllers went on a union strike and thousands of them were fired by then President Ronald Reagan.

In 1982, John decided to make a move to Las Vegas and try poker as a living. He had been playing for years and thought he might make the most of the opportunity. Though there were some rough points in the beginning that forced him to work various jobs to rebuild his bankroll when he couldn't compete with the locals, he managed to improve his game through intensive study. Finally, there was a turning point. When registering for a tournament under his initials, he found that there were too many others with the same initials, so he called himself Miami John. He won nearly $50,000 in the tournament, regained his confidence, and kept the nickname.

In his nearly 30 years as a professional poker player, John has accumulated more than 40 World Series of Poker cashes, three WSOP bracelets, 90 tournament wins, and over 600 tournament cashes. He has six World Poker Tour cashes, including two final tables, one at the 2005 WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure where he finished fifth, and the most recent at the 2007 WPT Celebrity Invitational. John is known throughout the poker community as a skilled player and friend to many, not to mention one of the players with the longest list of accomplishments in poker's history.