Jeremy Becker garnered considerable attention in the poker world back in May, when he rattled off six wins in nightly tournaments at Wynn Las Vegas. The images of Becker posing for a winner’s photo with a five-three offsuit became silly in terms of their volume, but they caught the eye of Daniel Negreanu and inspired one of the winningest players in poker history to back a true grinder in some bigger buy-in tournaments heading into the summer.
That included a run in the 2023 World Series of Poker Main Event, in which Becker cashed for a then-career best $44,700. Opportunities to fire bigger buy-ins continued, and it would be fair to imagine Becker might leave the daily tournament grind behind. But it had only just begun.
Coming to such a conclusion would be to ignore Becker’s overall journey in live tournament poker. Long before his winner’s photos became a memeable, seemingly nightly occurrence, he was out there on the grind to an astonishing degree. Before the recognition, before even moving to Las Vegas, Becker became one of the highest-volume live tournament grinders in the world by taking advantage of the plentiful options at hand in his home state of Florida.
The momentum started to pick up for Becker in October 2020, as Becker cashed in 18 different tournaments over the last three months of the year. He was starting to put into practice what he had picked up during hours spent cooped up in the house while live poker was taken off the table over that Spring and Summer.
“I definitely got into it in 2020,” said Becker. “I used to just grind live cash. And when COVID hit, I really started studying tournaments. By studying, I mean watching PokerGO and [online] final tables. Anything I could find on YouTube, and I just really got into it. The timing was perfect because I was getting burnt out on cash.”
Becker was only getting started, and as the poker world continued to open up beyond Florida, Becker hit the pavement and never looked back. He logged his first career five-figure result, taking home $23,430 for 2nd place in a Venetian $400 Monster Stack event. Becker added two significant cashes back home in Tampa within the month, and from there on out in 2021, with a few exceptions late in the year, continued to turn out for dailies in Tampa.
He finished the year 2021 with 91 recorded cashes on Hendon Mob, the sixth-most of any player on the site. And that seemingly wasn’t enough, so Becker did the exact same thing in 2022, improbably recording exactly 91 more cashes according to Hendon Mob. Among those results were Becker’s first two World Poker Tour Main Tour cashes, and as well as a min-cash in that year’s WSOP Main Event.
Finally, as the calendar turned to 2023, everything went into overdrive. Becker set the tone for the year with his biggest win to date, banking $33,615 in a $400 side event during the Lucky Hearts Poker Open at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood in January. By February, he’d moved to Vegas and started racking up results at a level that was impressive even by his standards.
When September hit, the big results started to pile up. He bookended the month with two more results of over $40,000, including another high score of $48,231 at Venetian. Those results simultaneously fueled another rush of motivation and the confidence to start including some bigger buy-ins on his calendar and testing himself against poker’s tournament heavyweights.
“I’m definitely excited to play really any tournament I’m going to play when I wake up,” said Becker. “I’d actually say the multi-day at Venetian that I won for like $48k, it was an $800 buy-in. That one was before the Wynn multi-day. That one really gave me a ton of confidence, and it was right after I played Poker Masters.
“I played a bunch of $10Ks there, I’m really feeling good about taking shots now and just picked up a lot of confidence,” said Becker. “There’s really no better way to improve your game than playing the best. And luckily, I have a staking deal with Daniel Negreanu for bigger buy-in events. He wanted me to play there, and it was an awesome experience. I plan on playing a lot more of them in the future.”
Before you might fret about the king of the Wynn nightly abandoning his throne, Becker rattled off three Wynn nightly victories in five days at the end of September. And, as mentioned, Becker binked his best result to date at his now-home Casino in October, taking down a multi-flight $400 event for $32,158.
For at least a brief moment, Becker has elected to give the poker tournament community in Las Vegas a break. He’s down in South Florida enjoying his first stretch back in his home state since the beginning of the year.
“This series in particular, the two-week [Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open] they run with the main event being a WPT is pretty awesome,” said Becker. “Actually, this is my first time traveling since moving out to Vegas, and I couldn’t miss this one.”
All told, Becker has 19 tournament wins and 93 recorded cashes thus far in 2023, with over a month to go. And as much as anyone else who will be there, Becker is well-positioned to take aim at the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas, the biggest series of the year at the property, both in terms of experience and proximity.
“I live five minutes from the Wynn,” said Becker. “I think I’ll be there every day, playing whatever’s going on. Hopefully, by the end of the series, I’ll have another career-high score.”