Simon Says It’s Poker Time: Minnesota Jazz Drummer Wins WSOP Main Event Seat Via PokerGO

Winning a World Series of Poker $10,000 Main Event seat in PokerGO’s sweepstakes drawing came at just the right time for Jesse Simon. The 49-year-old from St. Paul, Minnesota, works as a professional jazz drummer, music educator, and is the founder and executive director of the Minnesota Hard Bop Collective. The non-profit keeps him busy and brings together music students and professional musicians in live performance settings. Sinon has also been a poker player for more than two decades, and hearing that he’d be trading in his drumsticks for poker chips this summer in Las Vegas was certainly welcome news.

“When I was awarded the seat, it came at a particularly challenging time in my life,” he says. “My mother’s health was rapidly declining, and I was beginning a court battle over her medical power of attorney with my sibling. Additionally, I was grappling with significant challenges involving my students and faculty in my non-profit, and I had distanced myself from my place of worship due to conflicts with its leadership. It felt surreal, and I didn't believe it at first. However, after speaking to Donnie Peters on the phone, it became very real, and it rekindled my passion for poker study, which I had strayed from.”

Simon will now be taking his seat among the game’s greats in the WSOP Main Event, and he’s excited to be part of the action. He sees some corollaries between his day job behind a drum kit and taking a seat in a tournament field.

“It’s the one place where everyone from across the world comes to celebrate the beautiful art form of poker,” he says of the WSOP. “In some respects, poker is kind of the underdog to other gambling forms like sports betting, blackjack, and casino slots. Poker players are like jazz musicians in that respect. We’ve had to really fight and stick up for our right to play and exist in the public eye. Ironically, both are two of the most iconic and truly American pastimes on the same level as baseball, and yet we have to stand up for our right to play!”

Poker Life

For Simon, dating his eventual wife Alisha came with an added benefit – learning to play poker. She introduced him to the game about 20 years ago and later when attending a marriage confirmation class, they met a couple who played in a weekly home game and league. Simon still plays in the group every week. What motivated him to start playing poker?

“I really wanted to beat my homies,” he says. “In 2009, I stumbled upon the 2+2 forums and immediately fell in love with the banter. My 2+2 screen name is ‘nonsimplesimon’ and I have over 10,000 posts. But I consider myself far from an expert. Poker is a great hobby to complement my music career because jazz is infinitely complex and mathematical, social and interactive, and has a real competitive edge. I find the same challenge and balance in poker.”

Married since 2007, the Simons have two sons, 10-year-old Evan and 15-year-old Norman. Poker has become a regular part of his time with his boys and scoring a WSOP Main Event seat adds to that even more. Watching PokerGO has become a family affair and no doubt Alisha, Evan, and Norman will be keeping up with his action this summer.

“My sons have taken an interest in my hobbies – poker, backpacking, and skiing – which I find extremely touching, even though they aren't fans of jazz music,” says Simon, who graduated from the Manhattan School of Music in 2000. “When the Main Event is on, my oldest son enjoys watching the live streams. I wanted to share my love for vintage WSOP and High Stakes Poker episodes, so we subscribed to PokerGO. I entered the sweepstakes thinking it was part of the yearly subscription promotion and didn’t give it much thought.”

That quick subscription paid off. As a regular PokerGO viewer, he enjoys some of the friendly dynamics among players and commentators alike.

“I really like the family aspect of it,” he says. “I used to listen to a lot of the Poker Road podcast, and that camaraderie and family aspect, especially with Ali (Nejad), Stapes (Joe Stapleston), and Bart (Hanson) is similar to the PokerGO family across the TV shows and it’s cool they employ some of the same folks.”

A true poker fan, Simon has a list of favorite players. Some of those include Minnesota legends like BicycleKick, Schneids, and PokerBob. He’s a regular on 2+2 forums and says he’s loved watching the rise of players like Isaac Haxton, Dan Smith, Phil Galfond, Mike McDonald, Tom Dwan, Andrew Lichtenberger, and Tony Dunst. Watching players like Matt Janda, Darren Elias, Eric Seidel, and Steve O'Dwyer have also helped make him a better player, Simon says.

“I am also enamored by the tenacity and swagger of Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari,” he says. “Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman, and Maria Ho are, in my opinion, gurus of what it means to be truly amazing human beings. Of course, they got their inspiration I’m sure from the immortal Texas Dolly Doyle Brunson) and Amarillo Slim – who were living examples of gratitude before expectations.”

At the Tables & Beyond

Heading to play the Main Event will be a different experience from Simon’s normal games. Generally a low-stakes player, this jazz drummer feels good about his skills in tournaments and hold’em cash games. However, like most fathers who have full-time jobs, other commitments keep him from playing as much as he’d like. What does he love most about the game?

“Poker really calms my mind,” he says. “There’s something about its mathematics and analytics that is very centering for me. While others might find that calm in hobbies like reading books or doing crossword puzzles or sudoku, I find it in the natural rhythm and flow of the game, as well as in poker analysis and hand breakdowns.”

Along with pocket aces, ace-five suited stands out as his favorite hand because Simon says it allows for a lot of preflop and postflop creativity. His greatest poker accomplishment came years ago when he used Canterbury Park (a horse track and casino in Minnesota) reward dollars to satellite into the property’s annual Fall Poker Classic, where he made the final table and played at the same table as one of his poker heroes, Minnesota’s Mike “Schneids” Schneider.

Simon grew up in Colorado and away from the game he enjoys solo backpacking and telemark skiing. When considering his greatest accomplishment, this family man says getting married and having children top the list because the challenge is always ongoing. Getting his music enterprise off the ground also was a major accomplishment.

“Every day my wife Alisha and my boys Evan and Norman humble and inspire me,” he says. “Turning my professional jazz group, the Minnesota Hard Bop Collective, into a non-profit, was a major undertaking, and I almost didn’t want to do it. However, my mentor, the late Vic Rosenthal (may his memory be a blessing), encouraged me to stay on track, and it has been immensely rewarding.”

After quitting music for a time 13 years, Simon focused on family and mental health. Even though he’s not an alcoholic or drug addict, studying 12-step theology became part of his life and he still finds the teachings of Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, extremely applicable to everyday life. He brings that approach to his poker game as well. His outlook on playing cards carries over to music, and Simon has a real chance to write his own tune at the tables this summer thanks to the sweepstakes win..

“Speaking of the mental game, I use gambling theology in my music teachings: don’t be results-oriented; focus on the process,” he says. “It’s all one performance or poker session.”

For more information on the Minnesota Hard Bop Collective, click here.

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