Jason Koon
- WPT Career Highlights Value Rank; Career Earnings: $901,952: 264: Cashes: 15: 103: Final Tables: 3: 84: Titles: 0: 9,596.
- Originally from Weston, WV, Jason Koon has spent the last decade traveling the globe playing in the biggest buy-in tournaments he can find. Koon is vastly known around the industry as one of the sharpest minds in poker, as well as one of the most physically active outside of poker.
- 12.6k Followers, 185 Following, 340 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Jason Koon (@jasonkoon).
Outcome
The latest tweets from @JasonKoon. Total life earnings: $31,101,728. Latest cash: $285,808 on 23-Aug-2020. Click here to see the details of Jason Koon's 144 cashes.
Preflop, with nine players remaining and blinds of 100,000-200,000 and an ante of 25,000, Jason Koon raised to 400,000 from the button. Aleksejs Ponakovs called from the big blind. On the flop Ponakovs checked. Koon bet 281,250. Ponakovs called. On the turn Ponakovs checked. Koon checked. On the river Ponakovs checked. Koon bet 675,000. Ponakovs check-raised to 1,687,500. Koon folded.
Analysis
This hand sees Jason Koon go for a thin value bet on the river, only to have Aleksejs Ponakovs respond by turning his top pair into a bluff. Koon began the hand as the clear chip leader at the table, with his stack of nearly 50 big blinds being nearly twice as large as any other at the table. It folded to Koon on the button and he raised with 7-5 offsuit, likely more on the merits of his position and the stack dynamics than on the strength of his holecards. Ponakovs was the fourth-largest stack at the table, and he defended his big blind with his suited A-4. Ponakovs flopped top pair on a A´ K™ 9´ board and checked, likely hoping to control the size of the pot against the big stack. Koon had no showdown to speak of and no immediate draws. He fired a continuation bet with the hope of folding out Ponakovs’ hands that missed the flop. His bet was called though, and the turn brought another spade. Ponakovs checked a second time and Koon checked behind. The river brought a fourth spade, giving Koon a seven-high flush. Ponakov checked again and Koon decided to make a smallish bet of 675,000 into the pot of 1,687,500. Koon was likely hoping to receive calls from weak top pairs and lower flushes. Ponakovs had played all previous streets with the apparent goal of just making it to showdown with his top pair, weak kicker. Given the four-spade board texture, though, he had been presented an opportunity to instead turn his hand into a bluff designed to draw folds from Koon’s thin value betting range. Koon now found himself as the one who could only beat a bluff. He folded his middling flush and Ponakovs took down the pot. Koon lost a big pot not long after this to tumble down the leaderboard, and ultimately finished in seventh place for $285,808. The score brought his lifetime earnings to just shy of $31.3 million. Ponakovs placed fourth for the largest payday of his career: $719,700.
“The Church is a signpost, a preview to the watching world of what the coming reign of God in Christ is to look like.” – Russell Moore
“Our Father in Heaven…Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” – Jesus (Matthew 6:8-9)
Last Spring while reading through Russell Moore’s book, “Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel,” I inadvertently commented something to the effect of, “This guy is right on. He makes so much sense that I’m surprised the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) hasn’t run him off yet.” Unfortunately, my statement is now appearing to have been more prophetic than inadvertent. Moore is the Chairman of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee (say that three times fast), and his crime; opposing Donald Trump for president.
Jason Koonce
I Just Don’t Get It
The Poker Players Championship
I must admit, I don’t fully understand evangelical support for Trump, and I certainly don’t understand the enthusiasm. Maybe I could understand Conservative Evangelicals holding their noses as they pull the lever “for the judges,” but now that they are beginning to wander into the weeds of full-blown emperor worship, I must admit, I’m a bit confuzzled.
Over the past year, however, Moore has been one evangelical voice that has been very critical of Trump and his Evangelical supporters. He has echoed sentiments like those of Albert Mohler who wrote that if he couldn’t support Trump without having to “apologize to former President Bill Clinton.” As you might imagine these two Conservative Christian heavyweights have raised the ire of many in the Southern Baptist Convention, who employ both Mohler and Moore. Recently, several prominent SBC Churches and Pastors have even begun the call for Moore’s removal from his position.
I find this troubling; this issue is bigger than a presidential election. What is at stake may be no less than the role of the Church in the political arena and the focus of the Church’s mission in the world. Jack Graham, a prominent Texas pastor, publicly worried that Moore would have “no access, basically, to President Trump” and others have recently mused that his criticism of the president-elect may end up “costing Baptist’s a chance to capitalize on a victory for the religious right.”
The Great Omission
Jason Koon Net Worth
Is that what we’re doing now? Capitalizing on political victories? This is the mission Jesus gave His life for? Is that the part he accidentally omitted from Matthew 28:19-20; “Go into Washington, influence policy, lobbying for all I have commanded and boycotting my opponents.” Are we actually now worried that Moore’s gospel stance may jeopardize Baptist political power?
I don’t know Russell Moore personally but I whole-heartedly believe his views are born, not out of political disagreement with or personal distaste for Donald Trump, but out of a passion for the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. I believe Moore sees a Conservative Christian movement that, in recent decades, has become far too cozy with certain politicians and political parties and I believe that he takes his dual-role in the Convention seriously; a role that his beloved predecessor Dr. Richard Land described as “to speak to Southern Baptist and on behalf of Southern Baptists.”
Jason Koontz Md
In other words, Moore understands that his primary mission is not lending Evangelical credibility in the political arena, but being a Gospel-centered voice informing Believers on issues and then drawing us back to the centrality of the Gospel. I am thankful for this voice that continues to remind me that the eternal nature of the Gospel and the surpassing Glory of the coming Kingdom are far too important to sacrifice on the altar of political influence. I pray for Moore and for His Gospel-focused voice to continue to ring out loud and clear in Washington and in the hearts and minds of believers across the nation.