Meet Jonathan Tamayo: All you need to know about World Series of Poker 2024 champion who pocketed $10 million prize money

Jonathan Tamayo is a poker player from the United States who won the 2024 World Poker Series. The 39-year-old won the main event of the series and earned 10,000,000 USD. This was the biggest prize money of his poker career so far.

Tamayo's US counterpart Jordan Griff finished second to Tamayo in this No Limit Hold'em World Championship and won 6,000,000 USD. In comparison, Sweden's Niklas Astedt clinched the third position and bagged 4,000,000 USD.

In an interview following this victory, Tamayo expressed his happiness and stated that he couldn't believe this feat had happened in his "real life". He also mentioned that his roommate, Joe Mckeehan (2015 World Poker Series main event winner) has advised him to play his natural game before the event.

Tamayo said (via Cards Chat):

"Not real life. My roommate’s picture is right there from 2015. We both have banners now. What in the world just happened? I’m just kind of taking it in right now. Let’s get a perspective photo so I can remember this moment. Joe told me to play my game. I realized you’re never going to play perfect poker, and weird things happen.”

On this note, let's know more about this 2024 poker series main event winner, Jonathan Tamayo.

Jonathan Tamayo's hometown and family

Tamayo was born in Houston, Texas on November 14, 1984. His mother's name is Chai and is a statistician by profession. Any other information about his father and other members of the family is not available in the media. As per reports, Tamayo also has varied interests in golf besides poker.

Jonathan Tamayo's Educational details

Following Tamayo's initial high school education, he was admitted to the Ivy League institute, Cornell University, in New York where he completed a course in hotel management.

Jonathan Tamayo's other achievements in her career

Tamayo started his poker career back in 2007 and has accumulated a prize money tally of 12.3M USD as per Pokerlistings. His biggest live poker was the main event Poker series victory when he also won his first WSOP bracelet.

Tamayo also bagged around 18,586 USD at the 2019 The Closer No-Limit Hold em event and 352,832 at the 2009 WSOP No-Limit Hold em World Championships. His other major victories include winning $237,935 and $180,000 in the 2021 and 2024 NLHE events.

In the online poker events, Tamayo clinched a victory at the 2012-13 WSOP Palm Beach main event. Owing to this, he won a prize money of 206,020 USD.