John Cernuto: John Cernuto comes from the “good old days” when poker nicknames made sense. If someone was named “Tex” you could be reasonably sure he hailed from Texas, and if the word “Money” was somewhere in a name, the bearer was either a banker or reasonably well skilled at poker.  So just ignore for a moment that Miami John was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, and just accept that when he got the name “Miami” it made sense at the time.

Miami John is thought of by many as one of the absolute best Omaha HiLo players in the world, and his record surely seems to back the idea. Three World Series of Poker bracelets (1996 WSOP Seven Card Stud Eight-or-Better, 1997 WSOP No Limit Holdem, 2002 WSOP Omaha), umpteen first place titles and three best overall player awards are among his poker accomplishments. John is a tournament circuit player who spends more time winning money than he does on television, which means his poker ability is disproportionately high when compared to his poker fame; at least, to the home poker crowd. When it comes to fellow players who sit around the felt with him, his name is very well known, a fact he will certainly use to his advantage.

John graduated as a finance major from Florida State University (aha! Is that in Miami? No… Tallahassee. Rats.) but soon craved a more exciting career. John became an air traffic controller, and might to this day still be sequestered in a lonely, high-tech tower keeping planes from running into each other, had it not been for Ronald Reagan. When then-president Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers when they went on strike in 1981, John decided to try his hand at a new career. Omaha players the world over must have felt a disturbance in the force that day, and Miami John has been taking their money ever since.