– General Introduction –
Jaime Staples is a Canadian professional poker player and Twitch streamer. He was born on May 27th, 1991 in Lethbridge, Canada.
For most of his career, he’s been playing online MTT’s on PokerStars under the screen name “jaimestaples”, where he’s won over $800K. However, with his signing with partypoker, he’s putting more volume in on his partypoker account – where he has the same moniker as on PS.
With over 140,000 followers, he’s one of the most popular poker streamers on Twitch. His YouTube channel has 80,000 subscribers where he gets 20-30 thousand views per upload.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2009: He starts playing online freeroll tournaments on Full Tilt Poker.
- 2014: He starts live streaming himself playing poker on Twitch.
- 2018: Him and his brother, Matt Staples, win a highly publicized, unusual prop bet against Bill Perkins. Jaime and Matt had to get their body weights within 1 pound of each other’s in a year to win $150,000, and they succeeded in doing so.
- 2019: He leaves PokerStars to become a sponsored pro for another major online poker room, partypoker.
- 2019: He finishes 5th in a $2,100 KO Series event on partypoker for $35,277. That is his biggest single online MTT cash to date.
– Jaime Staples’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
Staples wrote about the story of his early career in great detail in a 2+2 Forum post. In that, he says that he originally wanted to become a professional golfer and was working at a golf course for minimum wage.
Poker got introduced to his life through a play money poker app his brother, Matt, was playing on Facebook. Eventually he registered on the late poker site Full Tilt and started grinding freeroll tournaments. Then, he decided to deposit on PokerStars and started playing real money S&G’s and MTT’s there.
He highlights a life changing moment when he won $2,700 after finishing 5th in a $3 rebuy tourney in August 2010. That prompted him to quit his job on the golf course and started pursuing poker as a career. He busted his bankroll shortly after – however, with the help of the poker coaching site DeucesCracked, he got back on the right track and has been a successful poker pro ever since.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Staples has focused on online poker for most of his career, so his live tournament resume is relatively underwhelming. He’s cashed for a combined $135,680 in live tournaments, over the course of 5 years and just 21 individual cashes.
The first ITM finish on his Hendon page comes from the 2013 WSOP.
In 2018, he won a $125 tourney at Run It Up Reno VI for $5,739. A few days later, he came in 3rd in the $600 event for $26,320.
His best live cash is a humble $26,800. He earned that by winning a €550 PLO tournament at the 2017 PokerStars Championship in Barcelona.
→ World Series of Poker ←
The Canadian Twitch star has cashed in two WSOP events in his career.
In 2013, he came in 500th in the $1,500 Millionaire Maker for $3,510. In 2016, he finished 1936th in the $565 COLOSSUS for $1,129.
→ Live Cash Games ←
In 2017, he was featured in PokerStars’ Cash Game Challenge in Monte Carlo. He played 150 hands of €25/€50 NLHE with a €10 ante. He was playing against, among others, British pros Jake Cody and Sam Grafton.
→ Online Poker ←
Staples’ PocketFives page shows over $1.2 million in combined MTT cashes. They come from 7 different online poker rooms. The most, $811,785, is from PokerStars, $110,418 from partypoker, and $61,270 from Full Tilt.
His first recorded online cash is $4 from a Daily Dollar tournament on Full Tilt – he finished 486th out of 8,645 players. The first time he got a 5-figure payday was in January 2014, when he got 2nd place in The Big $11 tournament on Stars for $10,683.
In 2015, he won two The Big $109 events, one for $19,700 and one for $19,422.
His biggest single online MTT cash to date is for a 5th place finish in field of 339 players in a $2,100 KO Series High Roller event on partypoker in 2019. He won $35,277.
Staples mostly plays tournaments online, although he does stream cash games as well occasionally. For example, in July 2018, he played in PokerStars’ promotional $5/$10 cash game stream in a line-up mixed with poker pros and eSport players.
His online cash game stats aren’t tracked by HighstakesDB.
→ Internet Persona ←
His “PokerStaples” Twitch channel was started in late 2014. Only four months after his start, he managed to clinch a “Friend of PokerStars” sponsorship.
“The morning that PokerStars called me I realized that a major change was taking place in my life. It was one of those moments that I’ll always remember where I was.
When I started playing 6 years ago being a sponsored player by PokerStars was the goal. To me, it was what success was in poker. I since have set my sights even higher in the game but to have achieved something that seemed almost unattainable in the beginning was a huge confidence boost for me” – said Staples in a 2015 interview about being signed by the biggest online poker room.
At the very start of his streaming career, he gave a great deal of attention to his first few followers. He would rail for them in micro-stakes tournaments or even add them on Facebook. The time and effort paid out for him, he reached 10,000 followers on Twitch in 3 months. Today, he’s at 140,000.
Staples is also active on YouTube. As of the writing of this article, he has 80,000 subscribers. His channel pulls in a few hundred thousand views per month, between 20 and 30 thousand per video. His content is usually clips from his Twitch stream with a short intro edited to the beginning of the video.
→ Sponsorships ←
As we wrote above, Staples was signed by PokerStars to represent the brand in early 2015. In 2019, however, Staples followed the path of many poker pros in ending his sponsorships with Stars. He joined partypoker Team Online instead.
– James Staples Private Life –
→ Love Life ←
Jaime Staples proposed to his girlfriend Rebecca in Paris, on November 22nd of 2018, after 18 months of relationship.
The last 18 months have been the best of my life. I want to make sure that the next 50 years are the same. My best friend, partner in crime, and love of my life. I couldn’t be happier @beccarr94 ❤️ pic.twitter.com/vKZwD55hvf
— Jaime Staples (@jaimestaples) November 22, 2018
→ Scandals ←
His odd weight loss prop bet
In 2017, eccentric billionaire and avid poker fan Bill Perkins booked an unusual prop bet with the Staples brothers, Jaime and Matt. The Canadian poker pros would have to be within 1 pound of each other in body weight in a year. They were putting up $3,000 against Perkins’ $150,000, so they were getting some good odds, 50:1.
At the time of the initial weigh-in, Jaime was at 304 lbs, while his younger brother, Matt, weighed 134 lbs.
The poker playing siblings managed to pull it off and won the bet. On March 25th, 2018 when the bet was due both of them weighed in at 188.3 lbs! That’s a stunning, 155.7-pound loss for Jaime, and an impressive, 54.3-pound gain for Matt. Matt put on some of that weight by eating a large meal on the last day and guzzling a huge amount of water.
The story received attention from even outside the poker media. For example, they were featured on ABC’s long-running morning show Good Morning America.
– Jaime Staples on Social Media –
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/pokerstaples/ 120,000 followers Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7tffpR__YXghv3ypgpE7fg 66,000 followers Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaimestaples 33,200 followers Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimestaples/ 29,000 followers Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pokerstaples 17,000 followers
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