– General Information –
Jean-Robert Bellande is an American professional poker player. He was born on September 17th, 1970. He’s also appeared on CBS’s reality show Survivor: China.
Bellande, aka JRB or “Action Bob”, has won a WSOP gold bracelet in 2018. Overall, he has around $3 million in live tournament cashes. That number could be a lot higher given the years he’s spent in professional poker – however, he mostly plays live cash games.
Recently, most poker fans know him for his infamous punt with 53 suited in a super high stakes Triton cash game.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2005: He receives national attention from the poker media for his performance in a televised $10K WSOP Circuit event in Las Vegas. He catches the public’s attention for his aggressive table talk.
- 2007: He appears on CBS’s reality show Survivor: China.
- 2015: He comes in 2nd in the $50,000 WSOP The Players Championship for $784,828.That is his biggest single live tournament cash to date.
- 2018: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet in the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event for $616,302.
– Jean-Robert Bellande’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
Bellande was born in the US to Haitian immigrant parents. His family moved to Taiwan when he was 5 years old, that’s where he grew up. He moved back to the US after high school and graduated from Azusa Pacific University with a degree in marketing. During his college years, he made some money on the side by playing pool, and dabbled in poker as well.
After college, Bellande was working as a club promoter in California.
According to an interview with Bluff Magazine, one day in 1998, JRB won $5,000 in a game of pool in a place called Hard Times. He went over to the Bicycle Casino with his winnings. He first ran it up to $25,000 playing California blackjack, then went over to a $60/$120 mixed game poker table where he lost $13,000.
However, he got hooked on the game. In the first few years, he was a massive losing player at the high stakes tables. He managed to turn it around in his third year of playing poker on a regular basis. Eventually, he made enough at the tables to quit his job and go pro.
He was noticed by the national poker media in a $10K WSOP Circuit event in Las Vegas which was broadcast live on ESPN.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Jean Robert Bellande’s Hendon page shows $2.977 million in live tournament earnings. It’s a sum of 60 different cashes over the course of 18 years. JRB’s not the most prolific live tournament player because he focuses on high stakes live cash games instead.
His first recorded live ITM finish is from May 2001. He won a $145 Omaha Hi-Lo tourney at the Mini Poker Series in the Bicycle Casino for $6,450.
For the next 4 years, he cashed in a number of $300-$2,000 buy-in events across the US. His big break came in March of 2005.
He finished 3rd in the $10K WSOP Circuit Main Event in Las Vegas for $210,900. That event was broadcast live on ESPN and the final table featured such recognizable poker stars as Jennifer Harman or Phil Ivey. Thanks to his lively table presence and aggressive table talk, Bellande drew quite a lot of attention to himself from the poker fans. That was also the first time he made a 6-figure tournament score.
In the same month, he also won a $2,500 event at “the Bike” for $148,000. That summer, he started playing the WSOP events regularly. Since then most of his biggest cashes are from the World Series.
In April 2005, he came in 2nd in a $2K event at the WPT Five-Star World Poker Classic in the Bellagio for $123,385. He also finished 3rd in the same event for $63,557 a year before, in December 2004. In January 2010, he took 2nd place in the $5K PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Mixed Game event for $58,975.
→ World Series Of Poker ←
Bellande has won one WSOP gold bracelet so far. He beat the field in the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event for $616,302 in 2018.
In 2015, he came in 2nd in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship mixed game event. He lost the heads-up battle for the title to Mike Gorodinsky. JRB had to be contented with the $784,828 second prize, which is the biggest single live tournament score of his career to date.
He has another runner-up finish from the 2009 $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout event. He earned $173,564 for that performance.
Overall, Bellande has cashed in 25 WSOP tournaments for a total of $2,100,574.
That includes 4 ITM finishes in the Main Event. They came in 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2019. The highest one is from 2011 when he eventually busted in 65th place for which he got $108,412.
→ Live Cash Games ←
As we wrote multiple times above, this is Bellande’s bread and butter in poker. Being a successful club promoter and amateur pool player in Los Angeles, he started out at the high stakes tables right off the bat.
He lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first two years of playing. However, he turned things around and became a professional player.
Bellande is a frequent guest in Bobby’s Room, the world’s most famous super high stakes cash room at the Bellagio. He’s a close personal friend of Bobby Baldwin, the man the legendary room is named after.
In August 2017, he tweeted out this interesting picture.
In it, you can see online poker legend Tom Dwan, Instagram superstar Dan Bilzerian and the aforementioned Bobby Baldwin playing poker in Bobby’s Room.
JRB is also a regular feature in Triton Poker’s super high stakes, live streamed cash games.
He also appeared on both versions of Poker After Dark. He played on the old show airing late nights on NBC between 2007 and 2011; as well as Poker Central’s revived version of PAD.
In August 2018, he got into this memorable hand against Phil Hellmuth on the new show. Many in the online poker community criticized both Bellande’s and Hellmuth’s play in this pot.
→ Online Poker ←
Bellande’s screen name on PokerStars is “Jaqueline”. He mainly played high stakes 8-game cash games. However, the sample that is available online on that account shows that he lost over $1.375 million after playing just 32,360 hands.
→ Sponsorships ←
Bellande used to be an ambassador to the Aria Casino in Las Vegas. He quit his position in March 2019.
→ On Survivor: China ←
In 2007, he was a cast member on CBS’s reality show Survivor: China. In these shows, cast members are brought to an exotic location where they have to complete challenging physical and mental tasks while competing in so-called “tribes”. Each week, a person is voted off by the audience.
JRB finished 9th out of 16 contestants. In 2013, another famous poker pro, Garrett Adelstein appeared on another season of Survivor.
→ Scandals ←
His infamous punt with 53 suited in the Triton cash game
In June 2019, Bellande played a session of KRW1,000,000/1,000,000/2,000,000 NLHE cash game in Jeju, South Korea, organized by Triton Poker. One hand from that night will forever live in infamy.
He got dealt 53 of hearts in the small blind. He 3-bet to KRW32 million (around $27,000) after an UTG open. When it got back around the original raiser, Yu Liang, the Chinese player decided to 4-bet to KRW76 million with AK off-suit. Then, something inexplicable happened.
JRB shoved instantly, just to get called just as quickly. He managed to lose a KRW88 million ($750,000) pot by going all-in preflop with 53…
After the cards were shown down, the table talk ceased. To make things worse, his staker, the German pro Andrew Robl was sitting at the table as well.
In the very next hand, JRB lost the remaining of his stack after his pocket Aces got cracked by pocket 9’s.
Joe Ingram made a funny edit of this low moment of Jean-Robert Bellande’s career.
