JASON SOMERVILLE INTERVIEW
Jason Somerville exemplifies a new breed of business-savvy poker players, says Sean Chaffin.
ith more than $3.6 million in lifetime tournament winnings, Jason Somerville is a titan at the poker table. The 30-year-old scored a World Series of Poker bracelet in
Pokerpreneur W
2011, has numerous big scores to his name, and is also a star at the virtual poker felt with more than $2 million in winnings online.
Beyond that, Somerville has set himself apart in a
crowded world of vagabond poker pros – heading a growing company focused on his online poker stream platform (in which he comments and narrates his play for a live audience), a busy merchandise sales business, a growing tournament series, and has even recently taken over the online web-streaming presence for events like the Aussie Millions.
As larger companies like the World Poker Tour,
WSOP, and PokerStars continue to expand their reach and newcomers like PokerGO reach out for even more poker fans seeking live tournament and cash-game action, Somerville’s
RunItUp.tv venture has found a niche as a daily proprietor of poker strategy, entertainment, and a unique brand within the industry.
The expanding entity now brings in millions of
viewers online and many of those fans have been converted into customers beyond their laptop screens.
STREAM ON The growing Somerville phenomenon began a few
years ago on YouTube with “Run It Up,” a bankroll challenge series in which he tried to run a certain dollar figure up to an even larger figure over a certain amount of time. The video blog on YouTube was in conjunction with Ultimate Poker, a now-defunct Nevada-based online poker company. When Ultimate folded, Somerville continued with his YouTube broadcasts and eventually found another poker sponsor in PokerStars.
“I was just trying to be entertaining and educational,” he says of those early days.
Somerville’s bankroll challenge seemed like a
natural fit, and the company contacted him and set up a trial for three months with certain metrics they hoped his stream would reach.
“We hit those metrics in about nine days and it was a home run from the get-go,” Somerville says. “And I’m taking it very seriously, I dedicated a huge percentage of my life and resources to building this team over the last two years.”
A BRAND IS BORN
Since moving his RunItUp platform to Twitch, Somerville’s brand has grown to be one of the more popular streams on the site. Beyond building his own presence, he also sees Twitch as a way to grow poker to a younger crowd.
“There are so many new players,” he says. “People just see poker as a category on Twitch and when I’m streaming, at my highest numbers we’re getting 10,000 or 20,000 viewers, that puts us in one of the highest categories on Twitch.”
Originally from Long Island, New York, Somerville
has become a bit of a poker nomad since the U.S. government closed down Internet poker. Now a state- by-state issue (with online poker only legal in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware), Somerville has split time between New Jersey and Canada over the last year so he can play and stream online.
RunItUp has even reached No. 1 on Twitch several
times – with players from all around the world checking out Somerville’s action.
“You may have no idea who I am, you may never
have watched poker before and you go, ‘Wow, 20,000 people are watching this dude, something
54 OCTOBER 2017
Those efforts worked and he began to build an audience. When Twitch was bought out by Amazon, the company was directed to look for other non-video game categories and help expand the platform and build the brand. Twitch experimented with categories like music, art, and cooking. Poker was also seen as a potential driver of young viewers.
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