Miami" John Cernuto on hospice care, likely has little time left

[Dan Druff]

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/jeanriders/status/1888041794635710504


Jeanne David has appeared on PFA Radio before and is a friend of the show. She is a longtime friend of Cernuto's.

He is 81 years old, was suffering from cancer, and has decided to go off treatment and live out the remainder of his days in hospice. A timetable was not given to the public, but usually in these cases it's a matter of months, and maybe less.

Cernuto did play the WSOP as recently as 2024. His last cash was on July 14, 2024, and he cashed 6 WSOP events that year, all at mixed type events, which were his specialty.

Cernuto's first listed tournament cash was in 1987, but he has been playing poker since 1981, when he took up the game following being fired as an air traffic controller. Cernuto did not do anything wrong at work, but was fired as part of the ATC walkout which occurred that year, where over 12,000 striking ATCs walked off the job and then were unexpectedly fired by Ronald Reagan.

Cernuto was very well liked in the community, known for being quiet and pleasant at the table. He has about $6.5m in Hendon Mob results. There was an attempt to bring him into the Poker HOF last year, but he was not inducted.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/SoftwareBrian/status/1888241905257037975

There is some pressure on the HOF to induct him before he passes, especially because it will become increasingly hard to be inducted now that a lot of the great young players are going to be aging into qualification (40) starting this year. There is a precedent regarding players getting inducted due to news of their death, most recently Devilfish Ulliott and Layne Flack. Cernuto's friends had hoped to see him inducted before he passed, as he will likely not make it out of 2025.

I have played with Miami John before at the WSOP. We didn't have much interaction, but he was polite to everyone. In once instance, John was multi-tabling, playing two events at the same time.

[Dan Druff]

In 2018, John posted a funny story about $4/$8 limit at the Orleans, where two morons failed to get a jackpot due to agreeing to check it down instead of betting.

One had quad aces, one had a royal, both using two hole cards, which met the requirement for the jackpot.

However, the AAAA guy stupidly announced his hand and asked his opponent to check it down, which they did. This violated jackpot rules. Additionally, due to the checking, only $8 got into the pot, which was lower than the $10 requirement for the jackpot to hit!

John tweeted about it: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...t-jackpot-fail

In the above story, Orleans was in the right, and there was nothing either player could do.


It is not clear if John was playing $4/$8 himself at the time, or just present for it.

[tgull]

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/jeanriders/status/1888041794635710504


Jeanne David has appeared on PFA Radio before and is a friend of the show. She is a longtime friend of Cernuto's.

He is 81 years old, was suffering from cancer, and has decided to go off treatment and live out the remainder of his days in hospice. A timetable was not given to the public, but usually in these cases it's a matter of months.

Cernuto did play the WSOP as recently as 2024. His last cash was on July 14, 2024, and he cashed 6 WSOP events that year, all at mixed type events, which were his specialty.

Cernuto's first listed tournament cash was in 1987, but he has been playing poker since 1981, when he took up the game following being fired as an air traffic controller. Cernuto did not do anything wrong at work, but was fired as part of the ATC walkout which occurred that year, where over 12,000 striking ATCs walked off the job and then were unexpectedly fired by Ronald Reagan.

Cernuto was very well liked in the community, known for being quiet and pleasant at the table. He has about $6.5m in Hendon Mob results. There was an attempt to bring him into the Poker HOF last year, but he was not inducted.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/SoftwareBrian/status/1888241905257037975

There is some pressure on the HOF to induct him before he passes, especially because it will become increasingly hard to be inducted now that a lot of the great young players are going to be aging into qualification (40) starting this year. There is a precedent regarding players getting inducted due to news of their death, most recently Devilfish Ulliott and Layne Flack. Cernuto's friends had hoped to see him inducted before he passed, as he will likely not make it out of 2025.

I have played with Miami John before at the WSOP. We didn't have much interaction, but he was polite to everyone. In once instance, John was multi-tabling, playing two events at the same time.

I am sorry, but a couple things in your post:

1) The fact there is a "Poker Hall of Fame" is LOL. The only thing with less credibility is the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame. What, watching Annie Duke giving an acceptance speech, really? Who the fuck would ever attend a Poker HOF ceremony?

2) "Miami John". Miami John give me a break. There are not even 10 people in Miami that even knew this guy existed. Miami John, lol. You could go to 100 bars in Miami and ask about Miami John and they would all say never heard of the guy. Nikki Pipes has a bigger Florida following. Naming a major city after some random poker player, um no.

[zealanddonk]

Serious Q: Wasnt he a sponsored pro on Pokerstars or just involved in hands with you and Neverwin?

[Texter]

I actually attended the HOF ceremony the year Hellmuth got in, I think Barbara Enright did too.

It was boring AF and I left before it was over.

Oddly enough Hellmuth mostly talked about his friend who invented the auto extended warranty, which made no sense to me.

[hesterandeldridge]

he made a couple appearances late last year at the Orleans and you can tell he was not well.. everyone would wish him the best .

[dwai]

[tgull]

I actually attended the HOF ceremony the year Hellmuth got in, I think Barbara Enright did too.

It was boring AF and I left before it was over.

Oddly enough Hellmuth mostly talked about his friend who invented the auto extended warranty, which made no sense to me.

The reason it was as boring as shit is poker players, generally speaking, are the lowest common denominator in the food chain. Just imagine being on your death bed at age 80 and your life achievement was playing cards. Yeah, you get a few celebrities like Doyle and Daniel, but most of these fucking players are pond scum. I give Micon credit, he said long ago hey this poker thing is a dead end and got into bitcoin. Worked out real good for him. But most of these poker fuckers are just monumental deadbeats and die either broke or in debt. Yeah but I won 5 bracelets, yeah nobody gives a fucking shit. No offense to Druff, but when he posts pictures of himself wearing his 20 year old bracelet who the fuck is supposed to be intimidated by that? I played against a guy last year who was bragging he finished 14th or something in a WSOP Horse tournament, I am just like play your fucking hand nobody gives a shit. I clipped him for like a grand and he left the table bemoaning people just don't know how to play the game any longer. Yeah but I got your fucking cash d-bag. I left an hour later with his 10 one hundreds all in my wallet.

[mickeycrimm]

Serious Q: Wasnt he a sponsored pro on Pokerstars or just involved in hands with you and Neverwin?

He was a famous pro long before the poker boom. He didn't give himself the name "Miami John." The poker world was small before the boom. Everybody knew everybody. But John is a common name. They called him "Miami John" as a way to distinguish him from the other Johns.

[Dan Druff]

Miami John is a well known, long-respected old school pro.

That's why there were a lot of people on Twitter upset by the news, even though John is old, and even though many didn't know him well.

Whether he belongs in the HOF is debatable, but he's definitely known to a lot of people in poker, and he's never been dogged by any kind of scandal or negative news.

[tgull]

Serious Q: Wasnt he a sponsored pro on Pokerstars or just involved in hands with you and Neverwin?

He was a famous pro long before the poker boom. He didn't give himself the name "Miami John." The poker world was small before the boom. Everybody knew everybody. But John is a common name. They called him "Miami John" as a way to distinguish him from the other Johns.

My point is there is probably not 10 people in Miami, outside his family that know him as "Miami John". I don't know the guy and wish him well in his afterlife. But these poker guys giving themselves nicknames, or adopting them, is so incredibly shallow. No offense to our gracious site owner, but same thing for him, at what point do you stop putting out little shampoo bottles in front of your cards? 98% are like WTF is this guy doing?

[Dan Druff]

Serious Q: Wasnt he a sponsored pro on Pokerstars or just involved in hands with you and Neverwin?

He was a famous pro long before the poker boom. He didn't give himself the name "Miami John." The poker world was small before the boom. Everybody knew everybody. But John is a common name. They called him "Miami John" as a way to distinguish him from the other Johns.

Correct. Prior to the 2000s, it was very common for players to be given nicknames related to where they were from.

There was even a joke about this in the sitcom "It's a Living" in the 1980s, where Sonny (the pathetic piano player character) comes back having lost his ass in a Gardena (LA area) card room. He's chided by another character for trying to bluff "a guy named after a state", and that was funny at the time because anyone known enough to be nicknamed after a location was assumed to be a poker shark.

The location nickname thing stopped in the 2000s because the poker boom made the community so large that it no longer made sense.

[Sloppy Joe]

Serious Q: Wasnt he a sponsored pro on Pokerstars or just involved in hands with you and Neverwin?

He was a famous pro long before the poker boom. He didn't give himself the name "Miami John." The poker world was small before the boom. Everybody knew everybody. But John is a common name. They called him "Miami John" as a way to distinguish him from the other Johns.

Did anyone know you though?

[Dan Druff]

Miami John passed

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/Ziggy_Susan/status/1889211261348630626



RIP

[Texter]

RIP to Miami John.

Someone mentioned Negreanu in this thread, I wonder how much of Daniels income is from winning at the poker table these days vs his GG sponsorship and social media…

[Texter]

Serious Q: Wasnt he a sponsored pro on Pokerstars or just involved in hands with you and Neverwin?

He was a famous pro long before the poker boom. He didn't give himself the name "Miami John." The poker world was small before the boom. Everybody knew everybody. But John is a common name. They called him "Miami John" as a way to distinguish him from my other Johns.

FIFY

[Kalam]

Correct. Prior to the 2000s, it was very common for players to be given nicknames related to where they were from.

There was even a joke about this in the sitcom "It's a Living" in the 1980s, where Sonny (the pathetic piano player character) comes back having lost his ass in a Gardena (LA area) card room. He's chided by another character for trying to bluff "a guy named after a state", and that was funny at the time because anyone known enough to be nicknamed after a location was assumed to be a poker shark.

The location nickname thing stopped in the 2000s because the poker boom made the community so large that it no longer made sense.

When Ben Affleck first starting playing poker, he used to go to Hollywood Park and play in a mid limit PL Holdem game (5-10 blinds I think). I played in it a few times. This was before the poker boom and NLHE became popular, and it was pretty much all limit and even having a PL Holdem was pretty rare. Anyways, he was already an A list actor at the time, but he went by "Boston Ben" at the table.

[desertrunner]

RIP John.

[tgull]

Miami John passed

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/Ziggy_Susan/status/1889211261348630626



RIP

Druff, in all seriousness you might want to accept the fact this guy at 80 made several deep runs at the 2024 WSOP, he probably was already sick. You on the other hand have been living off that 20+ year old limit win. Maybe you are doing good at live cash games, but you might want to come to grips you may have been a one hit WSOP wonder, much like Vanilla Ice. Even he knew when to hang up the microphone.

[dwai]

Miami John passed

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/Ziggy_Susan/status/1889211261348630626



RIP

Druff, in all seriousness you might want to accept the fact this guy at 80 made several deep runs at the 2024 WSOP, he probably was already sick. You on the other hand have been living off that 20+ year old limit win. Maybe you are doing good at live cash games, but you might want to come to grips you may have been a one hit WSOP wonder, much like Vanilla Ice. Even he knew when to hang up the microphone.