Online Poker Pro Johnathan Westra Comes Out Swinging at WPT

Johnathan Westra, at 21-years-old, has won one WPT event and taken second in another. (Bodog File Photo)

Johnathan Westra is the kind of guy you want to hate. He’s young, smart, and a helluva good poker player. Unfortunately, he’s also a nice guy so if you’re going to hate him you’ll just end up feeling bad about it.

Since turning 21 last October, the Gainesville, Fl. native has moved from being one of the most dominant online tournament poker players on Bodog to a very serious contender in live tournaments with nearly $300K in live winnings. Not bad for the first seven months of his live tournament career.

Westra’s success isn’t too surprising considering where he lives. That’s right, for some reason Gainseville is a hotbed for young poker players who are in the process of shifting their online dominance into live tournament success.

In fact, on the Bodog yearly Tournament Leader Board five of the top 10 players are from Gainesville: head2782, nevertilt22, FPpoker4, papadelpoker and of course UFPokerStar.

Road to the WSOP is Bodog Nation's series on poker players who qualified for the WSOP through Bodog Poker’s World Series of Poker qualifiers. In each installment we look at the story of a different player headed to Vegas to compete in the Main Event.

Read the full article and interview with Johnathan Westra on Bodog Nation.