Jaqueline is the PokerStars screen-name for professional live cash-game specialist Jean-Robert Bellande.
Jean-Robert Bellande is a legend in the poker world, although probably less for his poker prowess and more for his larger-than-life personality (and physique, 'JRB' is a hulking 6'6''), his wild gambling stories, and his propensity to go broke before battling back to the big-time. Jean-Robert Bellande has been to the brink and back so many times he even named his twitter account @BrokeLivingJRB.
JRB was born in New York in September 1970 to Haitian parents. From the age of 5-18 he live in Taiwan before moving back to the States to study for a degree in Marketing.
By 21 JRB had moved to LA and was earning $3k-$5k a week as a nightclub promotor, and used to use his wages to supplement a penchant for gambling at the pool halls. After a good ($5k) win one evening he decided to play some blackjack, spinning his winnings up to $20k before stumbling across an $8/$16 mixed poker game and jumping in. Despite not knowing the rules JRB fell in love with the game. By the end of the first night his love for gambling saw him lose $13k in an $80/$160 game! JRB estimates he lost at least $100k before he started to see any returns. Eventually though, he became a winning player in the games, although he admits he often used to play way too high for his roll/talent.
Bellande was only introduced to NLHE a good ten years after he started playing poker when 6 time WSOP bracelet winner, Jeff Lisandro recruited him to run a poker room in Prague in 2003.
Back in Las Vegas JRB says he constantly built up his roll to allow him a very comfortable living before inevitably busting himself out. He tells one story where he sat down in a big game with a couple of buy-ins and ran it up to an enormous $1.6m stack in a no-limit game before getting it all-in for a $3.2m pot with just top pair and running into a set. Of the pot JRB said, "I was devastated because I played the hand so poorly. It was just tragic"
These days JRB is doing a lot better and when questioned by CardPlayer in 2015 whether he was a winning player lifetime he quickly replied, "Yes, yes. It would probably surprise all but the couple of people who know me very well, but I’m very, very positive lifetime.” Just a week after the interview went out JRB won $785k for finishing 2nd in the WSOP $50k Poker Player's Championship, thus proving his point!
JRB explains that he manages to stay on top (most of the time) down to good game selection, saying; “Thing is, someone said about Isildur1, he’s probably the 16th best PLO player in the world, but he just loves playing with the top 15 players. I’m probably not in the top 1,000 NLH players in the world, but the guys I try to play with are certainly not in the top 10,000 in the world"