Jason Somerville has kicked off his shoes and allow them to rest under a chair toward the back of the room. He shuffling around, reserving--maybe restraining--his energy. In front of him sit dozens of people, all looking forward to just one thing: what Somerville will say next.

From a couple of feet away, someone suggests it is time for Somerville to start. The young man, one legions of individuals know as jcarver, responds first by clicking his iPhone and holding the screen up for all to peer. It reads 4:57pm.

The implication is apparent: Somerville is meant to start out simply because everybody within the room is set? What if somebody is running down the hall seeking to make it to the Q&A before the primary question?

"I'm an on-time roughly guy," Somerville says aloud, and resumes kicking his stockinged-feet across the carpet of the Resorts Hotel ballroom.

Promptly at 5pm--and not a second later--Somerville grabs the microphone and opens up what amounts to a live version of a Reddit Inquire from me Anything.

"This is your chance to invite belongings you were too embarrassed to invite in Twitch chat," Somerville tells his assembled fans. "I CANNOT imagine what that will be."

The on-time roughly guy is able to again live his life aloud in front of a crowd.

Somerville earlier within the day hosting the overall table of his Run It Up Resorts Rumble

For the the uninitiated, Jason Somerville's resume begins like numerous modern poker players. He took empty pockets and turned them right into a small fortune. Before he was TWENTY YEARS old, he turned $100 into $100,000 within the span of 1 year. Since then, he's won millions of bucks and a legion of fans, and he's done it in some way that just about no person else within the poker realm has managed to do.

For more on Somerville's back story, read this in-depth profile from 2014

Unlike live poker pros who're only serious about grinding all day everyday between the solitude in their headphones, and in contrast to the net pros who sit before a bank of monitors covered in finely-tuned Heads-Up Displays in their opponents' statistical proclivities, Somerville is a professional of a distinct sort. Sure he plays poker just about all day and almost every day, but he does it live to tell the tale the internet's Twitch platform for all his fans to look at. It's a part of a small empire Somerville has built for himself, one he calls Run It Up, and one who has afforded him celebrity status both within the poker world and online gaming communities. Just last week, he had 30,000 people watching him simultaneously while he played a PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker event. If he'd been playing in Madison Square Garden, he could've filled up the sector along with his fans and left 12,000 outside waiting to get in.

Want to play with Jason on PokerStars? Click here to get an account.

This isn't something that only happens occasionally. That sort of one-day event adds as much as millions of views per thirty days from individuals who join his channel for $4.99, paying to join the Run It Up warrior nation, individuals who watch Somerville during his hours-long streams that he has, within the past, done for as much as 70 consecutive days.

How does he do it? What makes him so special?

Well, there are many things, but there may be person who he specifically confessed that Saturday afternoon in Atlantic City.

"I'm beyond the purpose in my life where I NEED to be a cog in someone else's machine," he said.

Somerville performing in front of a crowd of 30,000

This afternoon, sitting off within the wings, is a person with a large smile on his face. Each joke Somerville cracks makes the man's smile wider. If you happen to watched close enough, you'd see there may be greater than amusement on his face. Each smile is lit up with pride. Scott, Jason's father, is for the primary time attending to watch his son perform live.

"I have no idea how he talks and stays creative and energetic from starting to end," Scott admits. "He has endless energy."

For more in regards to the event, see Run It Up Resorts Rumble: A destination and a journey

Somerville's parents drove to Atlantic City from Manhattan where Scott is a builder. They have been watching their son turn himself right into a one-man online empire for the past decade, but they'd never seen him work a crowd. It'd be a heady moment for any parent. It's something to look your son's first paycheck. It's another thing to look him signing autographs.

"My wife and that i thought he could be a lawyer because he's so good at arguing, so good at debating," Scott said. "This was his own creation."

That's to not say the primary paycheck wasn't momentous, in addition. A decade ago, when Somerville was still a teenager, he aroused from sleep his father at 3am to announce he'd just won $35,000 in a poker tournament. Scott, sleepy and nonplussed, responded as any father might.

"I said, 'Sure, son. Show me when the check comes,'" Scott said. "The check arrived, and we went out and acquired him a brand new sports car. That made it real. From that time he have been a meteorite."

Celebrating a win survive Twitch

It's a fabulous and awe-inspiring thing for a person who thought his son would enter probably the most more traditional professional fields.

"You and that i come from different places. We're nuts and bolts guys. The children though, the web is of their blood," Scott said, marveling as his son made time for an additional fan. "He aspired to it. That microphone can also be intimidating, but he knew he desired to overcome it and get comfortable. He puts himself into it 24/7, even if he comes home to chill. He doesn't have time to chill because he's constantly looking to make what he does better."

His parents aren't without concern for Somerville's workaholic ethic. There are nights Somerville will call his dad after an extended stream and beg off the decision because he has three more hours of labor to do before the night is over. It is the more or less thing that makes a parent wish to anchor their child and ensure he doesn't burn out.

At the similar time, Jason's parents encourage him from a decent distance, knowing that their son's success has come almost entirely through his own magic and his ability to make something from nothing.

"I call him The Rainmaker, because he made rain from nothing. He made money from nothing. You cannot have anything but pride," Scott said.

In the center of the room, Somerville is explaining himself for all to hear.

"I don't need to cope with other people," he says unapologetically.

This isn't some kind of blind and misguided misanthropy. It's something Somerville learned on his way up. He's had partnerships with major sports organizations, daily fantasy businesses, and live casinos. His Run It Up life is intricately tied with both the Twitch platform and PokerStars. Nevertheless, Somerville's experience has taught him that he is good when he works with others, and he's great when he works alone. He doesn't just need to be the one cook within the kitchen. He desires to own the damned kitchen, too. Or, to copy: "I'm beyond the purpose in my life where I NEED to be a cog in someone else's machine."

One-man machine

This mindset translates right into a man who's part professor, part showman, part motivational speaker, and part politician. At one point within the Q&A, Somerville turns an issue about whether he can inspire a brand new poker boom right into a diatribe concerning the short-sighted and hypocritical American gaming laws that--with the exception of some states--preclude Americans from playing online poker.

"Doesn't it make you angry? Isn't it so dumb?" Somerville railed. "Let's use this angst. We will use this passion...for change."

If there's a fuel additive for what drives Somerville to spend nearly every waking moment at work, it seems that to be passion. It is a word he uses so much but never lightly. Even if he is also flagging, he finds a little bit extra energy in individuals who still give a damn about desirous to see poker and poker players succeed. He recognizes that what he's doing is greater than creating wealth doing something he does better than anybody else. He sees that he, too, will also be an agent of change. In other words, he won't wish to be a cog in someone else's machine, but he's greater than able to be the driving wheel in an engine of progress.

"I haven't felt this enthusiastic about poker in a protracted time," Somerville said.

And so he plans. Next week, he takes his Run it Up show to Reno, and if he gets his way, he'll be doing this kind of live event as many as four times a year in America and perhaps overseas. In between those, he'll stream on Twitch at all times. He also mentioned taking the occasional two-week break, but it's unclear if he actually believed he would.

His last little bit of poker advice to the Resorts crowd was simple: "Use your brain, your gut, and your heart. That's good enough to generate income playing poker."

If you're Jason Somerville, that was also exactly what it took to be a rainmaker.

By the time the Q&A session ended, an hour had flashed by. Somerville waited for anyone to dredge up to any extent further questions before telling the assembled fans he'd see them on the party that night. A FEW hours later, Somerville showed up at a fete that may to boot has been hosted in his honor. He could've easily cloistered himself at a table filled with individuals who wouldn't badger him. Instead, he walked the room, ensuring he saw all the individuals who had traveled thus far to look him.

Posing with fans on the after-party

And then, identical to that, he was gone, getting on a plane to fly back to Canada so he could hop right back on his Twitch stream and wind up the Spring Championship of Online Poker.

Somerville called himself an on-time roughly guy, and within the moment he was speaking literally. Regardless, for anyone watching him that day, the meaning was greater:

Somerville isn't just a person who's prompt, but he's also a person who has appeared at just the proper time for poker and the folks who love it.

Want to play with Jason on PokerStars? Click here to get an account.Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging.

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