Jason Somerville Comes Out of the Closet
Till a week ago the poker community knew Jason Somerville as a young poker professional from New York with just over $1.7 million in lifetime tournament winnings. His bracelet at the WSOP 2011 is his only first placing. Now another dimension has been added to his personality. On Valentine’s Day last week Somerville put out a long and sensitive blog revealing that he was gay.
The blog began with how the poker community accepts players of all demographics. “If you’ve got the cash, we’ve got a seat open. It doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, Christian, Jewish, a woman, physically disabled, a foreigner, a felon, or smell terrible, we’ll make room for you …” Somerville then pointed out that despite the diversity in the poker community “there is a noticeable lack of openly gay poker professionals”. Vanessa Selbst is the only known poker professional who is openly and admittedly gay. Somerville referred to rumors about Daniel Negreanu and Tom Dwan being gay but was quick to add that these were just rumors.
The most difficult part of the blog was obviously his own confession, first of all to himself. This acceptance came after regularly dating women just to try to convince himself, without success, that he was really straight. Then Somerville revealed this to his closest friends and parents. And now Somerville has spoken to the whole world. Somerville says the summer of 2011 was a period of transformation. He first made a gay friend then, won a WSOP bracelet (which must have given him a great deal of confidence) and realized that he wanted to pursue happiness above all else.
Somerville ends by saying, “If you’ve interacted with me before, you pretty much know who I am, and there probably won’t be many differences in the future. Like I said, I’m just a poker player, after all, and being attracted to guys doesn’t change that.”
As expected the poker community has come out in full support of Somerville. Negreanu, who has a view on everything, said, “Good for you kiddo! Well done.” Maria Ho has herself been the subject of some rumors because of her closeness to Tiffany Michelle. Maria said, “There’s nothing more liberating than being true to yourself. Thank you for sharing with us and much respect.”
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