Jonas ‘donut604’ Mackoff shares how he’s managed to stay successful in poker for the last 10 years.

As anyone who plays poker knows, spending long hours in front of the computer, your eyes darting back and forth across the screen as tables that require attention pop up, can be exhausting. So can live games in cold, dark tournament rooms around the world.

Jonas ‘donut604’ Mackoff has been a member of the PocketFives community for nine years and, over that time period, continues to remain highly relevant. He’s almost found his way back into the top 100 of the PocketFives Rankings and is just a few short days removed from a second place finish in a PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker $2,100 No Limit Hold’em Progressive Super Knockout for over $100,000.

“I have a very solid group of poker friends and a number of them are world-class players,” Mackoff said. “Staying relevant and staying successful mean having the right people to talk strategy with day in and day out. That pays big dividends. This isn’t how I’ve chosen my friends or anything, but it’s worked out nicely.”

The hits keep coming. The SCOOP score was the third largest of his career. During a three-week period in 2014, the Vancouver resident won a Full Tilt Online Poker Series jersey and took down the Super Tuesday for almost a quarter-of-a-million dollars combined.

Mackoff rooms with Noah ‘dirtybrasil’ Vaillancourt as well as a successful cash game player.

“My two roommates are great role models for me in that they commit a lot of time to studying even when they’re winning,” the Canadian said. “Just having them around gives me the opportunity and motivation to study more than I would on my own. We became friends through poker a while back and all happened to be interested in getting a place in Vancouver around the same time.”

Additionally, Mackoff has received coaching from ‘BBZ‘, who also runs a staking service.

“I’ve done a couple of private coaching sessions with him and he has to be one of the most efficient coaches there is,” Mackoff said. “He does it for so many players on a regular basis, which makes him very in-tune with population tendencies and very quick to spot leaks in your stats.”

Whatever he’s done has worked with flying colors. Mackoff is over $3.2 million in career online tournament winnings, is ranked #3 in British Columbia, and should re-crack the top 100 of the rankings worldwide in the very near future.

“I commit time to strategy a few nights a week. Throughout the week we will discuss interesting hands as they come up,” he said.

It’s not just poker friends and intense studying that have him on top of his game after almost a decade. It’s also getting outside, away from the radiation of a computer monitor, to soak in some vitamin D.

“If you wake up, get on your computer, and then go to bed and do it all over again, you’re going to get burnt out. Getting out and doing stuff outside on a regular basis helps with that massively,” Mackoff said.

His activities of choice are soccer, squash, golf, and tennis. Yes, all of those are in his wheelhouse.

“I play on a couple of soccer teams, once a week each. One of those teams plays full 90-minute games and one is a seven-a-side turf league. I try to play squash whenever I can with Chris ‘maxxscam’ Back when he’s in town and we probably do that one or two times a week on average. Now that it’s nicer out, I play golf and tennis as well. Golf is more of a time commitment, so it happens less often.”

His girlfriend has started to take up squash, so when Back isn’t in town, she’s next in line. And his family remains a vital part to his continued success in poker, a game ripe with volatility, uncertainty, and variance.

“I grew up in Vancouver,” Mackoff said, “So, in addition to my girlfriend, I’m lucky to have my parents and one of my sisters still living here. We try to have dinner with them once a week. All of them are great to have around. It’s good to have non-poker people in your life so you’re not always on that same track in your mind.”

After almost 10 years, how much longer can Mackoff keep playing? Can he get another 10 years under his belt using friends, family, and fitness to anchor him and guide him?

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently,” he said of his future. “The game is definitely getting tougher each year for a variety of reasons. We’re all aware of the rake increases and MTT structure changes at PokerStars. There’s also a lot of study material out there for people to improve their game more quickly.”

“I don’t have any solid plans to get out of poker or anything, but I’ve just started to do a bit of non-poker studying,” he added. “If it doesn’t become useful, then at least I’ve learned something, and if it ends up helping me down the road, then that’s great. It’s almost a freeroll; it just costs a bit of time.”