Clear for Takeoff: Christopher Usude on Poker and His Private Jet Business

By Sean Chaffin

As the new year begins, Christopher Usude has a goal to play more WPT Main Tour events. Most of them in fact. And when it comes to traveling the tournament circuit, he may have a bit of an advantage over some of his competitors. As one of the owners of Centurion Black Jets, a private charter service based out of Beverly Hills, he has the chance to ride in style on occasion.

“Sometimes we’ll have an empty leg, which means I can fly back on one of our jets,” says the part-time poker player who’s among the field on Day 2 at the WPT Gardens Poker Championship. “I can just jump on the jet and it’s good.”

A client may have chartered a jet to Miami with no return flight, so Usude can time a trip to play a WPT event at the Seminole Hard Rock. It’s a nice added bonus having one of his jets give him a lift back home. A few poker players have even joined him on occasion.

Usude helped start the company about seven years ago with four other partners – starting small and growing from there. Centurion now has seven jets and offers travelers a luxury flight anywhere in the world. 

“We chartered a lot of jets, so we figured we’d buy one and see how it goes,” he says. “We bought the first one and we just started chartering that a lot, so we decided to buy a few more.”

A business major at UCLA and now living in Hollywood Hills, Usude’s mother is from Barbados and his father is Nigerian. He grew up splitting time between London and the Caribbean. While poker may have been a part-time pursuit, Usude does have more than $157,000 in live tournament winnings. That includes six cashes on the WPT for $87,170. 

“Poker is just a game I play on the side,” he says. “I like the WPT, it’s one of my favorites and I’ve been playing it a lot lately.”

In December, he notched a cash at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic and is now looking for another at the Gardens. He doesn’t play at casinos except in tournaments, but is a regular in some Beverly Hills cash games. When not playing poker, he enjoys spending time with his 7-year-old daughter.

On his second bullet at the Gardens, Usude had about 150,000 in chips by the second break in the day. However, he was quickly back to a starting stack after his Ace-King lost go Ace-Queen and 9-9 lost to Ace-Jack. He’s hoping his chip stack soon take flight again.

Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas, and his work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions.