Finishing 143rd in the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event was CardRunners instructor Bryan PrimordialAA Pellegrino. The New Hampshire native cashed for $57,000 from the $10,000 buy-in tournament and recently created his first video for CardRunners focusing on $55 Heads-Up Sit and Gos. Pellegrino, like many online poker players, is known for making prop bets and, according to an article on CardRunners, must play “2,000 HU SNGs at $350+$5, $500+$6, and $1,000 +$11 by August 15th and finish with a 3% ROI or higher” for his latest wager.Despite not making the 2010 WSOP November Nine, Pellegrino told PocketFives.com that he was satisfied with his performance: “The thing that made me feel good was going over the last couple of days, there wasn’t a single hand I’d play differently. At the end, it was two sick coolers.”
In one hand, Pellegrino ran pocket threes into James croll103 Carroll’s (pictured) pocket aces. The flop came 3-7-9, giving the CardRunners instructor bottom set, but Carroll spiked an ace on the turn to go out in front: “That would have put me as the chip leader for the whole tournament,” Pellegrino lamented. His other cooler came courtesy of Josh brikdog24 Brikis.To watch his deep run in the Las Vegas tournament, Pellegrino flew his brother, wife, and a friend to Sin City: “All of my friends and family came out of the woodwork and supported me via Facebook. It’s nice to see the support. It’s nice to have people there, especially in the frustrating spots to calm you down and keep you focused.” Pellegrino played in about 10 tournaments besides the Main Event.
For CardRunners, Pellegrino will predominantly be producing videos detailing Heads-Up Sit and Go strategy. Early on, he told PocketFives.com that he “randomly” fell into Heads-Up Sit and Gos, but faltered. Then, “they started running the $20 Heads-Up MTT twice a day on PokerStars. I ended up winning it twice in one day. That was a big point for me. From there, I ended up finding TwoPlusTwo and the guy staking me was a regular in the Heads-Up forums.”
You can find Pellegrino playing on three to four Heads-Up tables concurrently online and sometimes up to five. Recently, he’s been placating the Super Turbo felts and sits at 13 to 16 at once in order to solicit action. On the differences in the Heads-Up games among the various sites, Pellegrino told us, “The different structures between sites force players to play differently. On Full Tilt, they’re more likely to be jamming pre-flop. The overall aggression on Full Tilt is a lot higher. It’s something I do well, though – being able to feel people out and adjust my play based on stack sizes.”
He signed on with CardRunners a little over a month ago and his first video, a 60-minute look at Heads-Up Sit and Gos, was released on July 6th. Pellegrino talked with CardRunners co-founder Taylor Green Plastic Caby (pictured), who found out that the new instructor also made videos. It was a perfect match and Pellegrino has entrenched himself in the poker training market ever since.
We asked Pellegrino who his pick is in the Main Event, which will resume on November 6th and play down to two. He responded, “I’m going to take the chip leader, Jonathan Duhamel. He was down to 150,000 on Day 5 and we were at the table together. He jammed with A-5 suited from early position, I looked him up with A-10, and he binked a five against me. At that point, I had a million chips and fell pretty short. He’s definitely the kind of player who has the ability to accumulate a huge stack.” Duhamel has a 50% larger stack than the second place November Niner, John JRD312 Dolan (pictured).When he was just 15 years old, a roommate on a class trip turned him onto the game of poker. He won $60 in a week playing nickel-dime games and bought a Georgetown hoodie. He still has the souvenir to this day.
Congratulations to Bryan PrimordialAA Pellegrino and all PocketFives.com members who cashed in the Main Event.










