Jon PearlJammer Turner, one of the online poker world’s classiest players, had never reached the final table in a major online tournament series until the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) rolled around. That still shocks me, especially coming from the 45th player on the Online Poker Rankings. That all changed, however, with a runner up showing in Event 12 for $39,000 and then a massive $527,000 payday for placing third in the $10,300 buy-in Main Event. Both final tables took place in high-stakes installments of SCOOP events, breaking Turner’s drought and instilling a considerable amount of confidence heading into the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP).

It’s not very often that you cash for over a half-million dollars online. In fact, Turner is one of just a handful of players in the history of online poker to know what that accomplishment feels like. On what it meant to be in this elite group, he told PocketFives.com, “It’s pretty amazing and it hasn't all sunk in yet. The cash was a big weight off my back.” A total of 502 players entered, with the tournament’s winner ultimately pocketing nearly $1 million. Turner explained his ride through the high-stakes SCOOP Main Event: “I never got lucky in a big pot and never had to win a big race until the final table. I called a couple of big bluffs with sets, but they weren't easy calls. They were always three to a flush on the board and one time four to straight against Chris moorman1 Moorman.”

He entered the final table fourth in chips and promptly grabbed third for $527,000. He took second in the $2,100 buy-in high-stakes installment of Event 12 (Stud High-Low) for $39,000. On Bodog, he won the site’s weekly $100,000 Guaranteed for $23,600 on February 15th. That month also saw the PocketFiver take a backing deal for the first time in his career. With his success in SCOOP, his backing online is but a distant memory. He explained, “I'm going back on my own online, but I'm going to keep the live backing. That's what I've always wanted anyway, so it's working out very well.”

He has a list of live cashes a mile long. He finished third in a $2,500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament held during the Borgata Winter Open in 2007 for $59,000. He finished eighth in the $5,000 buy-in Mixed Hold’em Championship during that year’s WSOP for $46,000. He made a deep run in the 2008 WSOP Main Event, ultimately landing in 225th place for $38,000. Like many successful PocketFivers, Turner is looking forward to the running of this year’s tournament series at the Rio in Las Vegas. He commented, “I'm not going to play in the $50,000 HORSE, $10,000 Stud, or $40,000 No Limit Hold’em tournaments, but other than those, I’ll be in 20 or more events. I'm really looking forward to the two Single Draw 2-7s and the Triple Draw events.”

Last year did not go so well for Turner. He went 0-for-16 in preliminary tournaments in the Amazon Room before his Main Event run. His solution was to regroup and take some time off before the $10,000 featured tournament: “I bubbled a few preliminary events and ran insanely bad overall, so it became pretty frustrating. I ended up skipping five or six events that I'd originally planned to play and just took 10 days off before the Main Event.”

He was a student at North Carolina State University and worked part-time at Circuit City when he began playing poker in home games with his friends. He recalled, “I literally left Circuit City after about one week of playing home games.” Within a year, he moved out to Sin City and began grinding $2/$5 No Limit Hold’em for a living. During the 2005 WSOP, he took 18th in a $3,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event for $19,000 and hasn’t looked back since. He remains one class shy of graduating from NC State and planned to finish up his studies at nearby UNLV. He explained, “I did one semester there, but I wasn't in tune with their system at all. It's a tough high-level computer science class.”

Who does a top-tier player like Turner admire? Here are a few names that may or may not surprise you: “For all-around players, I really admire Daniel Negreanu and Pat TorontoToro Pezzin. Online, Steve gboro780 Gross (pictured at left) definitely stands out as the best right now to me. He's been #1 in my Pro Poll for a while. There are just so many phenomenal tournament players these days, a lot more than there was two or three years ago.” Negreanu is a four-time WSOP bracelet holder with $2.2 million in earnings from the prestigious event series. Pezzin took down the Super Tuesday in February for $80,000. Gross is the #1 player in the world in the Rankings.

With the 12th Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) set to kick off on May 6th, we look forward to reporting on more of Turner’s successes. Congratulations to Turner and all PocketFivers who cashed in SCOOP tournaments.