A throng of 8,242 players turned out for last weekend’s installment of the PokerStars Sunday Million. The crowd blew away the $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool, ballooning the total purse to nearly $1.7 million. In the end, PokerStars member grifo173 banked $242,000 for the win, defeating Daniel Deoxyribo Strelitz heads-up. Finishing in the fourth spot was Devin TranquilChaos Porter (pictured at right), a member of the online poker community ever since its second month in existence. Porter earned $82,000 from the event in one of his first major scores since becoming a father.

Instead of playing all day last Sunday, Porter told PocketFives.com that he was going to take it easy. Rather than load up 15 tables and play out the day, Porter only entered two of the richest events held, the PokerStars Sunday Million and Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed. He explained, “I'm a huge Miami Dolphins fan was all fired up for their game against the New Orleans Saints. When [Miami] went up by three touchdowns, I thought, ‘They got this in the bag; I can play a couple.’” The Saints would later go on to win 46-34.
With nine players left in the Sunday Million, Porter shoved his 14 big blind stack from the button with K-5. The player in the small blind tanked before calling with A-Q, but Porter hit a king to save the day. He noted that if he had lost the hand, he would have been crippled to just two big blinds. The longtime PocketFiver commented, “It's a pretty standard play, especially when people are playing so tight at the Sunday Million final table and especially if he was actually thinking about mucking A-Q.” Despite juggling the time commitments of being a father and poker, Porter racked up $100,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the Online Poker Rankings during the first 25 days of October.

Becoming a father has put a new series of demands on the poker star’s plate. Instead of taking a loose approach to his tournament schedule, his day now requires careful planning. He commented, “I’ve been telling myself for months now that I need to get into cash games more so I can be free to be a dad and not be tied down for five hours in a multi-table tournament.” He was largely absent from the felts for two months following the birth of his child and just began to reemerge during the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) in September.

In 2005, Porter took fourth in the Ultimate Bet Aruba Poker Classic (pictured at right) for $200,000. In 2006, he grabbed third in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Mirage Poker Showdown for another $332,000. In 2007 and 2008, the Utah native recorded six-figure paydays in two WSOP tournaments. On his WPT and WSOP success, Porter told PocketFives.com, “I was playing pretty much every WPT event west of the Mississippi River before and I haven’t played one in a while.” He plans to head to the Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic in December, but added that he’s not rushing to find high-stakes live tournaments to buy into: “It’s nice to be playing for seven-figures, but I'm boring and like being home with the family.”

Mason Porter (pictured at left) was born on May 28th. His arrival into the Porter household has changed the scene dramatically for the industry veteran, who admitted, “I was lucky enough to final table some big events before I got ‘tied down’ with kids and whatnot. Thankfully, we can afford everything we want without worrying too much about having to grind online.” He plans to venture into six-max and heads-up cash games to be able to maintain a loose schedule, just in case a diaper needs changing.

Last time we checked in with Porter, he was contemplating a car purchase. He ended up settling on a spanking new BMW 325i (similar to the one pictured at right). However, his new ride will soon be hitting a used car lot, as Porter told us that he is instead purchasing an SUV. With snow for a portion of the year in Utah, he doesn’t want to take any chances.

Here were the results from the October 25th running of the PokerStars Sunday Million:

1. grifo173 - $242,480
2. deoxyribo - $177,203 (Deoxyribo)
3. Pokerpiggen - $123,630
4. tobias fuke - $82,420 (TranquilChaos)
5. subby1 - $65,936
6. moseley8 - $49,452
7. nickj7777 - $32,968
8. JBlaze20 - $18,132 (JoeBlazenyc)
9. AKSchwan - $12,775