Joe Elpayaa is a typical young man. Typical, that is, if you ignore the fact that he has won more money playing online poker than the “average Joe” makes in ten years. On January 29th, I was writing up a report of aaronbeen’s success on UB, and as usual I wanted to come up with a catchy title. “Redefining the Sick Day” worked nicely for the title and theme of the article. That same day, <SPAN>PokerJoe9</SPAN> was going about crushing the competition, which is nothing new to him of course, but when the dust settled he had set a new standard in sickness. In four tourneys he had two wins, two seconds and just shy of $80,000. <READMORE>

I believe CrazyMarco said it best when he said, “I didn’t know it was possible to win that much in online MTTs when it’s not Sunday.” Joe cut his teeth in online poker on Paradise, where he won over 30 MTTs last year. He took his bankroll built in Dise’s juicy rebuys and was soon dominating across all sites. On Pokerstars, where he plays as <SPAN>BigEgypt</SPAN>, he won both $100 rebuys on Monday. Those two wins alone were worth $50,000.

“I wasn’t going to play in the second rebuy until Hatty [hattrick8810] talked me into it,” Joe said of his two $100 rebuy wins. Good advice there from another very talented player. The two second places came on Full Tilt where Joe claims to be “doomed.” One was in a $163 freezeout, netting him a paltry $4500, and the other came in the big Monday $1k buy-in, which was actually his biggest payout of the day, $28k. If that is doomed, I don’t want to be blessed.

The second place in the $1k was disappointing primarily because he wasn’t able to play it out heads up. Joe lost his connection right at the end, and he had to scramble to have his brother take over. It may have turned out the same, as he lost a big race at the end with AK vs. 77, but I’m sure he would have preferred to be in charge of his own fate. Disconnects are one of the perils of online gaming, I suppose. Possibly the only real gambling a good poker player does online is with his internet connection.

But wait, there’s more! Joe warmed up to his amazing day by winning the Sunday $500 buy-in freezeout on UltimateBet for a tidy $18k. He also narrowly missed another big score in the $50 freezeout on stars, where he finished 8th when his AQ couldn’t outlast his opponent’s KQ. All in all, over the two days, Joe Elpayaa banked nearly $100k, which is especially impressive considering that there were no mammoth Sunday scores; only big-time wins in big-buyin tourneys against the top players on the net.

In a bit of a role reversal, Joe Elpayaa introduced his older brother to poker, and adamoos has had his share of success online as well. The two used to play games with friends in their parents' basement before they graduated to big money games online. They are also wisely investing their poker winnings together in a Condo in downtown Chicago. Older brother Adam is finishing up at University of Illinois, and Joe plans to attend UIC, Loyola, or Depaul so he can live in the condo while it appreciates.

“BigEgypt” comes from Joe’s father, who was born and raised in Egypt. Joe learned his competitive edge early in sports, and while the rest of his family has been to visit Egypt, he always stayed home for one competition or another. Perhaps soon he will be touring the world on the poker circuit to make up for what he missed.

When I asked Joe about his choice of games, he said, “I used to play a lot of heads up cash games, but that is mostly in the past. I have decided to get back to tourneys now. I feel like I can’t ever lose money playing MTTs.” That may sound odd to some of us who have seen weeks and weeks go by without a win, but Joe has a right to such confidence, as this latest display is only the capstone to a brilliant career, and I’m sure the best is yet to come.</READMORE>