In the final days of September, PokerStarsplayed host to its annual World Championship of Online Poker Main Event. The finale brought out over 2,100 players, each winning a satellite or coughing up a buy-in of $5,200. By the time the dust had settled, PocketFiver Dylan Pokerl)evil Hortin (pictured) exited in seventh place and raked in $213,000.

“I’m feeling pretty good about it,” Hortin told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I wish I hadn’t sold so much action, but I am very happy.” Hortin ended up having 26% of himself in the WCOOP Main Event and plans to parlay it into more live event entries. He explained, “I was thinking about WSOP Europe, the Aussie Millions, and WSOP APAC. My friends are going there, so I’ll probably tag along for that. PCA is always a possibility too. That place is fun.”

The buy-ins of the vast majority of online tournaments are smaller than $5,200, which makes the WCOOP Main Event considerably unique. We asked Hortin for his thoughts about a $5,200 online contest: “It is very unique to have such a high buy-in in an online setting. I’ve never played anything higher than that online, but WCOOP and SCOOP present some cool opportunities.”

Hortin described the field that showed up to the WCOOP Main Event as “pretty good,” adding, “High-stakes online MTTs have become very tough. People play very aggressively at pretty much all points in a hand and it’s tough to maneuver. That said, there were definitely some soft spots. There were lots of satellite winners and players I’ve never seen before. Even regs can try a little too hard to be heroes in an event structured as well as this was.”

Finishing one spot ahead of Hortin on the WCOOP Main Event leaderboard was fellow PocketFiver Shane shaniac Schleger (pictured), who banked $291,000. “Playing with shaniac proved to be quite difficult,” Horton told us. “He got me good in two pretty big pots, one in the middle of the day on Day 2 and the other with 10 left on the final table bubble. He is very smart. Both times I got out of line not giving him enough credit. He did a good job of making me think he was pushing me around when he just had it.”

Hortin final tabled a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament during the 2012 World Series of Pokerfor $139,000 and took ninth in another event in the series a week later for $53,000. “I have lots of goals in poker,” Hortin assessed. “But, the biggest hole in my career is that I’ve still never won a live tournament of any buy-in or size. I’ve come close many times, but that’s still something I would love to experience, especially one that has a bracelet at the end. I think I have to focus on playing well and putting in more volume.”

Like other displaced American poker players, Hortin had to relocate in order to sustain his profession. He noted, “It has been a crazy couple of years with Black Friday and all. It took me a while to relocate and I took a lot of time off, so I was rusty and didn’t play much, but I’m back on the grind and determined to do more.”

Online, PocketFives’ 175th ranked player won the PokerStars Sunday Second Chance earlier this month for $42,000 and took down the Sunday 500 three years ago for $87,000, the second largest cash we have tracked for him.

He got his start in poker after watching the game on television and becoming interested in it. He migrated online and “put in a lot of time between graduating high school and going off to college, and it took off from there.” Hortin closed by giving a shout out to “all of my friends and family for the fun rail and support. It was a lot of fun to share the run with them.”

The WCOOP and other big-time series run regularly on PokerStars. If you don’t already have a PokerStars account, sign up through PocketFives’ link and make a deposit to get one free month of PocketFives MTT Training. You’ll also get a 100% up to $600 sign-up bonus. Click here for PocketFives’ PokerStars link.

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