Felipe improved Montenegro made the final days of the 2009 calendar year count. On December 12th, the 25th player in the Online Poker Rankings took down the PartyPoker $12,000 Guaranteed for $3,400. Felipe went on to win a tournament on UB.com, where he bested the field in the site’s $15,000 Guaranteed, adding another $7,300 to his bankroll. For his final act, Montenegro won the $100 rebuy on Full Tilt Poker for $13,000. The result was well over $20,000 to Montenegro’s bottom line and 494 PLB Points. PocketFives.com sat down with the Costa Rican to recap his new profile badge.The month of December was very kind to Montenegro. His wins during the month included the Full Tilt $30 rebuy, Cake Poker Daily $10,000 Bounty, Cake Poker $20,000 Guaranteed, and the three tournaments that comprised his Triple Crown. As a result, he racked up $169,000 in Rankings-eligible cashes over 113 in the money finishes. Montenegro recapped the final month of 2009: “I was having a rough two months. September and October were disasters and UB.com and Titan Poker kept me afloat. Then, I plugged a few leaks, started running decently, and the last month has been really good.”
Montenegro gave us an inside peek at what changes he made to bring on his newfound success: “I was playing too aggressively, trying to abuse the donks and bluff them off hands I knew they had. I was also trying to re-shove people with the wrong stacks, forcing situations and hoping for the best.” In the latest release of the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings, Montenegro held the 25th best Pro Poll score worldwide and the 29th largest PLB sum.
Montenegro has been a member of the online poker community since 2006. His past accolades include winning the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed for $135,000 and the site’s $150 rebuy for $72,000. He’s also won the UB.com $100,000 Guaranteed Deep Stack and the Full Tilt $100,000 Guaranteed. So how tough is it for a successful player to re-examine his fundamentals? Montenegro explained, “If you let your ego get in the way, then you have no shot, but if you are constantly trying to get better, then it is easier. I know I make mistakes every time I play, but if I am aware and able to accept them and learn from others, then I’ll get better every day.”
On December 16th, Montenegro final tabled five tournaments, including the $1,000 buy-in UB.com $150,000 Guaranteed. He took third in it for $17,000 and told PocketFives.com, “The $1K is a really tough field. I’ve been bubbling that final table a ton. I would say that out of the last 20 times I’ve played it, I’ve made the last three tables 15 times, but only made one final table. It was nice to get a decent score out of it, even though I really wanted to win it.”
Suffering from tendonitis after a professional tennis career, Montenegro was sidelined and so turned to poker. He recalled, “I was traveling playing professional tennis and, at night, we didn’t have much to do, so someone suggested poker and we started playing. After I got injured and went home, I had nothing better to do, so I started playing poker.” He’s since taken down three Triple Crowns.
Montenegro rang in the new year and the new decade on a farm in the south of Costa Rica. He explained that the latest New Year’s Eve was a welcome departure from his normal routine: “People here in Costa Rica go to the beach and party a lot. I guess I am taking a different route and choosing something very relaxed and chill for once.” He holds a sizable lead in the Costa Rican Sliding PLB at the time of writing. Its leaderboard looked like this:
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