That's a 50 Cent reference, by the way. The latest Triple Crown winner on PocketFives is Shorty81. A Finnish player, Shorty81 came away with wins in three $10,000 prize pool MTTs across three sites tracked for the PocketFives Online Poker Player Rankings within a seven-day span. Shorty81 only need six days to accomplish the feat and built up a bomb of over 600 PLB Points in the process."I'm feeling great," Shorty81 told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. "This is my first Triple Crown. I've had two wins during a week with one to three days left to try for the third win before, but haven't succeeded until now. I checked and only two other Finns have Triple Crowns, so it's not that common among us."
His Triple Crown bid began on July 16 with a win in a $20 tournament on Betfair for $2,700. The Ongame Network contest boasted a $13,000 prize pool and Shorty81 racked up 114 PLB Points in the process. Then, it was onto PokerStars, home of the Big $55, which he took down for $16,000 and a mammoth 319 PLB Points. Finally, on July 22, he emerged victorious in a $276 tournament on Ladbrokes for $9,300.
As you can tell, the Big $55 was his signature win among the three. On the PokerStars tournament, the newest Triple Crown winner told us, "It hasn't always been in my regular schedule during the week, but sometimes I play it. I haven't had any big success at PokerStars during last five years, so it's nice to succeed there also. The start wasn't that great in the tournament, but after I got in the money, things started to click. Then, it started to be more like MTT poker and I had a nice stack. That's where I'm at my best: when the prizes start to matter."His Big $55 victory left him one tournament short of a Triple Crown with only a handful of days left to accomplish the feat. He wasn't going to sit back and wait until the last minute, however: "I usually take Friday and Saturday off, but decided to give it a go on Friday for the Triple Crown and failed. Then, I basically played only selected tournaments on Sunday that would qualify for the Triple Crown and managed to win one of the early ones that day at Ladbrokes."
Did we mention that Shorty81 has three kids under the age of three? We were quite impressed he had time to play online poker, and interview with us, in the first place: "Our twins just turned one year old two weeks ago and only when my mother-in-law has been able to help us with the kids, I've been able to put in a higher volume of MTTs. Otherwise, it has been more like a day here and another there, so getting into a rhythm has been a bit tough." That's a lot of diapers.
Shorty81 is 31 years old and became seriously interested in the game of poker like many American players did, after watching "Rounders" in 2000. He's been playing casually since age four, when his grandma schooled him in Five Card Draw and Five Card Stud. He made his first online poker deposit at age 21 and has been playing on his computer for the last decade.He closed by saying, "I want to thank PocketFives for having an awesome site and tracking players for the Rankings. I used to be at the top of the Finnish rankings in 2007 and 2008, but there weren't too many Finns registered on PocketFives at that time, so I can't take too much credit for that. My volume probably isn't big enough to make the top 100 easily, but I've been around #500 a lot lately. Good job guys and thanks for the interview."
Patrik Antonius, Ilari Sahamies, and Juha Helppi are all members of the Finland poker community. PocketFives has nearly 350 registered Finnish players and plenty more who visit our site each month. Finland is #21 in our Country Poker Rankings and has laid claim to a total of four Triple Crowns.
Visit our Triple Crown Wall of Champions to learn more.
