Finishing in the winner’s circle of the Absolute Poker $100,000 Guaranteed over the weekend was PocketFives.com member Greg gregior Howard (pictured at right). The 21st player on the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings, Howard is one of the top players worldwide and hails from the United Kingdom. His victory was worth $33,000 and Howard is five months removed from a runner-up showing in the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed for $85,000. So how’d he do it? Read on to find out.PocketFives.com: Congratulations on winning the Absolute Poker $100,000 Guaranteed over the weekend. Can you walk us through the event?
Howard: I started well, getting a double up early on with 10-10 versus A-A on a 10-high flop and just played very tight until we got down to about one-third of the field left. I got a few premium hands and won them all pre-flop by open-raising to take the blinds or re-raising to take down the pots pre-flop. This took me to a slightly above average stack with around 35 players left of the 259 who started.
A key hand occurred when the blinds were 300/600 and I was in the big blind with 6-6. My stack was around 25,000 at the time. A short stack shoved for 5,000 from early position and was flat called by the guy on the button, who had 30,000. This guy had been limp-folding quite a lot even at this late stage of the tournament, so I had him tagged as a weak-tight player, although it was possible that he was trapping with a big pair. However, that seemed very unlikely, so I decided to push all-in to try to get it heads-up with a load of dead money in the pot. To my surprise, he called and turned over A-Q. The other guy had A-10, so I was in pretty good shape. When a six flopped, I won a huge pot to take me into fourth place.
I ran really well after that, with almost all of my steals getting through, and I was only getting action when I had the goods. I got to the final table fourth out of nine players, but with three crippled stacks, I decided to play tight early on and ladder a bit. I managed to win a big race when we were five-handed, but got lucky against improved (pictured at left) three-handed when I shoved 160,000 into a 50,000 chip pot with Q-9 on a 10-J-2 flop. The guy in third place was on eight big blinds, so I knew improved would only call with a very strong hand. He ended up calling with A-J, but I rivered a straight.PocketFives.com: What significance does this win carry? You’ve had several other large scores in your career, including victories in the PokerStars Super Tuesday and Full Tilt $1K Monday.
Howard: I have been on a real heater the last few months with plenty of five-figure scores, but they had been drying up a bit recently, so I was beginning to think that I was entering a dreaded downswing. Hopefully, my luck will hold out a little longer.
PocketFives.com: How did you get started in poker?Howard: I have played cards with friends since I was 10. We used to play Three Card Brag. I have always to bet on horses and noticed that the online bookmaker I used had poker, so I downloaded it about five years ago and was hooked from the start. I lost a ton in the beginning, but could see that it was a game of skill that could be beat if I put my mind to it. I became breakeven in my second year of playing and was profitable by my third. Three years ago, I was made redundant in my job and got a decent payoff, so I decided to give full-time online poker a serious try. It hasn't been easy, but I'm still here.
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