The last few weeks have been mighty kind to Mikael Viuff Hansen, who is better known in the online poker world as therealfuddebuf(pictured). This Danish player finished third in the PokerStars Sunday Millionfor $114,000 in late August and followed that up with a second place showing in a WCOOP $215 Rebuy for $150,000 a week later. With over a quarter-of-a-million dollars in the books, he will be well on his way to breaking the top 50 worldwide in the PocketFives Poker Rankings when the leaderboard is recalculated on Wednesday.

“It feels pretty good,” Hansen told PocketFives after his Sunday Million score, “but not winning did hurt after being the chip leader three-handed, especially since the guy who finished second had his chat banned, so we didn’t know if he didn’t want to make a deal or didn’t know what to do in order to make a deal.”

Hansen chipped up in the early going of the Sunday Million and ultimately assumed the chip lead when play was short-handed. He promptly lost a coin flip with threes against A-10 to fellow PocketFiver rtinnionafter the latter spiked a straight on the river. The next hand, Hansen had K-J suited on the button and rtinnion 3bet from the big blind. The flop was A-K-J, the money went in, and rtinnion woke up with A-K, ending Hansen’s run. As he put it, “I went from chip leader to out in two quick hands, but we were obviously not that deep, as the Million is always shallow.”

By the way, rtinnion won the Sunday Million outright that week for $213,000.

Hansen works as a production manager for a television network and had been in Brazil covering the World Cup. Afterward, he took a vacation and consequently ended up not playing poker for a few months. The break could have been one of his keys to success. He explained, “I didn’t play much poker for a few months and came back refreshed. Since then, I have played a few sessions and won the Big $109, Sunday Six-Max, and finished third in the Million. That’s pretty ridiculous.”

On what has been fueling his recent hot streak, which has continued well into September, Hansen speculated, “I have been pretty hot and mainly I think it is just variance. Maybe the break helped, as did putting in some extra time at the gym.”

His job certainly throws a wrench in his ability to play poker regularly, as he noted, “I don’t play as much as the other regs because I have a full-time job, so I have to work a bit harder because I don’t have the time others have. Maybe once or twice every year I don’t play poker for a month or two because I simply don’t have the time, but I usually play once or twice every week and then spend some time studying and improving my game. Playing more doesn’t really fit with my job and the rest of the things I do.”

When Hansen isn’t working at a live event like the World Cup, his schedule is pretty flexible and consequently he has been able to register for plenty of WCOOP tournaments. He had three WCOOP cashes on September 8 alone and is up to over $2 million in online tournament winnings over the course of his career.

He wanted to close by sharing the following words of advice: “Having a month like this is really crazy. Playing MTTs, you can have long periods where you struggle with downswings and confidence, so having all the work you do culminate in an insane month is really incredible.”

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