You might not have heard of Austria’s Stefan Jedlicka (pictured), but you have definitely heard of his online user name, mindgamer. He is currently #7 in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings, his highest position ever, and recently chopped the PokerStars Sunday Million to walk away with a payday of $129,000.

“I feel very happy and fortunate,” Jedlicka told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I have been running good all year it seems. The Sunday Million has an especially magic feel to it since I played it for years almost every week. I have to say usually I’m not really nervous, but getting deep there, I was super excited and a little nervous.”

Jedlicka got $10,000 more than ICM from the chop, which he called “quite a good deal.” He concluded, “Overall, I still really enjoy playing, although I’m really one of the old school guys these days.”

PocketFives has tracked three six-figure scores for Jedlicka: the Million, a TCOOP High Rollerrunner-up finish in January for $278,000, and a SCOOP $2,100 No Limit Hold’em Six-Maxtournament in May 2012 for $168,000. “This one because it’s the Sunday Million and it has always been a dream to go deep here,” Jedlicka said when asked which of his six-figure scores stood out the most. He added, “The TCOOP High Roller was unreal in the end, flipping for thousands of dollars with a few big blinds each.”

How has he managed to have so much success in large-field tournaments like SCOOP, TCOOP, and the Sunday Million? Jedlicka speculated, “Mostly just running good. Really that’s just the main thing in these big fields, but I also feel like I’m playing better than ever and also have a good balance in life. I don’t play too much, so when I play, I really have fun doing so. After all these years, I still look forward to grinding the Sunday tournaments every time.”

He takes it easy during the week and, instead of grinding, spends time with his girlfriend, plays sports, and hangs out with friends. He admitted, “During the week, tournaments aren’t as big and exciting anyway. I play Sundays religiously and almost always one or two other days during the week. Since I have played every day for quite some time, I realized I enjoyed it more when playing less. I’m also more focused this way.”

He added, “When poker is the only thing in your life, bad beats and bad runs make you feel bad, while for me now it really doesn’t affect me that much. I had a bad summer in Las Vegas and really wasn’t in a bad mood at all. I guess that’s also because I’ve been running good online. I think a good rule of thumb is to only play when you want to.”

He is a product of Magic: The Gathering. One of his friends was churning out $10,000 per month, which, as he said, “seemed unreal to me.” His brother and his friends started playing poker after catching the World Poker Tour on DVD. Additionally, his interest in poker grew even further after catching “Rounders.”

Before poker, Jedlicka completed a year of civil service and “I didn’t really know what I wanted do after that. I traveled to Australia for three months where by chance I stayed with a fellow Magic player who played poker for a living. When I came back to Austria, I just continued playing as a hobby, but realized it could be more than a hobby.”

His brother was influential in turning him onto poker and the two traveled together to live tournaments. Jedlicka assessed, “We have very different approaches to the game, which definitely helped me get better. I also learned quite a lot from CardRunners videos from Cole South, David Benefield, and Brian Hastings. After watching these videos, I just felt better than most of my competition, although today everything is tougher and almost every reg knows the stuff taught in those videos.”

The Sunday Million takes place weekly 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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