In the beginning of January, poker pro Charlie chaz_man_chazCombes (pictured) came away with the win in the PokerStars Sunday $100 Rebuy following a three-way chop. Combes is now up over $4 million in tracked scores in his profile, thanks in part to the $47,000 windfall that came following the Sunday $100 Rebuy victory. He has been a member of PocketFives for the last four years, so we thought it was fitting to break down the UK player’s win and his recent poker career in general.

PocketFives: Thanks for joining us. Congrats on the victory. Tell us how you’re feeling.

Charlie Combes: The $100 Rebuy win came as a massive relief, ending a huge downswing. For the five months of June to October, I had been on one of the worst downswings in my poker career. The $100 Rebuy win cleared the makeup I was in and gave me some juicy profit.

The win is crucial in a few ways. I can start earning big money again and my confidence is sky high. Confidence and run-good are crucial to playing your A-game and are a lethal combination.

PocketFives: Can you walk us through the final stages of the tournament? The final table was completely full of PocketFivers, including six of the top 100 worldwide.

Charlie Combes: Three-handed, we were all pretty even in chips and decided to chop it up. I’m not greedy when it comes to deals, so I was happy to take what I was fairly due. The table was ridiculous and full of regs. Normally, you get one or two randoms who are more worried about laddering than actually going full out for the win, so I knew there weren’t going to be many soft spots.

I had a lot of history with most of the regs left and knew they weren’t going to be giving chips away cheaply, so I tried to pick my spots wisely and play a tighter pre-flop game. Sometimes on these final tables, you can walk over others with a crazy aggro style to exploit people’s fear in the pay jumps and ICM, but I knew most of these guys would be out for the win.

PocketFives: How much did your poker career change in 2010 when you won the UBOC Championship and Full Tilt $1K Mondayfor over $300,000 total (scores pictured)?

Charlie Combes: 2010 was pretty much my takeoff year for poker and the first time I realized I could actually maintain poker as a job and earn far more money, have more freedom, and see far more of the world than any other job would allow. It was also the year that my mom got off my back to find a proper job once she saw my results and even started to take up poker as a hobby herself.

The UBOC Main Event win was probably the luckiest story of my poker career. It really kick-started it and meant I could start dabbling in the bigger buy-in live events. I was in Madrid for a Full Tilt Poker live event and had a flight booked back to the UK for the morning of the UBOC Main Event for a mate’s birthday party in London. We went out the previous night and, in my drunken state, I forgot to set an alarm. I missed my flight and decided to do an online grind with Ben Warrington (benwa1).

I had never played on UB and he told me about the UBOC Main Event, so I set up an account and went to deposit the $1,100 buy-in, but the maximum deposit was $1,000 because I was a new customer. I sat down on an online cash game table with $500 to try to spin an extra $100 really quickly and the first hand I had, I went nuts pre-flop with an average hand, flopped a gutshot, bet all the way to a rivered straight, and my opponent called with a set. Bink!

I then registered for the UBOC Main Event and went all the way. I couldn’t actually believe it at first. Without missing my flight and binking a straight on the river in the cash game, I wouldn’t have even played it, so I couldn’t believe my luck. That result gave me all the confidence I needed that I could crush the big-stakes games no matter the buy-in or field size. I went on a huge heater and won the $1K Monday and many other majors that year.

PocketFives: How important is it to you to get a signature live score?

Charlie Combes: A huge live result is very important and my next big goal in poker. I want to prove I can mix it up with the very best consistently. Plus, the money is far bigger on the live circuit and can set you up for life. I’ve gotten to the stage now where I want to move on with something else in my life while still playing poker. One live bink would help me invest in property, which is what I want to move into one day.

Only in the last 12 months or so have I put in far more time traveling the live poker circuit, mainly EPTs and a few other events around the world, and have felt my live game slowly evolve. I think I’ve started to crack it. At first, I assumed because poker is the same game online and live, you don’t need to adjust anything, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My first pretty decent live result came in the Masters Classic of Poker in Amsterdam, which is renown for being one of the toughest events. I was top five in chips throughout Days 1 and 2. With 35 players left, I had over triple the average stack, imploded a bit, and spewed in spots I might not have without all the chips, which meant I was crippled going into the final table. I then went to EPT Prague and finished sixth in a $2,000 Turbo. My live goals this year are to final table an EPT and get at least three scores over $100,000.

PocketFives: Remind us how you got started in poker. What were you doing before you started playing professionally?

Charlie Combes: I started in poker at university. I struggled to do any form of studying or even turn up to lectures at university. I partied too much and got distracted from my studies, so after two years, I was a little lost on how I could make good money while doing something I enjoyed with a degree. One of my housemates mentioned that he watched a bit of poker and saw potentially how much money you could make. Since the freedom of being your own boss and thought of traveling the world really appealed to me, it sounded too good to be true.

I then moved back to my parents’ house while my mates were studying hard for their third and final year. I really put in the time to practice, read up, and see how some of the best players did it. It was pretty hard explaining this to my mom with all her dreams of me getting a degree and blossoming into the future PM, but she wanted me to be happy and that wasn’t going to happen being stuck in an office doing to the same thing day in and day out.

Eventually, she understood the potential that poker could bring and supported me throughout the early days of my career. Even when I went broke a few times the first year, she gave me a bit extra to try to spin it up. Thanks, mom!

PocketFives: What do you do away from poker? What else interests you?

Charlie Combes: Most of my social life is away from poker. Most of my mates are working during the week and like to let loose on weekends, so I’m often grinding on Sundays with a rotten hangover. I have an Arsenal season ticket, so I try to get down there as much as possible.

I eat out a fair bit and love traveling. In the summer, I love going to music festivals. They pretty much have one every other weekend in London, hence why I only made it to Vegas for the first time last year. Las Vegas is definitely on the agenda again this year. I had the time of my life last time, although fewer rookie errors and more self-control are needed this time around.

Hopefully my roll will increase gradually throughout the year and, by the end of it, I can move into buying and developing property as an investment away from poker. Mortgage brokers don’t like poker players, so a big live bink would come in handy.

The Sunday $100 Rebuy runs weekly on PokerStars. If you don’t already have an account on the site, create one through PocketFives’ links to get a 100% deposit bonus up to $600 and one free month of PocketFives Training when you make a deposit. Plus, PokerStars will host a special PocketFives Open as part of a three-tournament series on January 28. Get started here.

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