Finishing as the runner-up in the PokerStars Sunday Million on October 25th was PocketFives.com member Daniel Deoxyribo Strelitz (pictured at right), who hails from sunny Irvine, California. He banked a colossal $177,000 for his second place showing, the first six-figure score of his young career. The biology student sat down with PocketFives.com right before class began to walk us through his monumental payday and recap his poker journey.
A total of 8,242 players turned out for the weekly Sunday Million, creating a total prize pool of $1.6 million. In the end, Strelitz fell to PokerStars member grifo173 heads-up in a final table that saw Devin TranquilChaos Porter (pictured at left) finish in fourth place. Strelitz was second in chips entering the final table on the strength of a key hand with 20 players remaining. In it, Strelitz put in a 3bet against Bjorn kleath Kleathersson holding A-K offsuit. Kleathersson promptly shoved with pocket nines and Strelitz called, creating a race situation. A king hit on the flop, propelling the eventual second place finisher into the chip lead.On the hand, which set the tone for the remainder of the tournament, Strelitz told PocketFives.com, “I was going crazy. I told all of my friends watching that it was the biggest flip of my life so far.” He celebrated his runner-up showing by finishing his homework for class the next day, a task he described as “hard” after experiencing such a rush.
Armed with his first six-figure payday, thoughts of becoming pro have begun to creep in, but Strelitz told PocketFives.com, “I’m still not sure what I’m going to do when I get out. Being a pro has definitely crossed my mind though.”
His friends have encouraged him to pursue a career in poker, while the youngster admitted, “My family definitely wants me to graduate still. They’d support me if I turned pro, but probably would rather I have a career with poker on the side.” He’s currently studying biology, but a change to chemistry may be in the offing. He candidly admitted, “I have no idea what career would work for me in those departments, though.”
Strelitz was turned onto poker after playing $1 sit and gos with fellow PocketFives.com member byoonz, who hails from Torrance, California. Strelitz explained, “We played a small home game once per week and out of all of our friends, we took it the most seriously and played at home online also.” In July, he finished as the runner-up in the PokerStars Daily Eighty Grand for $23,000. In October, he was in the winner’s circle of the site’s $50,000 Guaranteed for another $13,000. All told, he piled up $210,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the Online Poker Rankings in October in a scant 17 qualifying cashes.
The PocketFiver frequents the Morongo Casino (pictured at right), which is two hours away. He also now has the bankroll to visit Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Strelitz admitted, “I remember hoping I’d have the bankroll to buy into the WSOP Main Event and now I definitely will.”In case you’re wondering, no chop took place in the Sunday Million on October 25th. There was discussion, but in the end, Strelitz and his opponent could not come to an agreement. On finishing second, he remarked, “I was bummed because I knew I could beat him, but I got no cards when we were heads-up. However, that feeling was gone quickly because I looked and second place was bigger than any other tournament's first place payout that day.”
Finally, Strelitz wanted to recognize byoonz by saying, “He has been my buddy since middle school and is the reason I’m still playing poker. Sorry I couldn’t see observer chat on the final table bubble, but it was probably a good thing so I could concentrate more.”
Here were the results from the Sunday Million on October 25th:
1. grifo173 - $242,480
2. deoxyribo - $177,203 (Deoxyribo)
3. Pokerpiggen - $123,630
4. tobias fuke - $82,420 (TranquilChaos)
5. subby1 - $65,936
6. moseley8 - $49,452
7. nickj7777 - $32,968
8. JBlaze20 - $18,132 (JoeBlazenyc)
9. AKSchwan - $12,775
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