Dan Lupo (pictured) out of Phillipsburg, New Jersey plays under the screen name centrfieldron most of the regulated New Jersey sites. Lupo is currently ranked #2 on the PocketFives New Jersey online poker rankings and has over $100,000 in recorded online cashes. When he is not busy with his architecture career, he is firing up his computer and playing some cards. Visit PocketFives’ New Jersey poker community for the latest news and discussion from New Jersey players.

Lupo has a win in the WSOP.com $10,000 Guarantee for $2,850, a win in the WSOP.com Knockout series Event #8 for $2,119, and a third place finish in the WSOP.com $25,000 Sunday Major for $2,325, just to name a few.

PocketFives: What got you started playing online poker?

Dan Lupo: First off, I just want to say thanks for this opportunity (it means a lot) and thanks to PocketFives for giving New Jersey online poker players a great place to meet some cool people and learn a ton about poker.

I started playing back in college and mostly live around 2003. I think it was the “Rounders”/Chris Moneymaker combination that did me in. I’ve never been much of a gambler, but I liked the competitive aspect of poker and the skill set required to succeed. It was also a great segue to keep my competitive juices flowing after baseball didn’t pan out the way I had hoped.

We would have regular cash games and small tournaments at NJIT, which really helped facilitate my desire to never go to class. I was pretty lazy about online poker early on. I read books, but never hit the forums or joined a training site or discussed hand histories. I would randomly deposit $50 and just keep running it up without regard to bankroll management until I busted it. I had a much more recreational approach and I’ve always been super-competitive, but ADD would tend to kick in.

I started playing more seriously after college. I went into architecture, worked in a firm for a while, and still played more as a competitive hobby. Then, the housing recession hit and nobody was hiring. So, I started taking the game more seriously and played full-time for about 16 months while job-searching and taking on random construction and landscaping side jobs.

But, it was awkward. I was grinding online during the morning and early afternoon because of my life schedule, not the best times to be grinding. I supplemented that with a decent amount of live cash as well.

I don’t think I was ever looking to play full-time as a career. I think it takes a certain type of person to be able to successfully handle it as a full-time gig while maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and that just wasn’t me. After returning to the 9-to-5, I still played regularly, treating it as a second income and competitive hobby.

PocketFives: What are your favorite New Jersey online poker sites to play and why?

Dan Lupo: I struggle having a favorite right now. I like the WSOP.com and 888 Poker software. I like the Sundays on WSOP.com and the $10K Nightly tournaments are fine, but I don’t think every tournament in their lineup needs to be a rebuy. If they would tweak their schedule, they would be my hands-down favorite.

In recent weeks, PartyPoker has made huge changes to their daily schedule, which is a great step and allows me to play a pretty full schedule. Their software just agitates me, though, on many levels. If I miss another add-on in the $5K rebuy, I may flip out and I still think their payout structure needs some work.

I have major geo-location issues on Ultimate Poker (I’m located in New Jersey on the Pennsylvania border), so while I would love to keep trying to play the Nightly $5K and Sunday $20K hoping I don’t incur geo-location issues, I can’t rationalize it anymore.

I’m able to play a pretty full schedule with anywhere from six to 12 MTTs running at a time, so I can’t really complain!

PocketFives: Is there anyone who helped change how you approach the game of poker?

Dan Lupo: Up until recently, I was always kind of a loner in the online poker community. I didn’t really bother to post or comment too much online, so most of my studying and insight came from reading forums or strategy articles, talking about hands with a few friends, and replaying hands.

Learning to approach poker as a second income the past few years has definitely changed my views in all aspects of the game like focus, bankroll management, and theory.

Since New Jersey has come online, I have been much more active in the forums and have been fortunate to talk poker here and there with some really solid poker minds like jtsnakes(pictured), yeezus, and, more recently, mjzduniak, Gags30, and doubledave22. That’s not to mention the countless others in the New Jersey forum itself by posting and commenting on random hands.

PocketFives: Do you play any live poker?

Dan Lupo: I do, but not as much as I used to. For a while after Black Friday, I was playing $2/$5 or $5/$5 two to three times a week at the Sands. I have had some decent success in live tournaments, but nothing earth-shattering. I enjoy playing live, but it has become increasingly difficult to schedule and coordinate multi-day tournaments with family life and work. And since New Jersey online poker came back, I don’t really bother heading to the casino to play live cash too much.

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