For many online poker players, taking down a Sunday major is a rarity. Winning a $100 rebuy is equally infrequent. However, PocketFiver Paul badpab2 Foltyn managed to scoop wins in both on the same day back on June 28th, truly a monumental effort. The Doncaster, United Kingdom native has made waves ever since and, in this week’s release of the Online Poker Rankings, Foltyn found himself perched at #90 worldwide. His most memorable win was not even online. Instead, it came by taking down the 2008 Grand Final of the Grosvenor U.K. Poker Tour (GUKPT), banking a colossal £140,000 in the process. Foltyn sat down with PocketFives.com to talk about his burgeoning poker career.

At the Grand Final, Foltyn was in good company, rooming with fellow PocketFiver and #3 player worldwide Chris moorman1 Moorman (pictured at left). Foltyn recalled, “He played Day 1A and had a huge stack. When I went to play Day 1B, he said he would quit poker if I had a bigger stack than him at the end of the day.” Foltyn noted that he was pretty close to forcing Moorman’s retirement from the world of poker, but a bad beat for a sizable pot at the end of play dropped his stack. On Day 2, Foltyn righted the ship and became the chip leader after winning a pot of 200,000 holding A-K against A-9 all-in pre-flop when blinds were just 600/1,200. In the end, he defeated London native Jeff Duvall heads-up, outlasting a field of 184 players.

On June 28th, Foltyn took down both the Ultimate Bet $200,000 Guaranteed for $44,000 and the Full Tilt Poker $100 Rebuy for $34,000. He was in Sin City rooming with Moorman at the time for the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and told PocketFives.com, “I had bricked everything, so I was a little annoyed with poker, to say the least. It was just like any other Sunday at the start and I woke up in time to play the Warm-Up. There were three of us in the house all playing a full schedule and we were all running terrible. I started to get stacks in a few of the later tournaments, which calmed me down and made me not tilt.” One week after his dual wins, Foltyn finished as the runner-up in the PokerStars $100 rebuy for $26,000. In June, he piled up $113,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the Rankings.

His amazing run ended just a few hours after it began. He explained his emotions: “It was a good feeling because halfway through the session, there was no hope. In the end, I got two huge scores. The timing was also impeccable to get me out of the WSOP hole.” His relationship with Moorman has helped both players ascend to the top of the poker ladder. The two have been friends for about four years. Foltyn explained, “Back then, another guy were and I were $3/$6 and $5/$10 regulars on a small Euro site and Moorman was grinding smaller games. He got our MSN and started constantly talking with us about poker. We met up at the WSOP in 2006 and have talked poker ever since. We've become really good friends and travel to many live events together.”

Foltyn has been a full-time poker pro since 2006. Like others who hail from the United Kingdom, he was turned onto the game as a result of watching “Late Night Poker.” He explained, “That introduced a bunch of us to the game and we started playing a home game every week. From there, I played freerolls online purely for entertainment while I was at university.” You can regularly find him rooming with other U.K. superstars like Stephen allinstevie Devlin and Dave geeforce1 Gent (pictured at right) while at live tournaments around the world.

At the time of writing, Foltyn sits in sixth on the Sliding PLB leaderboard for the United Kingdom. Moorman paces the field with 8,331 points, the only player to cross the 6,500 plateau. Sixteenth ranked PocketFiver rivermanl is second on the U.K. chart with 6,369 PLB Points. Here’s how they stack up:



Congratulations from all of us at PocketFives.com to Paul badpab2 Foltyn for entering the Rankings this week.