One of the newest Triple Crown winners and a steady climber in the PocketFives.com Rankings since early this year is online poker player Hunter the_hunt_D Frey. Unranked at the beginning of the year, Hunter has moved all the way up to number seven worldwide on the strength of three wins in $100 rebuy tournaments in the span of four days as well as his first Triple Crown win. The native of Las Vegas, Nevada is a lower volume tournament player than others in the top ten who primarily focuses on entering major events throughout the week. Needless to say, his strategy has proven to be a successful one in recent weeks. PocketFives.com sat down with its seventh ranked player to talk about his profitable month.

His quest for the PocketFives.com Triple Crown began on August 20th, when he won the $40,000 Guaranteed on Full Tilt Poker for $14,175. The very same night, he took down the $100K Pro Bounty on Absolute Poker for $32,400. In one evening, two-thirds of his Triple Crown was complete. He told PocketFives.com, “I was hoping I’d win it, but as the week went on, I forgot about the Triple Crown.” In order to win a Triple Crown, a player must win three multi-table tournaments in a seven day span. Each tournament must have a prize pool of $10,000 and have at least 100 entrants. Satellites don’t count.

Exactly one week later, Frey took down not one, but two more major tournaments, solidifying his Triple Crown win. In fact, on the 27th of August, he won two $100 rebuys on PokerStars for a combined payday of $50,000. The next day, Akat11 sent him a message notifying him of his accomplishment.

However, a Triple Crown and two $100 rebuy wins in one night were not enough for Frey, who took two days off and then won another $100 rebuy. This time, he pocketed $23,821 for his efforts. He told PocketFives.com, “I only play in the biggest tournaments. I’m not a huge volume grinder like shaundeeb and moorman1, so a Triple Crown is definitely a lot harder for me to accomplish.” In August, he recorded 43 cashes in tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Worldwide Rankings for a grand total of $163,687. Online, he revealed, “I’m pretty happy with my game right now, but there is always room for improvement.”

In live play, Frey took home $231,273 for finishing third in a $2,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event during the 2007 World Series of Poker. Also at the final table of that tournament were PocketFivers Justin ZeeJustin Bonomo (who finished fourth) and Michael worldsgrtest Banducci (who finished fifth). Frey lives in Las Vegas and has a bevy of high-stakes tournaments in his backyard. He commented, “I might play in the WSOP Europe and then head back to Las Vegas for Bellagio’s events like Festa al Lago.” The latter tournament is a World Poker Tour event that begins on October 20th.

In 2008, he told us that he was one of the chip leaders of the WSOP Main Event on Day 3 until his pocket kings ran into A-K. He began playing poker with friends in high school on Party Poker. When that online poker room left the U.S. market because of the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, Frey took his business elsewhere: “I wasn’t discouraged; I just started playing on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker instead.” In November of last year, Frey took second in the Full Tilt $1K for $155,000 and then entered the Rankings in March.

So what does it take to become one of the most successful online poker players in the world? Frey’s answer: “Just find an area of the game where you do well. Beat up the game for a while until you get a nice foundation. Then, have good bankroll management, always try to improve, learn from your mistakes, and you will excel.”

Frey also wanted to send a shout out to “Akat11 for saying he’d be my life slave if I won two $100 rebuys in one day.” Congratulations to Hunter the_hunt_D Frey for his jump in the Rankings this week.




Recent Scores for the_Hunt_D

$75,066.40

$240 buy-in, The Sunday Brawl on FullTiltPoker. 07/27/2008, 1 place for 75,066.40

$47,080.00

$215 buy-in, No Limit Hold'em on PokerStars. 03/17/2008, 1 place for 47,080.00

$33,027.50

$109 buy-in, $109+R NL Hold'em on PokerStars. 08/27/2008, 1 place for 33,027.50

PocketFives Scouting Report: the_Hunt_D

toptizzlepizzle on Full Tilt. hemipowerswt on PokerStars. Triple Crown Winner 8/27/08. "The_Hunt_D" took 2nd in the Full Tilt $1k in November for $155,000. In March of 2008, he won the PokerStars $200 rebuy for $47k and the Full Tilt $100 rebuy for $29k. He entered the rankings on March 26th at #75 and quickly climbed into the top 10. In July '08, he took down the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl for $75k, then backed that up with THREE Stars $100 rebuy victories over a period of four days a month later. Those three rebuy wins were worth a combined total of $74,800. Hunter Frey has a 3rd place showing in the 2007 WSOP $2k NLHE event for $231,273.