The Full Tilt Online Poker Series just wrapped up on Sunday night, but not before some PocketFivers made their mark in online poker history. PocketFives.com #4 ranked Online Tournament Player Imper1um captured Event #7 of the FTOPS, a $216 No Limit tournament which drew 703 entrants. Playing under the name kristy_sea because of recent hacking issues with his regular account, Imper1um walked away with over $90,000 and a custom jersey from Full Tilt. Not bad for the young rising superstar. “The entire tournament was a huge roller coaster for me,” commented Imper1um. “I would go from top 10 in chips to less than 10 times the big blind and back over and over again; it was quite stressful.” After losing with queens to jacks with blinds of 1,000/2,000, Imper1um found himself with 15,000 chips and short stacked approaching the money bubble. The cutoff pushed all in over the top of three short stacks, including Imper1um, who had K-Q. “I don't normally like to call all my chips off with K-Q here, but, because of the circumstances, and me knowing that he knows it’s the bubble and he is likely pushing with almost any two cards against three players with less than 10 times the big blind, I decided to make the call.” Imper1um was dead on in his reasoning, as the cutoff flipped over 10-2 suited.
The very next hand, Imper1um was again faced with a tough decision. Having just accumulated chips, Imper1um raised on the button to 5,500 after the table folded around to him. The small blind folded and the big blind, ocrowe, instantly pushed all in for 33,000. “I wasn’t sure if ocrowe knew that I was Imper1um.” JohnnyBax, among others, were at the table railing and it was conceivable that someone could have informed ocrowe about the identity of kristy_sea. “What was going through my head was actually analyzing what was going through his. I was very aggressive on this table. I was raising an unopened pot on the button and he had a perfect re-steal stack. It was the bubble, and there’s not many hands I can justify calling there with.” Imper1um called, holding A-J. ocrowe flipped over 6-5 off and Imper1um’s hand held up.
Once the money bubble had finally burst, he was moved to a tough table that included Rizen, Clonie Gowen, Roothlus, and THE__D__RY, the table chip leader with more than double the next highest stack. After eliminating Clonie Gowen, Imper1um navigated his way to the final table and finding himself second in chips. “It was a lot easier to play this final table than any normal $100 re-buy table, that's for sure. Everything went right for me: my hands were holding up, I was showing down good hands and winning pots without showdowns with bad ones.” About 15 minutes into final table play, Imper1um picked up pocket jacks. “At this point, I had been pretty aggressive, but most of the time with reasonably good hands. The chip leader raised three times the big blind from early position and I elected just to call. I think it was the big blind that re-raised all in, early position raiser folded, and I called. He turned over A-Q and I won the coin flip.”
Imper1um describes how he views other players at the table: “I think most people consider players that they don't know to be good until they prove otherwise. I'm the exact opposite; I consider anyone that I haven't played with to be bad, until they prove that they're good.” On how others viewed him in this tournament playing under a different name due to the hacking issues with his Imper1um account: “Obviously it's nice to be recognized and it's nice to have people look up to you as a player, but the money is also a really big deal for me. I've had to adjust my game so much since becoming known and I'm definitely not making as much money as I could be if I were playing under an unknown account. It was so fun playing under kristy_sea while people didn't know who I was. I was doing things that I used to do before becoming known and they'd work almost every time.”
When he’s not taking down FTOPS events, Imper1um works out, reads, and plays volleyball. He also enjoys a peculiar habit which I’ve never heard of anyone doing before: “I buy things at the future shop and then return them before 15 days.” To each his own, I guess. In any case, we wish Imper1um the best of luck and congratulate him on continuing to be a top ranked player on PocketFives.com.
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