When the dust settled on the August Monthly PocketFives Leader Board (MPLB) race, one man stood proudly above the rest. He had 40% more points than the next closest finisher. If it were a horse race, he would have finished half a lap ahead. His name is Kevin BeL0WaB0Ve Saul and the clinic he put on in the August MPLB race is nothing short of impressive. Saul finished the month with 4,402 points, the only PocketFiver ever to cross the 4,000 point mark in the MPLB. The next closest finisher was Chris moorman1 Moorman, who accrued 3,188 points. Saul’s August was capped off by two cashes of over $100,000 and a resurgence into the top ten of the PocketFives.com Rankings.
He attributed his recent success to a different mindset on poker. He told PocketFives.com, “Poker was finally fun to play. For the last seven months, it took on more of a job role rather than a hobby. Poker is my job, but working can be fun. It feels like a hobby when you are enjoying yourself.” In a three-day stretch in August, Saul logged two six-figure cashes. He had a fourth place finish in the $1K event of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series for a whopping $105,000. Just a few days later, his bank account got another boost. This time, he pocketed $167,843 for finishing second in the $300 rebuy event of the FTOPS.
In a tournament that aired a few days ago again on GSN, Saul defeated Full Tilt Poker pro Mike “The Mouth” Matusow in the World Poker Tour’s Bellagio Cup III, taking home $1.3 million and a $25,000 buy-in to the WPT Championship. I remember talking to him shortly after his WPT win. He was elated and I asked him if poker felt the same now as it did then. He responded, “Winning the Bellagio Cup was a vindication. It was what I had worked my ass off to get.” Now, it was more about righting the ship than being on the top of his game: “Over the last year or so online, I had been in a huge slump and couldn’t win a thing.”
Saul removed his online poker screen names from PocketFives.com. He explained that it was party because he “didn’t want to freefall” from his perch in the top ten in the Rankings. Right after his first six-figure FTOPS cash, Saul entered his names again and his ascent to the top ten was fast. He moved from 56th to 29th, then to 19, then to 12, and then to his current position in the eighth spot. He stated, “I re-entered them because I finally felt worthy again. I didn’t feel like a top player when I played. Instead, I felt like a bum who was just donating. It was a huge funk for me.”
The funk was quickly broken up. In addition to the two six-figure cashes, Saul won the PokerStars $100 rebuy for $33,192. He won the $50 rebuy, $20K Guaranteed on Full Tilt for $7,839 and, a week later, won the $150 buy-in $40K Guaranteed for $15,937. On August 20th, he made three final tables in tournaments on three different sites, winning one and banking a total of $60,000. He won the $55 buy-in Nightly Seventy Grand on PokerStars for $12,780 and, the next day, finished second in the $100 rebuy for another $21,000. Go ahead and add that up and tell me how much in winnings you think Saul piled up in August. The correct answer: nearly $500,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Rankings.
So what did it take to reignite the poker fires? Saul answered, “I had multiple scores that just kept snowballing and with that came confidence. Winning and running well breed confidence. It allows you to take more chances with risky plays and applying pressure.” He commented on the likelihood of moving higher than eighth in the Rankings, especially considering the magnitude of his recent run: “Moving up and getting to number one will be really tough with the PLB scores of moorman1, AJKHoosier1, and shaundeeb, not to mention my Pro Poll is lacking the support it had in the past.” He’s ranked eighth in the PLB and ninth in the Pro Poll this week and was up four spots to number eight overall.
Here’s a look at the top ten finishers in the August MPLB:
1. BeL0WaB0Ve: 4402.83 points
2. moorman1: 3188.23 points
3. Telefonkiosk: 3132.39 points
4. P0KERPR033: 3035.22 points
5. ender555: 2961.99 points
6. holdplz: 2851.49 points
7. breeth: 2850.68 points
8. Tomgus456: 2825.05 points
9. therookieqq9: 2814.09 points
10. RIPCURL: 2801.17 points
We look forward to more big things out of Saul in the future. Congratulations to Kevin BeL0WaB0Ve Saul for his total domination of the Monthly PLB in August. Good luck to all PocketFivers in September and beyond.
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