August 11 was a pretty monumental Sunday for Guntis Aleskins (pictured), who is known on PocketFives as luffyD. He chopped not one, but two big tournaments, the PokerStars Sunday Million and Sunday Supersonic. The result was about $200,000 in earnings in a single day. In the wake of it, he is closing in on his $500,000 cash badge here on PocketFives and sits at #8 in the country of Latvia.

“We wanted to look at the numbers,” Aleskins said of his Sunday Million chop for $155,000. “The last hand was 4bet or 5bet all-in pre-flop with tens against A-K and all of a sudden, we were all even in chips at around 24 million.” Aleskins said that each player left was a regular and seemed talented. The tournament was ultimately chopped three ways, with $20,000 on the line to play for. PocketFiver snake8484came away with the win and $175,000, while PokerKaiser (pictured below) earned $155,000 and took third.

In the Sunday Supersonic, Aleskins won $42,000 and lost heads-up for what would have been an extra $2,500. When asked how his friends and family reacted to such a groundbreaking day, Aleskins told us, “My sister was sitting in my room. I looked at her and said, ‘I just chopped for $42,000’ and she was like, ‘Are you serious?’ My mother came up in the morning when there were about six people left. She was very happy and wished me good luck before she went to work.”

The two scores are some of the largest we have tracked for Aleskins, who has been a member of PocketFives since early 2012 and can be found on Twitter under the handle @quadzilla8888. Late last year, he chopped the PokerStars Bigger $162 on a Sunday for $44,000, which he called “a complete shock. Comparatively, this one was a bit easier.”

Aleskins got into poker by playing online games with friends. The group would regularly enter a $500 freeroll that shelled out $125 for first, which got him hooked. He explained his thought process upon seeing the freeroll’s prize pool: “I was like, ‘I don’t have to pay to win money. That’s cool. Let’s see if I can win it.’ I started searching in Google for freerolls on all of the sites. A friend of mine lent me $20 and I started playing $1 sit and gos and made like $7,000. Then, I went broke, found stakers, and here I am.”

We’ve often heard of family and friends not being overly supportive when a person announces they want to play poker for a living. How did Aleskins’ support group take it? Did they encourage him to pursue poker or try to dissuade the Latvia poker community member from taking the plunge? Aleskins told us, “When I really decided on it, they were very supportive.”

Prior to playing poker, he was in school studying agricultural engineering and computer science. He joked, “I didn’t like either. Poker is way better.” He has amassed over 1,100 tracked in the money finishes on PokerStars alone.

There are 401 registered PocketFivers in Latvia (pictured), which is #22 in the PocketFives Country Poker Rankings. On the group, Aleskins told us, “We have a small community here. We talk about poker, life, strategy, and selling shares on Sundays.” Bigbluffzinc stakes him and Aleskins applauded his financier: “He has been a big help as a coach and has made a huge difference in my game.”

Visit PokerStars for more information on the site’s ongoing promotions and tournaments. As a reminder, if you sign up for PokerStars through PocketFives’ links and make a deposit, you’ll get one free month of PocketFives Training with the sign-up fee waived, a $65 value. You’ll also get a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus. Click here to get started.

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