Living the dream of every low buy-in grinder in tournament poker, Hanford, California’s Mario Sequeira won, by far, the most money in his tournament poker career in the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event. He held down the seventh place slot on Day 6 with 8.785 million in chips. He finished in 21st place for $262,000.

—

Tournament Poker Edgeis the only poker training site dedicated exclusively to MTTs and features over 1,000 training videos, blogs, articles, podcasts and a dedicated strategy forum for members. Check Tournament Poker Edge out on Twitter.

—

At the time of the 2015 WSOP Main Event, Sequeira was only three years into his tournament poker career, earning his first tournament cash at the Winnin’ o’ the Green at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles back in 2012. Picking up $1,200 for his third place finish in that $60 event only fueled his tournament poker fires as, in August 2013, Sequeira earned his then-largest cash to date by winning the Thunder Valley Players Championship for a $75,000 payday.

Sequeira tacked on two deep finishes in Heartland Poker Tour events in Northern California in 2014 and has career earnings from smaller tournaments around the California area of $110,178, but no one was ready for the explosion that has occurred during the 2015 WSOP Main Event.

Sequeira’s finest moment of the 2015 Main Event leading up to Day 6 was eliminating Curtis Anderson in 45th place. After raising the action, Sequeira saw Anderson attempt to push him off his hand by moving all-in with 1.5 million chips.

Sequeira must have seen something in Anderson’s play previously, as he quickly made a call that was correct. Sequeira’s pocket tens were ahead of Anderson’s 10c-9c and, although Anderson flopped a nine, Sequeira’s tens stood strong and thrust him into contention for the Main Event title.