Late last month, Russia’s MatveichukR(pictured) took down his sixth PocketFives Triple Crown. If the award isn’t familiar to you, the way to get one is to win three $10,000 prize pool tournaments with at least 100 players each across three sites tracked for the PocketFives Rankings within seven days. PocketFivers have won 106 of them in 2014 and exactly 900 all-time.

For MatveichukR, the latest Triple Crown was his sixth overall and his first since September of last year. He told PocketFives in an exclusive interview, “Almost a year has passed since I won my last Triple Crown. A few times, I got two of the three wins, but did not succeed in getting a third. But now, I’ve gotten my sixth one.”

When asked what the key was to winning so many Triple Crowns on PocketFives, MatveichukR answered firmly, “You just have to play a lot.” He added, “Now, it’s not so easy to win a Triple Crown. I used to play on seven sites and everywhere there were a lot of tournaments that qualified for one. Now, your options are pretty much just PokerStars, Full Tilt, and iPoker.”

Here’s a list of the six Triple Crowns that MatveichukR has achieved in the last two years:

October 1, 2012 (on 32Red, Titan, Party with 684.18 points)
December 19, 2012 (on Stars, Tilt, Party with 460.99 points)
May 31, 2013 (on Stars, 888, Titan with 605.38 points)
June 21, 2013 (on Titan, Stars, Tilt with 481.70 points)
September 7, 2013 (on EuroPoker, Tilt, Stars with 545.99 points)
July 27, 2014 (on Titan, Party, Tilt with 646.15 points)

You’ll notice that his latest Triple Crown was worth 646 PLB Points, the second most in a Triple Crown he’s had, much of which came via a victory in the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl on July 27. Three of his five largest career scores have come in the Brawl, leading him to say, “I was in a downswing and that was my biggest win since September 2013, so I’m very happy.”

All told, MatveichukR has amassed 213 first place finishes in online MTTs and almost 600 top-three finishes. Accordingly, he has battled against some of the top names online throughout the years, so we thought it’d be fitting to ask who the best online tournament players in the world are right now.

His response: “cal42688(pictured) and moorman1. Among Russian-speaking players, I would pick veeeaand Romeopro. Moorman is a legend online. cal42688’s game seems, to me, to be very interesting, as he has had very solid results. veeea and Romeopro are people with whom I have discussed a lot of hands and learned a lot from. I think they are the top players in Russia and Ukraine.”

Check out our Triple Crown Wall of Champions to learn how to get your own award!

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