If there’s one PocketFiver who has proven once and for all that online poker players have the ability to dominate live poker, it’s Michael Martine23 Martin. The native of Pennsylvania just took down the European Poker Tour’s London stop, pocketing $1.7 million for the win. He defeated Sweden’s Michael Tureniec heads up. Eric “p3achy_keen” Liu, an instructor at poker training CardRunners, finished fourth. The event attracted 596 players to the Grosvenor Victoria Casino. It wasn’t Martin’s first big cash on the EPT circuit, however. He finished fifth in the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final in April for $644,000. Martin took time out his afternoon at Best Buy, where he was purchasing a brand new HDTV, to talk with us.

After being turned onto poker by a family friend in 2004 and then honing his game during the school year in $5 and $10 buy-in home games, Martin’s big dive into poker occurred during Spring Break. He told PocketFives.com, “I started depositing money online and I’m still using that same $100 deposit to this day. I started at $50 buy-in cash games and then slowly moved up.” He finished third in the Super Tuesday on PokerStars for $35,000 in May. He’s also taken third in the $55,000 Guaranteed on that site.

As evidenced by his EPT success, Martin has been able to make the transition from the virtual felts on sites like Full Tilt Poker to the live world. However, he noted that live poker is a completely different animal: “In live poker, there are a lot more tangibles. Online poker prepares you for live play and teaches you to play fundamentally sound poker. Online, you’re only focused on betting and poker. In live poker rooms, you have to play in front of people. You have to physically control yourself at the tables and it takes a lot of experience.”

Ironically, Martin almost didn’t even make it to the EPT London. After waiting too long to register, he learned that the tournament was sold out. Nevertheless, he decided to get on a plane and head to London in hopes of landing a spot in the Main Event. He had been told prior to departing that he had an adequate chance of playing: “Tournament officials said that the first 60 alternates on the wait list were guaranteed a spot. I was number 105 and she said I had a decent shot. I was banking on the fact that the people on the wait list ahead of me wouldn’t show. After an hour and 40 minutes into the tournament, I got a seat.” Martin commented that he didn’t sleep during the overnight transatlantic flight and showed up to the tournament exhausted.

As if the roller coaster ride to London weren’t enough, four-handed in the EPT tournament, Martin saw his chip stack dwindle to just 95,000 chips, barely more than one big blind. He promptly tripled up with pocket eights. On the next hand, he doubled up with pocket nines against K-7 by hitting a two-outer on the river. He peeked down at pocket aces on the very next hand and doubled up against Q-J. About four hands later, he pushed with A-9 and won a huge pot off Liu, bringing his chip stack to 3.2 million. It was an incredible sequence of hands that saw Martin completely reverse his fate in a matter of 10 minutes.

Martin was the runner up in a $5,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Circuit Event in Council Bluffs, winning $94,000. He also took second in the Master Classics of Poker in 2007 in Amsterdam, pocketing over $500,000. He commented about the differences between playing on the various tournament circuits: “The WSOP tournaments are fun because there is always a buzz in the room. The WPT and EPT tournaments aren’t even comparable; the EPT is far and away the better choice. The venues that you play in are much nicer. The cities that you travel to are much nicer. It’s more fun to play in Monte Carlo, for example, than Tunica. I’ve always wanted to travel, so it made sense to go to EPT events. I did the WPT circuit for my first few months and it didn’t really interest me. The EPT is hitting the poker boom in Europe right now.”

Congratulations to Michael Martine23 Martin from all of us here at PocketFives.com for winning the EPT London event. We hope you enjoy your brand new Samsung HDTV.