There have been 1,063 PocketFives Triple Crowns awarded over the last 11 years. A Triple Crown requires a player to win three $10,000 prize pool tournaments across three sites tracked for the PocketFives Rankings within a week. Each tournament has to have at least 100 entries and satellites don’t count. Needless to say, it’s not easy.

Despite the fact that it’s challenging to get a Triple Crown, Australia’s Nurlan ‘Nur1ck’ Bobekov has been able to rack up four of them over the last four years. His most recent one ended on May 27 after wins in the ACR Extreme Tuesday, PokerStars Hot $44, and PokerStars.fr Night on Stars. In between, he won the PokerStars $5,000 Guarantee and had five third place finishes in other online MTTs.

It was four days of smash-mouth poker that featured 25 cashes.

“I have been trying to get my fourth Triple Crown for a long time, but I wasn’t consistent enough,” Bobekov said. “In the past month, I maybe had only one or two days off. I played non-stop. Trying to get Triple Crowns motivates me to play more tournaments and eventually make more money because I play on my own dime and I’m not into forums too much, so sometimes it can be difficult to motivate yourself.”

His other three PocketFives Triple Crowns came in 2012 and 2013, and the 527 PLB Points he generated from his latest awarded were the most he’s recorded for a Triple Crown ever.

He’s the second-ranked online poker player in his hometown of Sydney, #5 in Australia, and #158 in the world. And he’s responsible for four of Australia’s 52 Triple Crowns.

“It all comes down to having proper rest before I start a session,” he said of his Triple Crown success over the years. “I try to sleep for at least eight hours and have a proper breakfast. I’m saying that because in the past I could just play poker a lot and not have much sleep, which affected my performance in a negative way.”

When he starts a session, not only is he refreshed, but he’s also looking forward to pounding out as many tournaments as possible. However, he’s selective in what he buys into.

“Triple Crowns motivate me to play more tournaments, but I’m very selective at the same time,” he said. “Usually, I don’t wake up thinking I have to make a Triple Crown this week or something like that. When you go on a run and bink one tournament, you consider it, and then you bink another one and you are like, ‘I have to do it.’ I have hit a few downswings in my career and I’m sure it’s not just variance. I think I played badly too, like playing tournaments I shouldn’t have.”

Whenever he does reach two wins and only needs one more for a Triple Crown, it’s game on. He promptly focuses on a site he hasn’t yet recorded a win on and tries to score victory number three. And four times over the last four years, he’s done just that.

“Triple Crowns definitely show how stable you are in terms of grinding,” the Australian player said. “For example, in the past I couldn’t complete them for certain reasons like taking a day off or going out with friends. You have to be in the grinding mode and not thinking about anything else. You need to wake up at the same time, eat properly, go to bed, and basically think about poker and not something else.”

The all-time leader in Triple Crowns won is Chris ‘moorman1’ Moorman, who has 25, the most of anyone by four. He won 11 total in 2012 and 2013 and earned his 25th in May of last year.

“By the time I get 25 Triple Crowns, Moorman will probably have 250,” Bobekov joked. “The most important thing to me is to keep up with poker every time so you can still beat the games. I think I can get three Triple Crowns a year with how my life is going at the moment. And the first Triple Crown was the most important one for me anyway. That’s when I got the confidence that I could beat the games I was playing. That was the sweetest one.”

Aside from his quartet of Triple Crowns, Bobekov has won the PokerStars $162 Sunday Six-Max, ACR Sunday Special, PokerStars $109 No Limit Hold’em Turbo 2X Chance, and Big $162 over the years, just to name a few. His largest score all-time was worth $76,000 and came after a runner-up finish to fellow PocketFiver Chris ‘Big Huni’ Hunichen in the Super Tuesday three years ago.

He’s racked up 5,263 in the money finishes in online MTTs that PocketFives tracks for his career, 364 of which (7%) have been top-three runs.

Bobekov is also still hunting for his first major live score. He has just shy of $100,000 in career live winnings, according to the Hendon Mob, and said, “Winning a live tournament is important to me. Becoming a better live player is pretty important since I feel like I’m a huge tellbox when I play live. Even though winning Triple Crowns is important, the main focus should be to become a better player every time.”