It’s always refreshing to look into your bank account and see that it’s grown by $54,480. Last Sunday, PocketFiver Mike rusostreet Caruso took down the PokerStars Sunday Second Chance. He managed to have that refreshing feeling of knowing that his efforts over the past few hours had netted him well over $50,000. For the native of Arvada, Colorado, it marked his second impressive cash of the month of August and his largest poker win to date. PocketFives.com caught up with the winner of the fifth PocketFives.com Open to talk about his enormous payday on PokerStars and his profitable month.
Caruso’s successful month of August started out when he took down the Nightly Seventy Grand on PokerStars for $12,600. Over the weekend, he won the Second Chance for $54,480 and, the very next day, won the $150 buy-in $40,000 Guarantee on Full Tilt Poker for $15,487. He attributes his success to playing less poker: “I haven’t been playing as much this month as I usually do. I think that’s been the key to success. I’ve been focusing on playing in the bigger tournaments and I think that’s huge. Last month, I was in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker and was able to relax. I’ve always played poker every single day.” Playing less seems to have paid off. He’s earned over $100,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Worldwide Rankings in August.
In fact, when Caruso took to the virtual felts on Sunday, it was the first time that he had played poker in a week. He played at a friend’s house. Caruso explained, “He’s a great player. I felt like when he got knocked out, the Second Chance was my tournament to win. I started getting more into the zone and it was the only tournament that I had going. In one hand, I sucked out with pocket fours against pocket queens really late in the tournament. When stuff like that happens, you know things are going your way.” His pocket twos also held up against A-Q of hearts. He dodged a heart on the turn and river that would have given his opponent a flush.
Headed into the final table, Caruso was limited by his position at the table. He told PocketFives.com, “Right before the final two tables, I had two aggressive players to my left. I like to open up a lot of pots, but I couldn’t do anything until they were eliminated. Once the two got knocked out, I had bigger stacks to my right and passive stacks to my left, so I could play freely. My whole mindset was to get the best score of my career, which meant making the top three.” Caruso chopped with PocketFiver blizair heads up. Two others, jackmeplz69 and shallowcal, were at the final table.
When online poker players make the transition into the live game, it can be quite a drastic change. The game’s speed and dynamics are different, forcing players to have to adjust their playing styles. Caruso comments on what he needs to improve when he plays live: “I get nervous when I play live because I don’t have a lot of experience. I still need to practice the little things like what tells people have. Live, you can play only one tournament at a time and you don’t play a lot of hands. I have to practice being comfortable in that element and it’s hard to learn from others’ mistakes. You have to do it yourself.”
Caruso played hockey before striking it big in the poker world. After opening an account with a friend on PartyPoker, he took down the $40K Guaranteed on the online poker site within a couple of months. Although his win in the Second Chance is his largest so far, he told PocketFives.com that winning one of the big rebuy tournaments would eclipse this achievement: “Winning the $200 rebuy, $100 rebuy, or $1K tournaments would make me feel better as a poker player. The money is definitely the driving factor, but at the same time, I’d be competing against an accomplished field in those tournaments.”
When the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker rolls around, Caruso will have a healthy nest egg to play with. However, it also means that his trend of not playing as often as he had been will likely be broken. He commented, “I think a lot of my success this month is because I haven’t played a lot. During the WCOOP, it will be interesting to see if playing more affects my performance.” In the meantime, he bought a used set of Cleveland clubs to help improve his golf game and is also trying to save up for a house. His payday in the Second Chance can certainly go a long way towards finding new digs.
Congratulations to Mike rusostreet Caruso for taking down the Sunday Second Chance.
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