At the start of this year’s SCOOPon PokerStars, 1,100 people turned out for a $1,050 No Limit Hold’em Turbo. In the end, Ryan urbanlights Yu (pictured) finished in second place for a commanding $143,000. It was his largest online poker cash to date by a factor of two.

“I was having a really rough Sunday and wasn’t even going to play the $1K,” Yu admitted. “Griffin Flush_Entity Benger was insistent on it, gave me a little confidence boost, and I suppose the rest is history.” Yes, that’s really what happened. Benger told Yu to play and he ended up cashing for $143,000.

“I’m new to Turbos,” Yu admitted about the format. “I guess Griffin had a lot more confidence in my game than I did. He has been helping me tons in that format. It really seems absurd that I haven’t been playing them thus far. I suppose my rationale comes from a sports betting background where variance is almost as important as value.”

Without giving away too much of his Turbo strategy, Yu told us that you need to be “really on point with your all-in ranges.” He’s up to $1.3 million in career online tournament winnings and plays on PokerStars under the screen namei need sheet.

The week before his big SCOOP cash, he final tabled the Sunday Million for $52,000. Also in May, he final tabled a SCOOP $1,050 Rebuyfor $37,000. Needless to say, Yu has been on a tear. He told us, “I’ve been getting pretty lucky on Sundays in general for the past year or so. I am definitely running way above EV even though I’m confident my game has improved as well.”

The winner of the SCOOP $1,050 No Limit Hold’em Turbo event was Mohsin chicagocards1Charania (pictured). “He’s obviously super successful and a WPT champ,” Yu said. “He had such a huge chip lead even before the final table and obviously was taking every spot. He was pretty much putting me in ICM jail every time I opened, as I was also one of the bigger stacks, so I was unfortunately raise/folding a lot of big hands I would have probably otherwise re-shoved. He was really a headache to deal with.”

Fourth place went to ekziter, who was ranked as high as #6 in the world last year on PocketFives. Two of the other three PocketFivers who made the final table were once ranked in the top 100 worldwide. As Yu put it, “Everyone was really competent. The final table was pretty tough, but in Turbos you just need to run good in the showdowns you are forced to take.”

When we sat down with Yu, he wasn’t sure what his WSOPplans were. As he evaluated. “I’m definitely going for the Main Event, but the rest of my WSOP plans are kind of up in the air. I’m not a big fan of Vegas in general and online is very soft during the Series, so we’ll see.”

Outside of poker, Yu is a fan of North American sports like baseball, basketball, and football. He joked, “I’m probably the only Canadian who isn’t a big hockey fan.” Even though he’s not a huge follower of hockey, the Maple Leafs are his second favorite team to the Blue Jays. “The Leafs are really just religion to any Torontonian,” he said. “Professional sports is about loving the game, but it’s also about sharing something with your city (pictured).”

Yu closed by saying that if you’re interested in learning MTTs, Benger’s Twitch feed is a great place to start: “Griffin’s not only one of the best, he’s also articulate without needing to pontificate.”

He also wanted to give a shout out to “Carter cswidler Swidler, Kosei Ichinose, Jaeik Cho, Lawrence Chung, the c-buds, all the regulars in Korea, everyone else who has supported me, and last but not least my beautiful wife Jinju, who has patiently raised a beautiful son while allowing me to play this time- and mind-consuming game!”

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